Today began the bulk of work for this component... drilling the stringers. This is just a taste of what is to come with the wings!
Murphy aircraft designs their airplanes with stringers shaped like a capitol J that get riveted to the skins to make the skin much stronger and more rigid. If you compare a Murphy kit to most other kits, there are many, many times more rivets visible on the skin of the aircraft. This technic allows for a lighter structure without loosing strength.
The horizontal stab is about 11 feet long, and the stringers have a rivet about every 1 inch, that's 131 rivets times 6 stringers, or 786 rivets just in the stringers.
The Moose upgrade has several external doublers that pick up the stringers, so you have to be very careful not to drill where you're not supposed to. I laid the doublers on the skin where they belonged, then traced them with a sharpie... this way I knew exactly which holes fell on a doubler.
I spent most of the day getting the stringers drilled, but managed to get the skin clecoed onto the frame by the end of the day... and just like that... it looks like an airplane part!
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