Common sense check / dumb question

[STARGATE]

I'm getting back into building after a life-imposed hiatus, and I'm looking for a common sense check on something I've been staring at for a bit. I've read some build logs and watched some videos and I know these steps cause some reordered parts.

I'm working on the HS front spar. The HS-00003 supplied in the kit is different than both the plans drawings and the SB diagrams (which I find more helpful than the plans/drawings for some of the items). It appears more complete, i.e. has more prepunched holes than the pictures.

As such, where the directions say to cleco the two angles and then clamp the doubler to the spar and match drill, the parts look like the angles, spar, and doublers can/should just be clecoed together then match drilled, as the holes are all already there. If I clamp the doubles aligned as directed I think I'll be adding extra overlapping holes where the angles, spar, and doublers all have holes.

1. Yes, I'm likely overthinking this.
2. Am I dumb and missing something?
Not mutually exclusive options.

Thanks everyone. This community is what is keeping me coming back to it.

 

[MIKE JG]

That was a tricky section to get right. In my case I had parts from a 2011 tail kit that I was combining with the extra reinforcing parts from the SB which I think came out in 2015 and I was using directions from the SB paperwork and the preview plans from 2016. So it took me a while to piece everything together and figure out what went where.

Make sure you are orienting the doubler plate correctly and cleco'ing it to the correct side. Depending on the age of your HS parts, they may or may not already have all of the addiitonal holes drilled in them to match the doubler plates from the SB.

It sounds like you're just overthinking this one. With the parts cleco'd together, are there any undrilled holes (IOW a hole in the spar or a hole in the doubler) that do not have a corresponding hole in the adjacent part? Also looking at the rivet callouts on the plans, do all that rivet callouts match up with all of the pre-drilled holes??

 

[STARGATE]

Thank you Mike.

Turns out I was, as suspected, overthinking it trying to avoid errors I made on the practice kit, and clecoing like I thought was the correct answer.

My parts are newer, post-Chapter 11. I had the doubler plate on the correct side oriented per the plans, here's what I discovered, with some info from the Mothership support, detailed so it's out there. My part numbers are HS-702, HS-00003-1, HS-810-1, and HS-814-1.

Part HS-00003, depicted in the 2023 R6 of the DWG3, and described in Rev 15 of the plans, has 12 holes inboard of the bend line, while part HS-00003-1 (received) has 16. The pre-punched holes in the -1 revised part match the SB rivet pattern. Two of the additional holes on the -1 part (not on the original part) align with two of the pre-punched holes on HS-702, and allow you to cleco the HS-810-1, HS-814-1, HS-702, and HS-00003-1 together vs clamp.

When I tried to clamp the parts together per the plans I found the holes misaligned trying to align the doubler along the top of the spar channel (probably some user error as well). Going straight to cleco aligned the doublers neatly centered on the spars without any clamps, although I'll still use some clamps to get more points of contact before drilling.

To your questions Mike, some of the holes still need drilled through HS-702, but HS-00003-1 has the entire rivet callout from the SB drilled already. And yes, I'm taking the plastic off before I drill.

I learned that...parts will update sometimes without plans/drawing revisions, this usually makes your life easier unless you overthink the unexpected change and insist on making your own life harder instead.


John