Tag Archives: Right Elevator

Drilling the Elevator Horns

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This is pretty much the last step on the empennage kit! It’s time to double check all the measurements and alignments and drill the last holes on the tail….the elevator horns.  I have read horror stories of people not getting this done correctly, and having to have the horns welded up and re-drilled.  So, I approached this with caution. Before mounting the elevators, I measured the eye bolts one last time with my dial calipers to make absolute certain that they were all to plan specs.  Then I started off by mounting both elevators and measuring them yet again through its entire travel.  I was getting well within the limits of Max up/down travel so I decided its time to drill.

I started off my removing the right elevator so I could drill the horn for the left.  Then, per the plans, I clamped the elevator so that its in trail with the chord line of the horizontal stabilizer.  We do this by clamping the elevator counterbalance skin to the horizontal stab skin using some scrap sheet aluminum and a few clamps.

Then I did a real good eye ball check to make sure the horn was going to be lined up, and I wouldn’t have any clearance issues after it was drilled.  This is something I had seen crop up on other builders, and some of the had issues getting the bolt head and nut to clear the horn assembly.  Luckily everything looked good, so I decided to drill.  Van’s tells us to use a drill bushing in the VA-146 bearing assembly to help align the hole on the horn.  I had picked up from some other builders that a 1/16″ ferrule and collet seem to work really great as a drill bushing and they are cheap at Lowes / Home Depot.  So, I visited the aviation section of my local Home Depot and picked up a few packs of these things:

The little collets are exactly 1/4 outside diamater and they fit perfectly in the bearing!   I had to use some gorilla tape on the end of the bearing to hold the collets from sliding out, and I ended up using a total of 4 of them in the bearing.

The tape does nothing but hold the collets in to keep my fingers out of the way. I found a drill bit that fit perfectly in the hole in the collets and used it to drill my pilot holes.  With a little bit of finesse and gentle drilling. I had my pilot hole done!

Next up was to drill the pilot for the right elevator, so I removed the left elevator and set it aside for now.  Then, I mounted up the right elevator, clamped the counterweight to the stabilizer and drilled its pilot hole using the exact same method as I did for the left.

Now its time to drill this pilot hole to its final size.  After removing the right elevator, I set both it and the left on my work bench to secure them for final drilling.  I decided against using the convenient step bit for this because they have a tendency to wander, and this is pretty precision work. I started out by drilling the holes out from smaller to large using these drill bit successions:  #40, #30, #27, #21, #12 and finally the 1/4 size needed for the AN4-14A bolt. Then, I deburred the holes.  The front side was easy, but the back side was a little tricky, so I got creative:

The angle drill worked great to get this tight spot deburred.  Now that the holes were drilled to the right size for both elevators, its the moment of truth: Checking for binding.   I re-mounted the elevators to the horizontal stabilizer, and then inserted the AN4-14A bolt through the horn, into the bearing and through the other horn……it fit! Everything aligned correctly and there was absolutely no binding at all in the entire hinge line.  Its moving through full deflection as smooth as butter.

The horns look a little wonky, and like they’d be out of alignment, but according to Van’s and the mindshare on Vans Airforce, this is totally normally due to the manufacturing differences in the horns. So long as the hinge line doesn’t bind there is nothing to worry about.  I do have plenty of clearance for the bolt head and nut to thread on nicely as well.  These parts are DONE!! I removed the elevators and then thoroughly tightened the jam nuts on they eyebolts.  The horizontal stabilizer and elevators will go on the shelf until they are ready to be mounted to the fuselage.

I still had a little steam and energy left, so I decided to test fit the rudder and make sure it’s in good shape.  I double checked the eye bolt depth with my dial caliper, and then mounted it to the vertical stabilizer and moved it through its full deflection and there was no binding! It also moves as smooth as butter and looks great.

With that, the tail kit is pretty much done! I am going to leave the fiberglass work until the very last of the build, and all thats left now is to drill a hole in the horizontal stabilizer and rudder horn for the tail light.  I am thinking I will go ahead and do this now, since its easy to get to and I have some spare bushings to use.  Then, I will label and bag up all the remaining mounting hardware (bolts, washers and nuts for the hinge lines) and put everything away until I get ready to mount it to the fuselage.

