deburr, deburr, deburr, prime, deburr, etc., deburring. 16 hours, 57 total so far

I have spent most of this weekend and last weekend preparing more parts.
I've deburred and primed and deburred and primed.
I did manage to do a little assembly, the ASTs are now fully assembled and I have started the assembly of the Horizontal Stablilator spar.

The finished ASTs

Note that the RV-12 has a single control surface that combines the functions of a horizontal stabiliator (the little wing at the back of an airplane) and the evelators (the bits that make the airplane point up or down), and so it is called a Horizontal Stabilator.

This is the largest part of the aircraft that I have assembled so far.
it is 8 feet wide and is made up of a main spar, front and rear ribs, and covered with 2 large skins.

The first job is to construct the spar, which itself is made from a front and rear spar cover, top and bottom spar sides and 4 ribs.
There's some small pieces to separate and drill and quite a bit of test fitting, final drilling and such to get all the various bits in the right place.
The Vans kit and plans are very well thought out, at first read you often wonder, why the heck is that rivet needed there, or what purpose does this bit have, but as you get further along in the assembly it all becomes clear, everything has a purpose, and every design decision has a reason, it's very enlightening.

Another thing that amazes me is how simple the basic design idea is, really light and really strong. It is called Monocoque construction, and uses the skins to create a load bearing surface, allowing for a very light interior frame that does not need to take that much stress.
Wooden houses are built the same way, simple 2x4s make a frame, and wouldn't be strong enough to hold up a house, until the exterior plywood (or usually OSB these days) sheets are added, It's actually those sheets that distribute the load, and make the construction super strong because of the large surface area, and so it is for airplanes, except we use Aluminium because it's lighter and doesn't rust or rot.
(The americans use Aluminum which I hear is almost as good :) )

There are other kinds of construction that use welded steel tube frames to take the load, and cover the frames with thin light material just to provide the lift surface area and reduce drag, this is called Truss construction and is used in airplanes like the piper cub. It's not as common these days, probably because the aluminium monocoque is lighter, and less weight means more performance per horse power, more efficient, cheaper to run, but those old piper cubs from 1940 are still flying and are probably 5 times stronger than they ever needed to be !

Here's where I got to before clocked out for the day on Sunday, the horizontal stabilator spar partly assembled: