Today I finished updrilling the whole skin. Then I took everything apart and deburred and cleaned up the structure, hinge, and skin. Then I put it back together and started riveting!
One minor issue I noticed was the corners of the leading edge ribs were really pushing forward on the inside of the leading edge of the skin. Maybe this is why it was such a tight fit! You can see in the pictures where the skin is being poked a bit from the inside.
While I had everything apart I filed the corners of these ribs down just a bit to round them off more. I think it helped relieve some of the tension as the skin went back on a lot easier the final time. When I start on the LH stabilator I will do this mod first!
Here's the what the leading edge rib looks like in stock form:
Here's how I filed the corners down:
Anyway, once everything was cleaned up, I cleco'ed the skin back on for the last time and started pulling rivets.
The plans say to not rivet part of the underside of the aft spar, and most of the top surface aft of the leading edge row, so I left those areas cleco'ed for now. I also left the tip rib cleco'ed until I get the fiberglass tip fit, just to leave myself some slop to work with on that end.
So here's how it sits for now:
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