As a side note, I have ordered my Wing kit and am waiting on the invoice and crating dates.  Its looking like an 8 week lead time…but I will put that info in another post.  Here’s the photos for tonights work:

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Google Photos Link:  https://goo.gl/photos/Qvx8CEUQNj1pvk9K7

Hours Worked: 2.5

Fitting The Elevators to the Horizontal Stabilizer

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The empennage kit is wrapping up, and almost complete at this point.  All the major assembly is done, and now its just fitting the parts together and lining up the hinges to drill the elevator horns.  The first thing to do is make sure the eye bolts on the elevators are threaded in to the proper starting depth.  Van’s gives this dimensions in the plans, and I used a dial caliper to get the correct measurements.  After setting and adjusting the eye bolts to the proper thread depth on each elevator, it was time to re-arrange some furniture in the shop to mate the elevators to the horizontal stab.  Here’s how it ended up:

I moved my work benches so that I could drop the elevator horns between them, and then I could slide them back to the table edge to get full movement of the elevators to test their angles. Next up, I fit the elevators in their mounts, and marked the skin so that it could be trimmed to provide the 1/8″ clearance around the elevator horn.

Once I had my marks made, I used a #40 drill to drill the corner so it wouldn’t crack.

Then I snipped away the excess using the tin snips.

Now that I had both the top and bottom done, it was time to knock the rough edges down, and file the corners smooth.  A plain old bastard file made quick work of this, and I am pretty happy with the way it came out.

Once the left side was done, I moved over and did the same exact thing for the right side with equally satisfying results. I think at this point, I am getting the hang of sheet metal work! I am doing work that I’d be proud to show at Osh Kosh 🙂  Then, I decided to go ahead and re-fit the elevators to make sure all the clearances looked good, and that the elevator would move through its entire Max deflection as prescribed by vans.

I made a cheap little tool to help get the bolts inserted into the hinges.  This is a super tight area to work in, and there is hardly any room to get fingers in there to hold the bolts and insert them.  So, here is what I came up with:

Yep… that is a piece of Gorilla tape on the boxed end of a wrench! It worked pretty damn good!  I was able to snake the bolt down into the access hole, wiggle it into the hinge and fully insert it while holding the elevator in position.  Once I had the bolt in place, I could just twist the wrench and tape off the head and the bolt stayed right in place. I didn’t use any washers or nuts, since I am just test fitting everything together for now.  I want to make sure I have the eye bolts set correctly, and that the elevators can move their full range with no binding.

After checking both sides for binding, I used a simple little protractor to verify that the elevators each could move through their max deflection of 30 degrees up and 25 degrees down as instructed by the plans.  Being happy that they moved great, I decided to call it a night for now.  I still need to double verify using my digital angle finder and micrometer to make sure everything is perfect and then I will drill the elevator horns.  Thats work for another session! Here’s all of tonights photos:

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Google Photos Link:  https://goo.gl/photos/AJgKvyhtcwidDZKn6

Hours Worked: 2

Bending Right Elevator Leading Edge

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With the right elevator all closed up, one of the last remaining steps is to bend the leading edge.  This is a bit tricky to do, and I am using the tried and true method of using a wood dowel rod and some strong Gorilla Tape to get the bend just right. I started off tonights build by first breaking the top edges of the leading edge using an edge break roller tool.  This little tool has two rollers welded to the end of a pair of vise grips. You insert the skin edge and gently pull it along the edge, creating a slight bend / break along the edge.  This allows the lap joint between the top and bottom skins to fit snug together once they are riveted.

Then, I began by bending the smaller section of leading edge on the outboard side.  I bent the bottom first, and then the top by securing a large section of gorilla tape to the leading edge, and wrapping it around a dowel rod.  Then I used some channel locks to slowly rotate the dowel rod and curled the leading edge ever so gently to get the bend angle.  Once I had the top skin done, I done the bottom skin.  Then it was time to get a bit physical with the metal, and form the remainder of the shape with my hands by brute force and squeezing.  Eventually, I had the leading edge of the smaller section where I like it, and clecoed it together.

I moved on to the remaining sections of leading edge, but this time  I decided to bend the top section first, followed by the bottom section.  This seemed to make the lap joint much tighter and more rounded.  Once I had all the bends done, I clecoed everything in place.  The plans has us drill the #40 holes to a #30 in order to fit the AD-41-ABS blind rivets, so I removed one cleco at a time and drilled to proper size, replacing it with a 1/8 cleco.

Finally, I had all the bends where I wanted them, and the holes properly sized, I used my pop rivet tool to set all of the AD-41-ABS blind rivets into their holes, one by one leaving the clecos in place to help hold the metal to its shape. It didn’t quite turn out perfect, but I am happy with how it looks.

The last thing I did was to insert the rod ends into the nut plates.  I do not have the home made tool to get these to the right depth, but thats something for another session.  For now, I just threaded on the AN316-6 jam nuts to the MD3614M rod ends , and then screwed them into the nutplates on the spar. I’ll come back and adjust these to the right depth and torques later on.  I have made a note in my plans to do this.

That’s all for tonight.  A total of about 2 hours getting these bends just right.  I was hoping to knock both elevators out tonight, but only got one.  The other will have to wait till next time.  Here’s the photos from tonight:

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I also took a time lapse of this work, and posted to Youtube:

 

Google Photos Link: https://goo.gl/photos/6Vi1DWoDC3t9vPEk8

Hours Worked: 2

Closing up the Elevators

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Tonight I was able to close up and rivet both the left and the right elevators. They had been setting and letting the proseal cure, and now it was time to close them up for good.  I started out with the easiest one first, the right elevator.  This one is pretty simple, as there is no trim tab to deal with. I removed every other cleco, inserted a rivet and then squeezed them with my squeezer.

Since this is all along the edges, I was able to use my squeezer on all but one rivet.  I was not able to get the nose of the squeezer in the very last rivet closest to the trailing edge.  There was just not enough room to get it in there and squeeze. I am thinking I will use a blind rivet in that one hole, which is perfectly acceptable by Vans’s plans, and even recommended for the very end holes due to the tightness of them.  All the rest of the rivets were perfect.

I was able to set every rivet except that one on the end. I will set the elevator to the side, and make a note on this one rivet.  Once I make a decision I will come back to it .  I do think a blind rivet is the way to go, since it doesn’t involve risking any damage to an otherwise perfect elevator.  On the the left elevator!

I did pretty much the same thing on the left elevator as the right: Started by removing every other cleco, then riveting those empty holes.  The only exception was the work around the trim tab.  I left the trim tab off for now, but placed the forward portion of the hinge to the elevator and clecoed it on.  The I very gently used a long nose squeezer with a set that would let me get behind the hinge bends to set the rivets.  I did this slowly and carefully to avoid bending the hinge, and it turned out great.

Then, I moved over to the few blind rivets that the left elevator requires.  There are a few MK319BS blind rivets that we need to use on the E-701 skin to the E-606PP spar on the very outboard sections, 4 total.  I set them and made sure they were completely flush.  Then I moved over to the bent tabs on the elevator at the trim tab section, and riveted them with MSP-42 blind rivets per the plans.

The left elevator came out looking really great. I stuck the trim tab on the elevator with the hinge pin to make sure everything still lined up good. The plans has us attach the trim tab by bending the pin, but I did not feel comfortable putting the elevator in storage with the trim tab attached and it flopping around.  I think I will leave it off to keep it safe. That’s all for tonight.  Here are all the photos:

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Google Photos Link: https://goo.gl/photos/DN8NBZXz4HrbjCLw8

Hours Worked: 1.5, 1.5

ProSeal Party!

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Today was actually a pretty fun day.  I decided to wait on prosealing the rudder and elevators until I could do it all at once, and save on the cost of mixing up two different tubes for two different sessions.  I also took advantage of having some helpful friends to come by and lend a hand at this super messy task, with the promise of feeding them some of Tammy’s awesome “Mississippi Mud Pot Roast” as payment for their help.  One of the helpers has had experience with ProSeal before, so he gave us some tips on using this stuff.  Best tip:  Double glove….

We started out by un-cleocing the trailing edge of the rudder so we could get the trailing edge wedge out and clean it.  I used acetone to wipe down the wedge as well a both sides of the skin to make sure we get good adhesion, although after using ProSeal, I think this stuff would stick to anything. Once we had the parts cleaned off, we mixed up the tube of Proseal.  This was actually a neat setup, and the rods made it pretty easy to get it all mixed up and proportioned correctly.   Then we gooped on a decent portion on the trailing edge wedge, and smeared it to a nice even consistency using the pieces of some clothespins.

