To do that, you'll need to know the sizes of the boxes. The RV-6 empennage 
comes in 2 boxes: the kit box is about 8" x 36" x 60" and weighs about
70 lbs. + a jig box at 4" x 15" x 20" at 30 lbs. Make sure that the freight
cost quoted to you is all-inclusive; I didn't :-(
Be very careful unpacking, or you might bend or crease one of the skins.
Also be careful not to scratch the metal. Some/most of the metal is coated
with vinyl, so it's protected against everything but really bad scratches.
Leave as much vinyl on for as long as possible; preferably only remove
it just before priming the part.
Some people prefer to prime everything before starting work.
The first thing to work on is the HS, so identify those parts and put the rest away.
As a general rule, don't take the vinyl off until you have to. I now (building rudder, etc) drill through the plastic, dimple through it, file edges with it in place. Generally, I only remove it just before priming (see Construction techniques for how I do this) You can easily melt through the vinyl using a soldering iron, so that you need only remove the vinyl from the area you are working on. Be careful not to press too hard with the soldering iron, or else you'll scratch the aluminium with the tip of the iron. It's probably also a good idea to not breathe the fumes given off by the vinyl when the soldering iron melts it... God knows what carcinogens are in it.
Be scrupulously clean... bits of aluminium filings lying on your workbench top will scratch anything lying on top of them. And that's going to lead to lots of polishing work.
I bought the Orndorff videos; sheet-metal construction and RV empennage construction. Both are highly recommended. The empennage is unfortunately somewhat out-of-date, since it shows construction before pre-drilled skins and spars became available. Nevertheless, lots of what it shows is relevant. No, I'm not being paid by the Orndorff's to say this. I thought there videos were so useful that, now I'm nearly ready to start on my wings, that I've ordered their wing-building video.
Tools I bought, in addition to the highlighted ones below, and used at some point on the empennage:
Filing the ends and edges of the HS-609 
is not difficult... just don't go to far.
Cleco and drill the skins to the HS-603s. Be careful not to scratch the HS-603 surface with the clecos. I found it convenient to clip the side of the skin I wasn't working down to the HS-603 with some clothes-peg-like clips so that it wouldn't flap round while I was working. Be careful to not let your drill bit slip out of the pilot hole or you'll leave a worm-trail on the skin!
I found that the green Scotchbrite scouring pads (and even cheaper generic
versions of them) at the supermarket are pretty good for doing all the
polishing jobs. 
I have an Avery 'speed deburring tool'... a bit screws into a shaft which has an offset handle. An extension shaft can be screwed in between the bit and the handle part. For really tight places (like inside the HS603), I take the bit out of the tool and just turn it between my fingers. For slightly tight places, I use the extension and accept that the bit is at a slight angle. Remember that the objective is to debur the hole... it doesn't have to be done with the deburring tool... a bit of Emery paper will do.
You will need a hand-dimpling tool to dimple the flanges of the HS-603s. (Why aren't they part of Avery's RV Tail Starter Kit???) I discovered belatedly (when making the ailerons) that it is far easier to dimple using the Avery handsqueezer than the Vise-grip dimplers I'd been using until then... you'll still need the Vise-grip tool, but only for a handful of holes at the ends of ribs, etc.
Note: the rivets to hold the HS-411s together need to be AD470-4-6,
NOT the -5s shown on the plan (5PP). These rivets were difficult to buck...
very constricted for the bucking bar, with all the clecos getting in the
way. Be careful to avoid damaging the bearing with the bucking bar. 
When final-drilling #12 the assembled 411 to the HS609's and HS603's, use 3/16" nuts and bolts to hold everything in line.
When rivetting the HS-412 and HS-413 hinge brackets to the spar, ensure they're exactly right angles. Better yet, when rivetting them in place, put one of the rod-end bearings in place. This will make it easier to mount the elevator.
