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RV-7 Andrew Z #73658

And I would like to draw your attention to the following three dimples. Don't they look lovely?
Looks like a professional dimpled these holes.
20100414-011-large.jpg


It was the girlfriend!
Girlfriend dimpling. (She kept giggling after each one. And after each time I said "dimple." There may or may not have been red wine involved.)
20100414-012-large.jpg


As if I hadn't had enough drama for the night, Ginger came out, grabbed some wood, and took it inside to chew up all over our staircase landing. Here are some of the remnants.
It's better than her eating the window sills. Or the banister. Or our patio chairs. Or my soul.
20100414-034-large.jpg


Anyway, I spent a few more minutes with the Permagrit block rounding the edges of the stiffeners. Next up, edge-finishing with the scotchbrite wheel, scuffing, cleaning, and priming. Then, same dance with the skin and the backriveting!

An hour and a half. Boom shakalaka.
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Post Title: Right Elevator Stiffener Riveting
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Sun, 18 Apr 2010 22:13:56 +0000
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A few days ago I got a little time in on the project. I'll see if I can remember what happened. 3 hours, 116 rivets...2 of them drilled out and reset. Here we go. First thing, in preparation for stiffener riveting was to get the skin devinyled. Here's my devinyling table, wooden stick (won't dissapate heat) and permanent marker.
Ready to use the soldering iron to devinyl.
20100418-001-large.jpg


After devinyling the inside of the right elevator skin.
For some reason I like devinyling. Don't ask me why.
20100418-004-large.jpg


Here's the outside of the skin after devinyling. This actually takes a long time to do.
I just devinyled the stiffener holes. I'll devinyl the rest after drilling to the skeleton.
20100418-005-large.jpg


At some point last weekend (can't remember which day), I was sent to Home Depot (maybe Lowe's...it was a busy day) to grab some gardening supplies. I took the opportunity to grab some indoor/outdoor carpet for the workbenches.
Here's what I call my toolbench with a new carpet surface.
20100418-009-large.jpg


You should be able to see the "workbench"' with carpet on it in future pictures. Anyway, I grabbed the skin and did some deburring (interior and exterior) and some scuffing (interior only, for priming).
Scuffed strip on the left, non-scuffed on the right.
20100418-010-large.jpg


After a few more minutes, I dimpled the skin (no pictures, sorry), and then decided they were ready for priming.
Where is that self-etching primer?
20100418-011-large.jpg


i got the picture order backwards, so you'll see the skin primed later, but here I am getting ready (or just finishing) stiffener edge prep. I usually use my Permagit block to knock down any ridges, edge deburring tool (pictured below) to chamfer both edges, and then a scotchbrite pad to smooth everything out.
Right elevator stiffeners and my edge deburring tool.
20100418-012-large.jpg


Here's the picture of my primed skin.
It looks sloppy now, but wait until I get the vinyl off. Then the primed lines will look nice.
20100418-013-large.jpg
 
After the stiffener edge prep, the stiffeners got taken inside to be washed with dawn detergent.
Here are half of the stiffeners, being cleansed of their oily fingerprints and aluminum dust.
20100418-014-large.jpg


I decided to take a picture of how much detergent I use. Nothing really important, just camera-happy, I guess.
Dirty stiffeners need to be cleansed of their aluminum dust and fingerprints.
20100418-015-large.jpg


While those were drying (and then flipped and sprayed on the other side), I placed rivets in the dimpled holes and taped them in place.
Rivets just asking to be beaten into submission.
20100418-018-large.jpg


I started to backrivet, and everything was going very smoothly.
Beautiful shop heads.
20100418-019-large.jpg


More beautiful shop heads.
God, I love backriveting.
20100418-021-large.jpg


But anyway, I got through all 116 rivets, then flipped everything over and saw these!
Ahh! Worst rivet ever!
20100418-022-large.jpg

This one is not so bad...
20100418-023-large.jpg


I figured out why this happened, and it falls squarely on me.

