Too many holes..

[SP1]

Found this piece. Looks like previous owner drilled too many hole in the one part. There isn’t a corresponding hole in the part that it abuts against.

Should I replace the part or can I drill through and add additional blind rivets?

[mike.smith]

I don't see any reason why you can't add rivets there.

[NWade]

On a tangent to your original question: What part is at the left edge of the photo, that we can just barely see? There appear to be several holes drilled which are right at the edge of the material! Those are no good, as the resulting fasteners are likely to rip out under load (look up “edge margin” or “edge distance” in your favorite aircraft homebuilding book or in FAA AC43.13b)

Take care,

—Noel
Sonex #1339

[SP1]

Thanks for looking and finding that. It’s the tail section. T04-01.

If I replace that too with a new piece from Sonex, wouldn’t the holes just map to the same place, and I would making the same mistake again?

An alternative is to replace with a channel with the longer lip.

I may be the market for a new horizontal stabilizer....

[peter anson]

From your photo, it looks like the bend radius in the clip is too big, locating that end of the rib too far inboard. The bend radius is supposed to be 1/8". If that is the case, you just need to make a new clip from some 0.060" sheet and a new rib.

Peter

[SP1]

Peter,
Thanks very much for taking a look. That makes absolute sense. I think what happened was that the ownerfit the rib to the clip, and not the other way around.