RV-List message posted by: smcdaniels@juno.com (SCOTT R MCDANIELS) in reply to "I drilled the holes on the horiz. stab. rear spar to the rear spar channels - the ones marked "Drill in Assembly with fuse." I didn't rivet them.":
Since you said you drilled but didn't rivet does that mean that the are still #30 sized pilot holes? If so, then I'm sure you are OK. If they are finished up to 3/16 (#12) you are probably still ok but it just reduces your options for readjusting the position slightly. The fuse. bars that these holes mate up to are pretty good size and allow for some variation. Don't worry about it right now.
(Now I've asttached it to the fuselage, I found that this was exactly right -- those holes will be used to bolt the HS to the F611. The bar they attach to is 1 1/4" wide and several inches high, so the exact location isn't critical.)
Graham Murphy made up some jigs to make it easier to align and build the HS Front Spar. He emailed me photos and a description of what he did. You can get this stuff by clicking here.
Before any cutting, measure the length and width of your HS-602 front spar pieces. They are supposed to be 48 13/16" long each, but (I believe) are usually slightly shorter (1/8" or so). Subtract this distance from the 'tongue' length (nominally 5 1/4"). Even more significant, the plans (3PP, bottom left) show the tongue width as 3 7/16". My HS-602s were less than that including the flanges.
This leads to major difficulties with the rivets attaching the HS-610 (and especially the fuselage attach bolts) to the HS-602s. Here's why: the outside edges of the HS-610 and HS-614 need to be 3 1/4" apart. Essentially, this means that the HS-602 tongue must also be 3 1/4" wide. If it's less, the 3/16" bolt holes will be centred less than the minimum 3/8" from the edge of the tongue. Also be aware that since the HS-602 has a taper, rivet holes further outboard on the centreline of the HS-610 will be closer to the edge of the tongue... worst case is the hole 4 5/8" from the centreline. You may want to place these holes slightly further from the flange part of the HS-610. The problem applies only to the HS-610, because the HS-614 is 1" wide, rather than 3/4".
Bottom line on this stuff: Be extremely careful cutting the HS-602
to take the bare minimum off, and be prepared to drill the rivets slightly
off-centre on the HS-610 if necessary. That in turn may mean that the tapers
of the HS-610 may need to be slightly assymetric. NB: the fuselage attach
bolts can't be placed off-centre, since otherwise they'd lose their 3/8"
edge distance. 
Also before cutting the HS-602s: Mark the centres of their inboard ends permanently. I can tell you that it's quite complex trying to find their centres after the flanges have been cut off.
You may want to drill the 610s/614s before trimming the flange, as I did. You can then decide if you need additional edge distance (I didn't) in the radius.
The manual tells you to remove only the flange and not the radius when trimming the HS-602 in order to bend and fit the HS 610s and 614s. The reason for this is allow you to flatten the radius and give yourself additional edge distance for the -4 rivets in the 610s and 614s. Instead of pounding out the radius, put the flush sets into your hand squeezer and gently squeeze the bend flat.
Cutting the HS-610: The wrong way: I started what seemed the obvious way. Fix the piece vertically in the vice and cut down along the tapers to make the ears. Fine so far. Then I turned the piece through a right-angle (still vertical in the vice) to cut off the unwanted piece of flange. I marked a line 1/8" from the edge and cut to that, periodically looking over the back to check all was well. However, in no time at all (ie between checks), the hacksaw blade cut into the web of the piece. One piece of scrap manufactured! :-(
Cutting the HS-610: The right way: Place the piece horizontally in the vice to cut the tapers. Cut along the bend line. Place beer can (see next paragraph) on the web -- this will protect it from the hacksaw blade. Now fix the piece vertically in the vice and cut down near the angle. Leave plenty of room, and cut at an angle to keep the blade away from the web; it's better to file an 1/8" off once, rather than having to redo it.
RV-List message posted by: "Tedd McHenry" <tedd@idacom.hp.com>: When removing one leg of the angle stock at each end of the HS610 or HS614, it's difficult to file off the "stump" that remains after you've made the cut without scratching the remaining leg. I cut mine in a radial arm saw, so the "stump" was only about .010" or .015" high, and pretty consistent. But it was still tricky to file. What I did was cut up a beer can and clamp (or tape) the thin aluminum can material over the good leg of the angle stock. I could then file pretty vigorously without marring any good aluminum. I found I could get the "stump" down to only about .002" or .003" high, and very smooth and consistent all the way across. Then it was very easy to finish the job on the Scotchbrite wheel.