While I was dimpling, I didn't pull the other half of the skin back well enough, so the skin side that was being dimpled was not sitting parallel to the faces of the dimple dies. One side of the die dented each of the last stiffener rivet holes on one side. The rivet in the second to last picture was flush against the backriveting plate, but the skin was dented, or above the backriveting plate.

I'm going to drill out all of the bad rivets on the trailing edge (of course, the worse of the bunch is on the top of the elevator, right where all of you are going to come look at my elevators), and then try to smooth out the skin by backriveting it with a flush set from the inside out.

It might ruin the skins, which will be expensive. I'll be sure to take some pictures of the process. Maybe it will save one of you some time and frustration...
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Post Title: Fixed Right Elevator Trailing Edge
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Sat, 24 Apr 2010 18:00:37 +0000
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I've been lacking in motivation recently due to some badly dimpled holes along the trailing edge of the right elevator. All last week, my error had been hanging over my head, and I was having trouble even motivating myself to fix them.

Saturday afternoon (writing this later) I mustered up some courage and drilled out 13 of the 14 trailing edge rivets on the right elevator. They are really not trailing edge rivets, but the aft-most rivets of each of the 14 stiffeners (7 on the upper skin, and 7 on the lower skin).
You can't even really see the damage in this picture...
20100424-001-large.jpg


Here's a couple pictures of the damage.
You can see how the dimple kind of tweaked the skin. Boo damaged skin.
20100424-003-large.jpg


The above pictures was the worst one. This one was more typical.
A small ridge below the hole (in the picture) and a small dent above the hole (in the picture).
20100424-004-large.jpg


After getting them all drilled out (13 of them, one of them was good enough to leave alone), I set up the skin with a long backriveting plate underneath the offending holes and used a 2x4 laid spanwise on the stiffeners with some clamps to keep the skin surface flat. Then, I used 4 or 5 long pieces of tape to pull the upper skin back to allow plenty of room to work.
You can still see where the very trailing edge is starting to bend down. This is why I had the problem in the first place.
20100424-002-large.jpg


With no rivets in the holes, I used a small flush set (about 3/8" diameter) and my rivet gun turned way down to flatten the dents (I'll call them dents for dramatic purposes, but they were really just small impressions) and ridges (again, really just small high spots) flat. I put the flush set on either side of the existing dimple (which was okay, it was the area just outside of the dimple, where the edges of the dimple die set had tweaked the skin a little, where I was having my problem) and gave it a few taps.

After finishing one side, I took off the protective tape I was using and inspected. It ended up okay. I think if I were going to polish the empennage, it would bug me, but my latest [URL="http://n999za.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/black-and-grey-outward-swoops-with-cs.jpg[/img] ]paint scheme idea[/URL] has me painting the elevators.

I did the other side, and then cleaned everything up, put some rivets back in the holes, and set up each side again with my fancy setup to actually backrivet the last hole of the stiffeners in place. It went perfectly, and I was really careful to hold everything very flat against the backriveting plate.

(By "perfectly," I really mean "I messed up one of the holes, had to drill it out to #30 and use an oops rivet." ) I'll point it out.
 
Here are some examples of the replaced finished rivets.
This one looks great!
20100424-005-large.jpg

Pretty good. You can still kind of see where the damage was.
20100424-006-large.jpg

Holy ****, how did I do that to the rivet? This is the one that got drilled out again and replaced.
20100424-007-large.jpg

Here's the shop head for the oops rivet. This was my first real oops rivet. Not bad.
20100424-016-large.jpg

This one is okay.
20100424-008-large.jpg

Another very nice one.
20100424-009-large.jpg

It's not blurry in real life, I promise.
20100424-010-large.jpg

Whoa, who scratched my skin? It was probably the male part of the dimple die. That will hopefully polish out, (or it will get cleaned up and painted).?
20100424-011-large.jpg

Another good one. In all of these, you can kind of see the larger diameter area that was dimpled.
20100424-014-large.jpg

This one is on the very end, as you can see the devinyling lines.
20100424-015-large.jpg


It looks the same as all the rest, of course, so you'll never know, and I've already forgotten which side (top or bottom) it's on.

