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Today I spent time working on mounting the vertical stabilizer. Started out by drilling the bolt holes at the bottom of the vertical stab. I had made sure the stab was square to the horizontal the other day and had clamped the VS down pretty well, or so I thought. As I drilled through I saw it move. Sure enough, when I measured it was about 1/4 inch off from side to side. Thankfully I hadn't drilled all the way through the first hole. I took off the clamps, readjusted the position and clamped it back down really hard. This time it didn't move and I was able to drill all three holes. I then enlarged all the holes to 1/4 inch and installed bolts.

I moved on to drilling the next two bolt holes and then moved on to squaring the VS to the airplane centerline. It was dead on and I didn't have to adjust it at all. Next I used a straight edge to align the rudder brackets. I got them aligned and clamped but the next challenge is going to be getting the spacer in the proper place at the front spar without having everything move again.

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