Phil Francis <pfrancis@spd.dsccc.com> wrote to the RV-list: "Ran into my first problem Friday when mating the HS front spar to the rear spar and rib assembly. I apparently followed the instructions a little too blindly when cutting the flange on the HS-602's to create the "tongues". The instructions state to "trim the inboard ends as shown in DWG 3PP", so after verifying that the 602's where exactly 48 11/16" as specified in the drawing in the lower left I proceeded to cut off 5 1/4" as shown (mistake #1). In the next step you clamp the HS-614 and 610 to the 602's and check overall length of the front spar. At this point I had a 1/4" gap between the ends of the 602's to obtain the correct length, since the plans said a gap was ok here I proceeded (mistake #2). It turns out that if you check the dimensions on the plans you find that a 1/4" gap is inevitable (two spar channels at 48 11/16" = 97 3/8 which misses the overall length dimension of 97 5/8" by 1/4"). The problem with this is that the 5 1/4" dimension for cutting the flange is intended from the spar centerline not the edges of the 602's which are now each 1/8" off of the centerline. So... when you mate the front spar with the ribs you find the 602's flanges do not fully overlap with the flanges of the HS-405 ribs where they intersect (they are 1/8" shy of the edge). Not a problem until you put the skins on and find there is a pre-punched hole for a rivet right at the intersection, and that 1/8" turns out to be 1D+ of the 2D you need for minimum edge clearance for that rivet.
I talked with Bill at Van's yesterday and he said to proceed with the 1D edge clearance on the four rivets involved (one on each intersection of a 602 and 405). The strenght of the HS is in the skin and rear spar so these four rivets apparently shouldn't cause any problems, but I'm still debating whether or not to rebuild the front spar for piece of mind. Hopefully nobody but the bozo over here will run into this, but just in case I thought I would give you fair warning.
The HS-614: Cut it using the same techniques as for the HS-610. In addition, you'll need to cut some slots to form the 'ears' on it. I drilled the 3/16" diameter (3/32" radius) hole at the end of the slots. Except I got it in the wrong place, and made some scrap. :-( I used this scrap to practice making shorter and shorter HS-614s. On my next real attempt, I didn't bother drilling a hole. Instead, I cut the sides of the slot with the hacksaw, then used a rat-tail file and small round needle file to remove the metal between the cuts. Emery paper wrapped round the needle file finished it off.
Assembly is fine once the above has all been attended to.
Bending the HS-610 and HS-614: Do NOT use a mallet. The aluminium is easy enough to bend by muscle power. The 6 degrees seemed a difficult thing to measure to me, so I applied a bit of maths. The distance from one bend line to the other is 10.5 inches. Multiply this by the sine of 6 degrees and you'll get 1.09 inches. So I clamped the HS-610 in the vice by one end, between 2 blocks of wood and with a steel rule behind it. The bend line was just at the top of the wood block. Now I measured the distance from the rule to the piece, at the opposite bend line. Then bent the piece until the distance was 1.09 inches greater. Then swap ends and do it again. Do the same for the HS-614.
Bending the HS-602s: The same maths says that when the tongue is clamped firmly to the bench by a piece of wood, the other end needs to be raised 4.5 inches to give a 6 degree bend.
1. Ensure that you do have the 1/4" (from the centre of a #30 hole) edge distance. That relates to the strength of the rivet joint -- insufficient edge distance and it weakens it a lot.
2. The importance of the rib location is that you want the prepunched holes in the skin to line up with the ribs, such that they also meet their (3/16" since they're #40) edge-distance criteria.
With the benefit of hindsight after building wings, but without having actually tried this myself: What I'd do (and this is what I did on wing skins) is mark the tip rib flange centreline on the spar (5/16" in from the edge), then lay the skin on the spar and use the prepunched holes to mark the other rib locations. Then, kindof jiggle things about (if necessary) so that all edge distance criteria are met.
Straightening the ribs: Vans and/or the Orndorff video say to straighten the ribs by fluting, then bend the flanges to a right angle with a hand-seamer. This didn't work too well for me... bending the flanges slightly squashed the flutes, so I had to redo them a little. I suggest first bending the flanges to right angles.
The centre rib rear flanges need to be bent differently, because this rib isn't at right angles to the rear spar. Draw a line on your benchtop, and clamp the rib to the bench by the rear flange so that it lines up with the line. Draw another line 2 1/16" inches away from the first, and stand your set square on this line. Now, bend the rib until its tip stays lined up with the set square. Actually, it would probably be better to do this first, since it's likely to bend the rib itself slightly, which would mean re-fluting it.
Drilling Ribs to Spars: When Vans says in the manual "Think before drilling", what they mean is "Think more than Frank did before drilling". I looked at the detail of how ribs attach to spars (plans page 3PP, top-right), thought, measured the rivet placement, thought again, and drilled the HS-606s (tip ribs). Fine. Then I did the same for one of the the HS-405 centre ribs. Wrong! The HS-405s and HS-608s need to be drilled to fit the pre-drilled holes in the rear spar. (You haven't mounted the spar to the jig yet, I hope.)
Note that the "Typical rivet placement" diagram on the plan only applies to the centre-rib/front-spar join, NOT the root ribs. Hardly typical!i
Attaching ribs to the rear spar: To do this, first draw a line, where the rivets will go, about the middle of the rib flange which will attach to the spar. (Hint: You're going to need the flange-centreline-marking-tool described by Vans; you might as well make it now.) Then use Cleco side-clamps or something similar to clamp strips of aluminium to the top and bottom of the spar, and to the rib. This technique is shown on the Orndorff video, but in a slightly different context. Shuffle the rib around until you have your line lined up through the middle of the two holes. Now clamp it securely, check it's still lined, and drill to #30 size.
Fixing a screw-up here: It is acceptable to cut the flange off the rib and rivet a new one to it. What I did instead was to make a doubler out of .025" Alclad, and riveted that to the rib web (2 1/8" rivets) and flange (the same 2 1/8" rivets which hold the rib to the spar). Cutting the flange off would make it difficult to the make the rib the right length.
The tip ribs are different, but similar. Measure the rivet positions on the rib, and drill them with a #40 or so drill. Now clamp the rib to the spar, getting it lined up square and in the right place. Drill through the pilot holes in the rib and through the spar with a 12" x #30 aircraft drill.
Possibly, there should also be a rivet in the centre of each of the HS-405 and HS-608 flanges, otherwise I think the Typical Rib-Spar Detail diagram doesn't apply to anything at all! However, bucking or driving between the two stiffeners on the rear spar is going to be mighty tricky.
Now, you can rivet the ribs to the rear spar.
The AN-3 bolts which hold the rear spar together need to be torqued to 20-25 inch-pounds. This is not a lot of torque; say 3 pounds force at the end of your typical 8" socket handle.
Attaching the front spar: I mounted my rear spar assembly in the jig at this stage (see below about building the jig), and got my tip ribs nice and vertical, and got the front spar positioned correctly over the centreline. Everything measured up nicely, so I didn't need to shim the ends to the tip ribs at all. Note that the HS-405 ribs attach to the front spar by four holes, two through the HS-610 and HS-614 pieces, and two through the HS-602s. The HS-608s have three rivets joining them to the spar and to the HS-607s.
Leave out the HS-404s until you have the HS-606s and HS-607s in place correctly. I found that I was often putting the skins on and off to get the HS-607s lined up correctly. Note that the HS-404s need to be trimmed to go round the HS-614. I had to trim mine almost to the centre of their flanges. This also means that the front-most hole in the skin won't have a rivet through it... probably that hole will actually get cut off entirely.
I managed to rivet the ribs to the front spar without removing the skeleton
from the jig (my jig beam is 117" long, so I could just get my rivet gun
in between the post and the tip rib). I'm not sure whether that was a good
idea or not, since it made me go into some contortions to drive some of
the rivets, and I had to drill out and redo several. Ensure you get yourself
above any rivets needing to be driven downwards. For some of the rivets
holding ribs to the forward spar, this meant standing on a chair.
RV-List message posted by: "Mark Steffensen" <steffco1@email.msn.com>: I used the following technique.
Using these new reference lines clamp the rib to the forward spar and drill the rivet holes. Drill the 2 outboard holes. Put the skin back on and repeat the process with the nose ribs. Using a clamp in the center of the nose rib to hold the correct position and drill in alignment with the lower rib. Finish up with the 3rd center hole. I used a #40 drill to start and finished up with a #30. Mine came out straight and centered.
I made a small tool to draw centrelines on flanges, and I've used it
extensively since... a must-have. Flush-rivet a 1" x 1" piece of .032"
aluminium to a 1" by 1/2" piece of .063" aluminium. Make the corners nice
and square, then you can use this as a tiny set-square too. Now drill a
couple of small (less than #41) holes, exactly 5/16" from the edge of the
.063" piece... here's a crude ASCII representation:
_________________________ _
| .063" |
o |
| + rivet |
|
|
| .032" |
| + rivet |
o |
|_____________|____________|
Now, you can put a pen tip in one of the holes, and run the tool down a spar or rib flange, and the pen will mark the centreline (all rib and spar flanges are 5/8", AFAIK).
It actually helps if the centrelines are drawn fairly wide, since it makes finding them through the skin holes much easier. You don't need to drill holes right through the centre of the rib of spar, just at least 3/16" from both edges. That gives you a little room to maneuvre.
Bertrv6@aol.com said: I got 2 4x4 (big problem here in Orlando to get straight pieces) after many months, I found two accepatable. Now I know I could have used two 2x4 screwed them together for each side, same for the center piece. This is much easier and you find this wood anywhere, and the pieces are straighter.....
First decide where you are going to build your wings. Moving the jig is no big deal... a few hours all up. But it's a hassle that's worth avoiding if you can. However, building the wings requires more space than the empennage. When building the wings, the consensus seems to be that it's better to build both wings at once. I did this, but I'm not entirely convinced of the benefits. If you do plan to build both wings at once, I'd suggest you set up 3 posts in a V configuration, or two separate wing jigs. Otherwise you will need to duck quite low under the rear spar to get into the space between the wings. You would only need to set up two of these posts initially, to get the empennage built.
I put the jig slightly diagonally across the middle of the room,
with about a foot to spare at one end 
to get to the other side. This was necessary because the jig belongs to
an RV-4 builder so I can't cut it shorter, and the cross-beam is 117" long.
This worked out OK, but was a bit cramped. For the wing spars, it was very
cramped, so that I wound up doing a lot of the measuring and marking on
them in the lounge and did a lot of carrying to and fro.
Do I need to be able to walk round the ends of the jig? Short
answer: No. I set up my jig with one post against the wall 
.
You could even do without the upright against the wall... for the emp,
the most important thing is that the horizontal beam be solid and horizontal,
and that you establish a vertical plane above it (I did this by hanging
a wire end-to-end above the beam). You will also need something to hold
the tip rib upright. It is convenient to have a couple of feet to spare
at the other end .
However, it is possible to duck under the cross-beam too.
Note that the wing main spar is about 2 feet longer than the rear spar...
if you have one end of your jig against the wall (again, no post really
needed), the tip of the wing will need to go that end. The root end will
obviously end up at the walk-around end. You will then (unless you learn
from my experience) bash your head a few times on the main spar when you
almost duck under it going from one side to the other.
How far apart should the posts be? If you plan on leaving the posts where they are to build the wing, then the length of the wing rear spar controls the distance apart of the posts. Will Cretsinger's page says "The layout of the wing jig is shown in SK-25. The posts used in the empennage jig should be sufficient for the wing jig. The rear spar is 105 7/8" long (DWG 14) and this would appear to be the ideal (and also the minimum) distance between posts." I'd add that you can't make it much more than the length of the rear spar... an extra 3 inches at most if you use 2" angle for the wing cross-arms, since 1" of the tip of the rear spar lies on the cross-arm. Presumably this is where Van's recommended 108" separation comes from.
How to anchor the base of the posts to the concrete floor?
I used a couple of collars 
made up by the RV-4 builder who loaned the jig parts to me. Originally,
I mounted both on one post, thus allowing me to accurately plumb and align
that post with the other (fixed) post. This was unnecessary screwing around.
Later, I moved out to the garage, and used one collar on each post to attach
them to the garage floor. Each collar is screwed solidly to the concrete
floor of the garage. I used '3/16" solid wall anchors' from the hardware
store -- they're nylon hole inserts which expand when a screw is screwed
into them. The original jig owner used Dynabolts (a tradename -- mechanical
expansion bolts) to bolt the collars to the floor of his garage. On each
side of the collar is a bolt tapped into the collar... by adjusting these
bolts, the bottom of the post can be moved about an inch in each direction.
Bertrv6@aol.com said: I used LIQUID NAILS, and it has worked fined. My jig was made two years ago. I clean the garage floor, put some liquid nail from the tube with the gun, some on the bottom of the 4X4 pieces, level them, hold them with chairs etc.. in one hour check again for level then frame the bottoms with small pieces of 2X4 (making a box). Use more liquid nails on each piece and the 4x4. Hold them for a minute or so, put some weight to hold them. Next day that is it.... they are ready.
Before doing this, I'd check that I could dissolve the Liquid Nails to eventually remove the jig. You'll eventually need even more space to set up the fuselage jig which is quite different from the wing jig.
I spent way too long building the jig. The uprights do NOT need to be vertical. In fact, you don't need them at all! What you really need is a straight, horizontal beam. I mounted mine about 39" from the floor (slightly below waist height on me). It could have gone a few inches lower, so that the top of the HS would be at a more comfortable height. Later, it was convenient to have the beam and my workbench at the same height. I checked the horizontalness of the beam with my carpenter's level, switching it round to compensate for any error in the level itself. It required a little shimming to get it spot on.
Then I drew my centreline span-wise on the beam, and strung a wire maybe a metre or so above the beam. Finally, I used a plumb-bob to align the wire exactly above the centreline on the beam. Doing it again, I'd string the wire, then use the plumb-bob to draw the line on the beam. The "centreline" doesn't need to go down the centre of the beam, merely be straight and level.
You also need a centreline marked across the beam; it doesn't need to be in the centre of the beam.
Note that this jig will be pulled apart before building the wings -- only the uprights are used for the wings, and they need to be closer together.
I bought the Jig fixture brackets from Avery's. They seemed a bit expensive at US$20, but saved me a lot of screwing round. I carefully positioned these along the beam centreline, using dental floss as string, and screwed them in place. Note that two of these have 1/4" holes, and go either side of the central bearing, the other 4 go on the other hinge brackets. I used washers to shim a couple of the brackets, so that the rear spar couldn't move sideways. Once attached to the brackets, the rear spar rotates freely, so they must all be lined up straight.
The tip ribs are attached to the uprights by threaded rods, as per Van's
diagrams. 
Once the skeleton was in the jig, I dangled a plumbbob from the wire,
down through the gap between the HS-602s in the centre of my front spar.
This bob dangles immediately above the centre of the rear spar. The skeleton
was then held by the centre post so that the line went right through the
centre of the front spar. This line was the basis for all measurements
used in aligning the skeleton. 
It has been a while since I did this, but here goes from memory: 
1. You definitely should have 2 people to do this. Bucking those rivets whilst holding the bucking bar on your finger tips at arm's length is NOT easy. We videoed this stage; as we watched it afterwards, I was impressed by the lack of foul language on the Orndorff video!
2. I think this would have been easier if the jig cross beam was lower; the bucker can then sit on a chair and reach the bottom of the front spar.
3. Oil-canning and ripples aren't a big threat here (or at least, not as big a problem as what *I* had thought).
4. Buck the rivets starting at the front spar/centre rib intersection,
working outwards. Do not rivet any of the edge rivets until all the rib/spar
ones have been done. 
5. A handsqueezer saves a *lot* of time on the 3/32" rivets round
the edges of the skins. However, the squeezer will gradually loosen; keep
an eye on it, otherwise you'll need to redo your rivets. 
6. Checking whether your rivets are set properly is difficult on the second (top) side of the skin. Get your bucker to press his finger against the shop head, so that it leaves an indentation in the skin. then compare the diameter of the indentation with the rivet guage hole. If it's too small, you'll need to give the rivet another tap. If it's too big, you got problems! I didn't overdrive a single rivet... very quickly, you get used to the right amount of time, and you hear a slightly different sound when it's done. Similarly, if the bucking bar isn't on straight or hard, you hear a different sound.
7. Sometimes the sounds are misleading... at one stage it sounded quite different depending on whether we were rivetting out near the tip, or in near the root.
8. Be careful peeling back the skin near the leading edge. We popped a couple of rivets on the bottom skin when were about to work on the upper skin. Fortunately these drilled out OK, and I replaced them with the next size longer rivets. Similarly, as a bit of additional insurance, I used slightly longer rivets for the last couple of holes near the leading edge, since these seemed to be stressed outwards a little.
9. Before rivetting the top skin down, give everything a good clean out inside the HS... anything in there will be carried round in your plane for ever. And if it's hard or sharp, it'll be scratching away at it.
10. Leave the front half of the root rib until last (ie don't rivet it to the spar until the skin is on). These rivets are hard to do, being at an odd angle and in a confined space. Stand on a chair to make sure you have your body in a good position to rivet them... believe me, they're hard to drill out too, and then very stressful to redo.
11. *Before* rivetting that front half of the root rib in place with your hand squeezer, locate your bucking bar. Here's my tale of (almost) woe... (not that I would accuse my friend and bucker Dave or anything, but...) When doing the skins, we finished by bucking the front half of the centre rib, then adjourned for a celebratory Bourbon and Coke. Dave went home, and I returned to the workshop, clecoed the root rib front half in place, and got out the handsqueezer. I admired my damn fine piece of handiwork, thought how nice it looked, tapped it to assure myself it was real and that there was no oilcanning, and it went clang. Clang? Tap, clang. Tap, tap, clang, clang. Arrggghh! Oilcanning!!!??? No. Bucking bar lying on top of the front spar.
11. Along the same lines, remove the nut and washer from the threaded rods holding the tip ribs in place *before* rivetting the top skin down.
12. Squeezing the last two rivets near the LE of the tip rib was difficult;
I ground a little off the yoke of my handsqueezer to make it fit. 
If you're going with manual trim, drill a 5/8" hole in the front spar as near as possible to the inboard rib flange. I centred mine on the tooling hole, and that was only just far enough outboard.
I can't recall anything particularly tricky here; Van's manual is quite
clear, and the techniques used are exactly the same as used on the HS. 
I have vague plans of putting a GPS antenna in the top of my VS, plus maybe a beacon or strobe or whatever. Therefore, I put in grommets for two wires, one in front of the front spar and one behind. My thinking here was that the spar would help to isolate the weak signals received by a GPS antenna from the large voltages/currents of the strobe... only time will tell whether this was a good idea. In front of the spar has the additional advantage that there's no centre rib, which should make it much easier to pull wires through.
RV-List message posted by: "Dave Bergh" <dbergh@cyberhighway.net> Help! I just finished drilling my VS skin to the skeleton and upon disassembly discovered I have no edge distance on the last rivet hole (the holes are half on half off the end of the flange) on the VS 407 flanges (I think that is the number) where they intersect with the 402 front spar.
Date: 04 Dec 96 12:37:00 EST From: Vangrunsven <76455.1602@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: VS-407 edge distance
" The factory recommendation is to just replace the flange on the rib with a wider or longer one.... .032 al in a 'L' shape 1x1 riveted in place of the original flange on the rib is more than adequate..." Tom @ Van's
When rivetting the VS-410, VS-411, and VS-412 hinge brackets to the spar, ensure they're exactly right angles. Better yet, when rivetting them in place, put one of the rod-end bearings in place. This will make it easier to mount the rudder. Note that the bottom brackets are slightly further apart than the upper two... one of the rod-end bearings is larger than the others.