Having plenty of hands made this job go much smother.  One guy squirted on the Proseal from the caulking gun, while we smoothed it out using the ends of the clothespins and pieces of some paint mixing sticks.  Once we had the wedge good and covered with this sticky mess, two guys held the ends of the wedge, while me and the other helper held the trailing edge of the skins open just enough so they could slide the wedge in place. We lined it up with the holes and then used a few clecos to hold it until we could set it aside and then cleco it down to the 2×2 angle aluminum which serves as our straight edge.  Before clecoing it down to the straight edge, I did run my finger using some force along the the trailing edge to make sure all the excess Proseal was squeeezed out to prevent pillowing between the clecos. Then, once we had all the clecos inserted, we went back and placed some clothes pins in between the clecos to help clamp it down even further. I also gave each one of the clothes pins an extra “squeeze” every so often by pinching the down on the nose of them.

  

With the rudder ready to be set aside and cured, we moved on to the elevators.  I wanted to put a decent glob/dab of ProSeal at the ends of the stiffeners near the trailing edges.  This is supposed to help fight off any vibration and keep the stiffeners from cracking, so I figured its worth the little bit of time to go ahead and do this.  We started out by unclecoing both elevators, and then using a combination of paint mixing sticks, the caulking gun and finese to get a good blob of Proseal on each stiffener junction.  Again, having several sets of hands REALLY made this job much easier.  We ended up using nearly the whole tube (medium sized tube from Vans) on the rudder and both elevators.

After we had both elevators prosealed, we clecoed them back together, and I will finish riveting them in a few days once the Proseal cures. Just some words of advice:

  1.  Proseal is incredibly sticky, and WILL get everywhere.
  2. Double glove…it makes it easy to pull off your outer layer, and slip on a new set. Sweaty hands from the gloves are hard to get a fresh pair on, so double gloving avoids this problem
  3. This stuff smells like sewer and new tires. Make sure you have good ventilation. Its not as bad as AKZO, but man, its a weird smell.
  4. It has a pretty decent working time of about an hour or so. Maybe more if you are willing to risk it.  It was a little cold in the basement, so we didn’t want to chance it.

Here’s the whole photo album:

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Google Photos Link: https://goo.gl/photos/4fRLG915Z8FAGnmZ6

Hours Worked: 1.25

Riveting the Right Elevator

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Its time to rivet up a control surface! The right elevator is ready to be closed up and riveted.  I have decided that I am going to rivet the bottom side of the skins, and leave the top side clecod down for now.  This way, I can hold off on ProSealing the trailing edge stiffeners until I have the rudder, and both elevators ready for ProSeal.  This will save me from having to waste so much of this stuff, and I can get all the ProSeal work done in one session.

So, tonight I begin with riveting on the E-713 counterbalance skin to the E-701 skin. We do this because two of the rivets would be enclosed inside the skin once we insert the skeleton, and not be accessible.  So, we rivet those two rivets with the skeleton out of the skin at first.  I used my squeezer to set these rivets.

Once those two rivets are set, its time to shape the counterweight.  I filed down the sharp corners to match the contours of the E-713 skin, and also filed down around the edges so that it would fit in the skin easier. The we loose fit the E-714 counterweight into the skin, and then the skeleton assembly gets inserted into the skin.  Its a tight fit trying to wiggle it all together, especially around the counterweight.  Eventually I got the skeleton all situated into the skin and then I clecoed every hole to make sure it didn’t twist or shift.

Now its time to rivet! I thought it’d be best to start at the counterweight and work my way up the E-713 skin, and all the way down the tip of the end rib.  There’s a few different lengths of AN423AD3 rivets being used here due to the different overlapping skins, so I made sure to use the right one in each hole.  I had previously lapped the edge of the skins so that they would sit nice and flush after riveting, so I didn’t have to do that here.  Once I had the end rib riveted, I worked my way down the spar and finally to the E-702 end rib. I was able to use my squeezer on all these, so they came out perfect.

Having the bottom skin riveted on completely, I left the top skin just clecod for now.  I will come back to it later on, ProSeal the stiffeners and close it up. The last few steps on this elevator is to finish attaching the counterweight and torquing it.  I dug through my parts, got the bolts, washer and nut that the plans called for and used them on the counterweight.  Then I used my beam torque wrench to measure the drag on the nylon lock nut (which was 5 inch/lbs), and added that to the the 20-25 inch/lbs that the plans calls for as the torque spec on these type of bolts.  In total, I torqued them down to right at 30 inch/lbs total and then use some CrossCheck (Torque seal) to mark the nuts and screw heads as being torqued.  This CrossCheck also makes it easy to inspect the bolts to make sure they have not vibrated loose.  The paint will crack if the bolt or nut has turned.

Thats all for tonight! A little over 2 hours total, and the right elevator is 95% completed, and will go back on the shelf until I am ready to ProSeal everything.  Here’s all the photos I took tonight:

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Google Photos Link: https://goo.gl/photos/GRC1mBikUq2TWKsEA

Hours Worked: 2.25

Riveting the Right Elevator Skeleton

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After taking short break from the priming session, I dug back into riveting together the right elevator skeleton.  This will give the primer on those doublers some time to dry. AKZO dries super quick, so by the time I get ready for them they should be ready for me 🙂   Per the plans, Vans has us start out by riveting together the E-703 and E-704 ribs which creates the counterbalance assembly  This goes easy enough with a squeezer and some AN470AD4-4 rivets.

Next up the plans has us rivet the E-709 end rib to the E-702 spar.  I had to take caution here, because we use AN426AD3-4 rivets, which need to be dimpled and sit flush on the front side of the spar so that the WD-605-1-R elevator horn will sit flush against the spar.  I was able to set these rivets with the flush set in my squeezer and they ended up nice and flush against the spar.

Then the plans has us rivet on the E-703/704 assembly to the E-702 spar.  This is where things got frustrating.  I was able to set the two rivets for the E-703 end rib with the squeezer. However, the two rivets for the E-704 were in a much tighter spot and I couldn’t get to then with the squeezer.  So, I drug out the rivet gun and bucking bar, but the straight 1/8 rivet set would not line up with the shop head of the rivet because of the gun body, so I had to use the offset 1/8 rivet set.  The first rivet I was able to set pretty well with the gun and bucking bar.  The second one?  Yeah, not so much.  I had to drill it out and try again.  Luckily, the second time went better than the first and I got the rivet set.

I then decided to skip back up to the doublers and platenuts on the E-702 spar.  These were fairly easy to do, I just double checked that I had the right length rivets in the right holes, as we use three different lengths in these sections.  I also double checked I had the orientation of the platenuts correct as well, and then used the squeezer to set al these rivets.  I love the way it came out!

Finally, I decided to rivet on the WD-605-1-R elevator horn to finish off the skeleton.  Again, double checking the orientation, because it is possible to put this part on upside down if you’re not careful.  Then, I riveted in using AN470AD4-4 rivets and my squeezer.

This finishes up the right elevator skeleton, and in the next session, I think I will rivet the skin to the elevator, but I am still debating on saving that portion until I get ready to pro-seal the rudder trailing edge.  This way I can use the same ProSeal to bond the trailing edges of the stiffeners of the elevators. We’ll see how it goes.  Here’s the photos from tonights session:

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Google Photos Album link: https://goo.gl/photos/Mu4Tk4GGtpf46Rmq9

Hours Worked: 3

 

Priming a Few Parts For the Right Elevator

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I started off tonight by priming a few little odds and ends for the right elevator. I had missed the little doublers in my first round somehow, and I needed to prime the replacement counter balance skin too. I decided to mix up a very small amount of AKZO and use my primer pistol to spray these few parts. The primer pistol is dead simple, and uses film cans as its paint cups which makes it easy cleanup.

This was the first time I have ever used this primer pistol, and its pretty convenient,  However, it sprays super heavy, so I had to back way away from the parts.  I did get a little bit of bubbling on one of the doublers from the heavy spray, but I’m not worried about it since its a part that will not be visible.  I followed my normal procedure of scuffing with scotchbrite, cleaning with acetone and priming.  I am pretty happy with the way these parts came out, regardless of the heavy spray from the primer pistol.  It done a decent enough job, and the next time, I will just keep the tip far away from the parts to get a thinner coat.  I do like how easy the cleanup is: Just toss the little film can and run a small amount of acetone down the tiny copper tube.

That was pretty much it for this small session.  After cleaning up, I took a short break and will come back down to finish up the skeleton in another session tonight. Spent about 45 minutes on this, counting the 30 minutes for the AKZO to catalyze after mixing it up.  I used that time to prep and clean the parts.  Heres all the photos:

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Google Photos Album link:

Hours Worked: .75

Final Prep on Right Elevator

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Its almost time to rivet the left elevator together, but first I have to take care of a few last tid bits. I disassembled the right elevator and deburred all of the parts, including the skin. The next step was to dimple the skin using the DRDT-2 and then dimple the skeleton parts using my squeezer, since some of these ribs have limited access.  On the trailing edge of the ribs, I had to break out the pop rivet dimple dies to get in those tight spaces, which takes a little time and patience.  The parts came out looking great and a test fit of a AN426 rivet seemed to agree:

 

Then I beveled the edges of the E-713 counter balance skin so that it would have an easy transition from the E-701 skin laying over the top of it. I started out getting it roughed out with a file, and then finished it off on the scotchbrite wheel to get a nice smooth bevel.  I also rolled the edges of the skin so that it will lay nice and flush against the E-713 when it comes time to rivet.  These little time sinks are things that take patience but are what creates a superb quality product in the end, so its time well spent.

Even though it doesn’t seem like a lot got done tonight, I had a solid 2.5 hours of work getting these parts prepped for final riveting.  Since I had to replace the E-713 counterbalance skin, I will need to do another small priming session to prime the inside of the skin, and I am going to also prime a few of the doublers for the nut plates as well.  I will probably setup for the priming session tomorrow and maybe start riveting the skeleton together.  Here are the photos from tonights session:

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Google Photos Link: https://goo.gl/photos/D6SH5X6hfyLBFwYi8

Hours Worked: 2.5

Bending the Left Elevator Trailing Edge

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I spent about 20 minutes bending the left elevator trailing edge in the bending brake tonight.  I figured since I already had my bending brake setup on my bench, I might as well go ahead and bend the left elevator as well.  Since this elevator doesn’t have as much trailing edge to bend (due to the trim tab), it was really easy to get bent to the right shape and only took about 20 minutes counting checking it with a straight edge. It came out great, and then went back on the shelf until I get ready for it.

I decided to do a little more work on the right elevator since it took less than a half hour to bend the left.  I thought I would go ahead and get the right elevator assembled so I could match drill the skin to the skeleton and get it ready for dimpling.  While I was assembling the E-713 counterbalance skin to the E-703 and E-704 ribs I realized I made my first mistake, and one so bad I would need to order some new parts 🙁  I made the mistake last month during the initial assembly  which you can see by this photo. Notice the counterbalance skin, I have it flipped over in the wrong direction.  This cascaded down to when I drilled the lead counterweight.  So, essentially what happened is I assembled everything with that skin flipped over, and then match drilled the counterweight to it.  Tonight, when I started assembling everything together, I noticed the counterweight holes were not lining up, which is when I noticed that I messed this part up.  You can see from these photos how the parts were drilled:

That counterweight should be on the OTHER side of the rib and you can see the sharpie marks I made tonight to see just how bad it would be to re-drill.  These holes are too close so re-drilling them is not an option.  But, it looks like only the counterweight and its skin are needing to be replaced, and since the kit came with two (one for the left and another for the right) I can just use the remaining  E-714 and E-713 that would have went on the left side,  to keep working until the replacement parts come in. Both the left and right parts identical.

Thank goodness that I only need to replace two parts, the E-714 counterweight and the E-713 counterbalance skin for a grand total of about $40 from Vans.  I am so glad I caught this now, before I wound up having to replace more parts!  Oh well, I guess its good that my first mistake was something that is easy to fix and cheap to replace.  Luckily it won’t hold up any progress while I wait on the new parts.

So, I pulled out the E-714 and E-713 from my stock and re-drilled the skin and counterweight MAKING SURE the orientation was correct this time :-).  Drilling lead is a pretty rough task on a drill bit, so I kept it slathered up in Boelube.  With that squared away, I decided I’d go ahead and assembly it to the skeleton and then match drill the left elevator skin to the skeleton to get it ready for dimpling.  This was pretty uneventful, and went quickly.

Lasty, I figured I would get the last little step done tonight which was to match drill the WD-605-R elevator horn to the inboard side of the rudder.  I cleco’ed it on to the inboard R-709 rib, double-checking its orientation (I bet this part is expensive to fix, compared to the counterweight ha!), and then drilled it with a #40 drill bit.

And with that, the right elevator is ready for disassembly, dimpling and then riveting. That will be in another work session, I was a bit frazzled after worrying about messing up the counterweight, so I called it a night.  Here is the album for all the photos:

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Google Photos Link: https://goo.gl/photos/2i6PtVKFbjNHSrat8

Hours Worked: 2.5