Anyway, I drilled out 13 of the 14 original rivets, then had to redo one of those, so 14 rivets drilled out and reset successfully in an hour today. Not bad. I'll add pictures when I can get them uploaded. Sorry for the lack of work recently.
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Post Title: Drill Press!!!
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Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:00:18 +0000
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After the other day's sucesess with fixing my dimpling errors, I need to run to the aviation department of my local big box store and grab a 6' long 2x8 to cut in half and some hinges to make my homemade bending brake.

Instead of making it there, I had to stop by Harbor Freight to grab this drill press. Normally $90, I got a coupon in my email for $49.99. I can't pass that up.
The box is a little damaged, but everything inside was okay.
20100426-001-large.jpg

A blurry shot of me starting to assemble.
20100426-002-large.jpg

Another in-process shot. This is surprisingly nice quality.?
20100426-004-large.jpg

I had to install the little yellow knob to help open the lid. After this shot, I moved the belt down to the lowest speed (650 RPM, which is still pretty high).
20100426-005-large.jpg


I also bought these cool long pliers. I didn't need them for the airplane specifically, but rather my girlfriend needed them to help clean out a hair clog in her sink in the bathroom. Good excuse to buy tools, and they don't get accounted for on the airplane budget. Wuhoo!
Pretty nice pliers. I have a feeling I'll be using these often.
20100426-006-large.jpg


The allen wrench the drill press provided to help with assembly got filed away with my other extra allen wrenches.
You can see I am a little short on allen wrenches.
20100426-009-large.jpg


Back to the drill press vice. After a little cleaning, this thing doesn't look half bad.
I'll have to find some bolts to mount this. Except I'll have to move it for different pieces. Maybe I'll just use clamps.
20100426-011-large.jpg


After a few minutes of trying to figure out where to put the drill press. This is what I settled on for now.
Notice I'm drinking sunset wheat tonight. Mmmm.
20100426-012-large.jpg


Then, I put the 1/8" dowel into the trailing edge of the skin and taped it in place. (Not shown in the following picture, because I was recreating the process for the camera. Look 2 pictures down for the dowel rod.) Then, you put the skin in the brake all the way against the hinges, and start bending.

This is not a fast process. It takes a surprising amount of force. I thought it was going to be a one shot deal, but it takes a lot of bending. You start with the skin against the hinges, then bend around the dowel. That took a whole bunch of times (I was stopping a lot to inspect). Then, you move the skin a little away from the hinge, and bend again. This allows you to really form the edge around the dowel.
If you pretend there is a dowel rod in there, this would be the first bend.
20100428-007-large.jpg


Here's where I could get to with the dowel rod in place.
About halfway there.
20100428-006-large.jpg
 
Then, you remove the dowel rod and keep going, same deal, but a lot more gently, because I didn't want to squeeze the trailing edge too much (now there is no dowel rod to prevent squash-age.
I thought this was good enough, but this is about 3/4 the way there.
20100428-011-large.jpg


Of course, because I thought that was good enough, I clecoed the skeleton into the skin.
It's starting to look like something that could be considered an elevator.
20100428-012-large.jpg


But, after grabbing my straightedge, I'm getting some "fall-off" before the radius. This happens because the radius hasn't been formed well, and then you pull the skin down to the skeleton, and it bends close to the trailing edge. It's not terrible, but I know I can do better.
It's not the dreaded bulge, but it is some pretty good "fall-off."
20100428-013-large.jpg


Another shot.
No good here either.
20100428-014-large.jpg

Near the inboard edge.
20100428-015-large.jpg


Hmm. I unclecoed, and grabbed this shot. I'm about an inch from where I need to be, and the tension I am putting on the skin to pull it to the skeleton is causing that slight bend near the trailing edge.
About an inch.
20100428-016-large.jpg


I put that bad boy back in the brake and kept going. This time, I used two BFPs (the "p" stands for pliers. I'll let you figure out the "b" and "f") on either side of the brake and finished it up nicely.
More bending.
20100428-017-large.jpg


There we go. I made up that last inch, and now it rests right where the skeleton would go.
Much better. Perfect, in fact.
20100428-018-large.jpg


Here's an end-on shot.
How great is this? A perfect bend.
20100428-019-large.jpg
 
Let's get out the straightedge.
No fall-off before the radius.
20100428-021-large.jpg

Another place on the elevator.
20100428-024-large.jpg

And again, no fall-off. So happy!
20100428-025-large.jpg


After all that, I pulled the vinyl off of the outside of the elevator skins in preparation for deburring.
Hey! There's shiny aluminum under there. Let's start putting this bad boy together.
20100428-027-large.jpg


For my hard to reach places, I use a steel bar with a countersunk hole in it, put the hole of interest on top, and put in a sacrificial rivet to use as a male dimple die. Then, I grab a flush set, and push the rivet into the hole in the steel.
Getting ready to ghetto-dimple.
20100503-003-large.jpg


Here's a closeup of my steel bar for you to admire. The hole on the right is what I use for these tasks.
The hole on the left is useless, since I drilled it too far away from the edge of the bar. Dumb me.
20100503-004-large.jpg


Anyway, here's a shot of one side of the E-709 after using this technique.
The bottom dimple is from the tank dies, the top two are with the rivet trick. Not perfect, but not bad for the hard-to-reach area. Based on my experiences on the rudder, the skin will sit just fine in these dimples.
20100503-005-large.jpg


While that dried, I snapped an action shot of me devinyling the inside of the skins. I also deburred all of the exterior sides of the recently drilled holes, but didn't get to the insides, I'll do that as soon as I get back into the shop.
Oh man, those stiffeners and rivets look nice.
20100503-008-large.jpg


Here are both interior sides done. (And by "done" I mean "done devinyling with just the parts I'm going to deburr, scuff, dimple, and prime.") The rest of the vinyl will come off just before riveting, and will reveal nice untouched (and unprimed) alclad.
Pretty pretty.
20100503-013-large.jpg
 
Post Title: I Love Tungsten (Started Riveting Right Elevator)
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Sat, 08 May 2010 16:00:19 +0000
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Well, this morning, the girlfriend ran some errands, and I got my house chores done early, so I headed out to the garage to make some loud noises. Recently, I've been taking one component at a time from drilled through primed. It make my work sessions less boring (not a full day of deburring lots of parts, but rather one day of drilling, deburring, scuffing, dimpling, cleaning, and priming one part).

Anyway, today, it was the right elevator spar's turn.
First, deburring. There's my oversize drill bit spun in my fingers.
20100508-002-large.jpg


Then I put a nice scuff on all sides and edges.
Scuffed and edge finished.
20100508-003-large.jpg


Then, I broke out the tank dies to do some dimpling.
I love these dies. Such high quality.
20100508-004-large.jpg


I know you guys have seen tons of dimples from me, but I still take pictures.
The male side.
20100508-005-large.jpg

And the female side. Apparently I have not edge-finished yet.
20100508-006-large.jpg


After finished dimpling, I grabbed this shot down the length of the spar.
Right elevator spar, dimpled.
20100508-007-large.jpg


I forgot to take a picture of the countersinking I had to do on the front (flanged) side of the spar. The spar needs to be countersunk to hold the flush rivets attaching the E-709 Root Rib Right. The elevator control horn fits over them.

Then, inside for cleaning and back outside to the paint booth.
One side primed.
20100508-008-large.jpg


While I was waiting for the back side of the spar to dry, I went ahead and pulled the vinyl off both sides of the E-713 counterbalance skin.
The vinyl comes off a lot more easily when it is warm out.
20100508-010-large.jpg


Then, I got the other side of the spar primed, and prepped for some riveting. I had already prepped and primed the two reinforcement plates that get riveted to the back of the spar.
There's my new tungsten bucking bar.
20100508-011-large.jpg


Here's my setup for spar riveting.
You can't see the reinforcement plate, but those clecos are holding it on.
20100508-012-large.jpg


<a name="Riveting">[/URL]
 
After 8 rivets, all I can say is...WOW. I love this tungsten bucking bar. 8 perfect rivets. With the older, and smaller, bar I was using before, things were always bouncing around, and my hand was vibrating, etc. With this bar, it is so easy to rivet. I should have bought this at the beginning of the project.
Wow, these are amazing shop heads.
20100508-013-large.jpg

Here's the other side.
20100508-014-large.jpg


I spent about 2 minutes just staring at the bar. Amazing.
I thought I would show you my grip.
20100508-015-large.jpg



8 more, also perfect.
Wuhoo, this bucking bar is great!
20100508-016-large.jpg

And, the other side of those.
20100508-018-large.jpg


I wanted to buck these, but I thought it would be better to squeeze them.
The spar to E-709 rivets.?
20100508-020-large.jpg


These are the flush rivets I was talking about earlier. Of course, when the primer is only 30 minutes old, and you try to clean up some smudges with MEK, the primer will rub off. Duh.
I re-shot some primer over this right after this picture.
20100508-021-large.jpg


What a great day. I got to make loud noises, and I'm in love (sorry girlfriend) with my new tungsten bucking bar.

20 rivets in 1.5 hours. Good day.
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Post Title: Riveted Right Elevator Skeleton
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Fri, 14 May 2010 03:28:43 +0000
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Well, I'd been waiting for a couple days for an order from Aircraft Spruce to come in. I ordered a whole bunch (~60) #6 screws and nutplates to use to attach the emp tips, and added a couple 1/4" nutplates to attach to the elevator counterbalance spars so I can add more weight later for fine elevator balancing.

Here's the deal. When you initially balance the control surfaces (without paint), you can either leave them a little heavy (which some do), or balance them exactly. Given that I might leave my empennage polished, I thought I would go ahead and balance them perfectly for first flight, then rebalance (pronounced "add weight") after paint. While the forward tooling hole in the counterbalance ribs would work for a straight up bolt and nut, I'd prefer a nutplate. Also, since the two counterbalance ribs are butted against eachother, I'd prefer to drill for the nutplate now, so I can deburr both sides of both surfaces.

(I wonder how people deburr holes drilled through two permanently attached skins. Maybe just the inside and outside of the two skins and not the middle two surfaces?)

Anyway, here's the order.
screws and nutplates.
20100513-003-large.jpg


Both size #6 screws in their new home.
I'll definitely be able to tell the difference between the two sizes.
20100513-004-large.jpg


Here are the 1/4" nutplates. I bought one-lug because I thought the second lug might interfere with the An509 screw and nut used to attach the elevator counterweight. I'll point it out again later.
MK2000-4 nuplates.?
20100513-005-large.jpg


Then, some of the smaller MK2000-06 nutplates. I bought these for some of the tight locations on the emp tips.
I forgot to take a picture of the 60-odd 2 leg nutplates.?
20100513-006-large.jpg


Okay, now on to real work. Here I am trying to figure out how to get this thing in a place where I can drill it. I don't have any 1/4" clecos, so I had to just eyeball it. That was a bad idea.
After one of the #40 holes drilled.
20100513-007-large.jpg

Here's the second hole drilled. You can see I had to enlarge the tooling hole to much bigger than 1/4" because I am lame and didn't have a 1/4" cleco to located the two attach holes. Lame me.
20100513-008-large.jpg


After taking those apart and deburring the holes, I scuffed everything up, leaving only the four rear-most holes on the E-703 End Rib. Again, I use the rivet in the hole into the countersunk steel bar trick.
Ready to flush rivet to form this dimple.
20100513-009-large.jpg

I have a 5/8" flush set, which comes in handy in some places.
20100513-010-large.jpg

Both done.
20100513-011-large.jpg


After cleaning those two ribs, I set them aside to dry before priming. Then, I moved on to the WD-605-R-1 Elevator Horn.
Let's see. AN470AD4-4 rivets. I might have some of those.
20100513-012-large.jpg
 
A small smiley on the lower left rivet, but according to the diagrams, it is okay.
6 nice rivets. The shop heads are very nice.
20100513-013-large.jpg

See? Told you.
20100513-014-large.jpg


Then I shot the six on the other side of the horn.
I love this new tungsten bucking bar.
20100513-017-large.jpg

6 more down.
20100513-019-large.jpg


Back to the paint booth.
E-703 End Rib and E-704 Counterbalance Rib being primed.
20100513-020-large.jpg


And now, a big pictures shot of the elevator horn on the skeleton.
It's starting to look like an airplane.
20100513-021-large.jpg


Then, I deviated from the plans (like many builders here.) It is easier to attach the E-704 Counterbalance rib to the spar if you don't rivet it to the E-703 End rib first. I managed to massacre the left head, and the flange on E-704 didn't sit flat against the skin on the other side.
Whoa. Take it easy, Andrew.
20100513-022-large.jpg

I don't like how the flange isn't flush with the spar web here.?
20100513-023-large.jpg


Time to get the drill out.
Drilled first with #40, then #30 through the head only.
20100513-024-large.jpg

Pop the heads off.
20100513-025-large.jpg
 
Then re-set. This is a little better.
But not perfect. I think it's going to be good enough. I'd rather see them sitting perfectly flat, but the area around the rivet is sitting where it should be. It's just around the edges of the flange that are standing off a little.
20100513-026-large.jpg


Yikes.
The three upper middle rivets are all horrible. I can't figure out why the gun is jumping around so much.
20100513-029-large.jpg


Anyway, before drilling those out, I wanted to get that nutplate riveted on. Same deal here, though. I couldn't figure out how to cleco it on for riveting.
Here are the two NAS1097 rivets ready to go.
20100513-030-large.jpg


I ended up shooting both of these at once. (How cool is that?)
NAS1097-4 (I think they are -4s)
20100513-033-large.jpg


I held the bucking bar on the other side and used my finger to hold the nutplate firmly against the web of the rib.
Is this a good method? No. Did it work? Yes.
20100513-034-large.jpg


Anyway, in the above picture, you can see one of the three rivets that I botched. After drilling all three out, I reset 2 successfully, but messed up this one again.
Grrr. It didn't really bend over, but it kind of shifted to one side.
20100513-035-large.jpg


Drilled it out, then did the exact same thing. This is the third time I've drilled out a rivet on this hole.
Grrr.
20100513-037-large.jpg


I figured out that during the first try, I had bent the rib web a little, so the rivet was pre-inclined to lean. I took my tungsten bucking bar and my 5/8" flush set (without a rivet) and got everything flattened out again. Next try, the rivet set well.
Top middle rivet. Much better.
20100513-038-large.jpg


Finally, an upside down picture of the right elevator skeleton.
Tomorrow, I'll get back to work on the skin. Maybe this weekend I'll have an elevator!
20100513-040-large.jpg


2 hours, 26 rivets. 5 drilled out (3 of those was one hole!)
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Post Title: Ordered Wing Kit
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Fri, 14 May 2010 14:54:33 +0000
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Well, I did it.

At 10:35am PST this morning, I sent in my wing kit order.
13 weeks...[sigh]
lead-times-5-14-101.jpg

It's pretty thorough. I grabbed the SAE version (they also had metric).
20100515-002-large.jpg


Subtotal for the Roloc kit, tap and die kit, and roll of blue tape was $19.97. Not bad.
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Post Title: First of Many New Garage Shelves
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Sun, 16 May 2010 22:00:18 +0000
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So.

The front wall of my garage is a little chaotic. I have an old armoire (whoa, I had to go to wikipedia to figure out how to spell this) out there holding some airplane things, and then a set of collapsible shelves that basically hold small things that don't hang on the walls (pegboard) easily.

I need to get a little more organized, but I'm limited because of the 45° support holding up my overhead shelves.
This was an early picture, without the other shelving unit.
workbench-construction-010.jpg


Anyway, I want to push any newly-constructed shelves back against the wall, so unless I want to limit myself to 5 feet tall (no!), I need to limit the width to about 28 inches.

I'm going to use the same construction technique as the two workbenches (here and here) I built. Here's the plan:
Here's the concept. 6 feet tall, 28 inches wide. Various heights for the shelves.
first-of-new-shelves-004-large.jpg


First up, cut some wood!
The ones on the left are the left-to-right supports, the shorter ones on the left are the forward-and-aft supports.
first-of-new-shelves-005-large.jpg


Then, I took the long ones and the short ones and mocked them up in this little jig (for squareness) before drilling.
My drilling and assembly jig.
first-of-new-shelves-006-large.jpg


Then, for some reason, I took a picture of the wall.
The wall. No more description needed.
first-of-new-shelves-007-large.jpg


Then, I started assembly.
Here's the first shelf complete. (And my Dewalt circular saw.)
first-of-new-shelves-009-large.jpg

Two of six.
first-of-new-shelves-010-large.jpg


Oops, I stopped taking pictures of the assembly.
After the frame was complete, I attached some non-locking wheels to the bottom.
first-of-new-shelves-012-large.jpg


Then, I realized that the holes on the very front edge of the skin (for the pop rivets after you bend the leading edges together) will be very difficult to deburr if I wait until after bending to matchdrill them. I decided, like on the rudder, to drill and deburr them now.
Just making sure the #30 bit is the right bit.
20100519-003-large.jpg

After drilling, this looks like it will fit the bill when I am ready to start riveting the leading edges together.
20100519-004-large.jpg
 
After getting all of the holes deburred, I grabbed my scotchbrite pad and got to work scuffing. I grabbed an intermediate shot so you can see what I am doing.
Scuffity-scuff scuff.
20100519-005-large.jpg


After scuffing, I cleaned everything up with MEK (because it's harder to clean well with the dimples) and started dimpling. Here is the inboard edge of the right elevator (which is upside-down on the table) after dimpling with #40 dimple dies.
I love dimpling. Don't know why... (Whose palm prints are all over my elevator skin!?)
20100519-007-large.jpg


A before and after shot of dimpling.
Please no comments on the lack of edge finishing here. I did all the edge finishing after this step.
20100519-008-large.jpg


Like I said, after edge finishing and another wipe-down with MEK (and the requisite drying time), I put the skin up on my garbage bins and shot some primer on the interior surfaces. If you look closely, you can see where I have left the blue vinyl on the inside of the skins. That is where I don't want any primer (weight savings) after I am done. When the skin is dry and ready for riveting, I'll pull the vinyl out and be left with nice shiny, untouched aluminum.
I cant wait to rivet this stuff together. I am proud of this elevator.
20100519-009-large.jpg


One little hour, but good prep work for riveting soon!
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Post Title: Final Prep for Right Elevator
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Fri, 21 May 2010 03:00:42 +0000
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Well, after deciding not to work out tonight (in favor of wine), I made it out to the garage pretty late for some final prep work before riveting the right elevator.
Tonight's build partner, 2004 Manyana (play on words) Crianza. A delicious tempranillo from Spain.
20100520-001-large.jpg


On with the building, you say? Fine.

One of the last real fabrication items I have left on the right elevator was enlarging the counterbalance skin dimples. To make a long story short, I don't have #10 dimple dies, so I dimpled with #8, and then planned on using the AN507 screw head and a nut tightened down to enlarge the dimple enough for the screw to sit flush.

This did not work.

Okay, instead of waiting for a week for a $40 dimple die to arrive, let's be creative.

Plan: matchdrill two holes in a block of wood, countersink the holes, then use a flush set to enlarge the dimples.
Here's my block of wood, later to be countersunk.
20100520-002-large.jpg


Well, I don't really have any good pictures of my attempt, because that didn't work either, and I was getting frustrated.

Finally, I told the girlfriend to come out and listen to me explain the problem. (I knew this would help me come up with a solution.)

Without even flinching. "Why don't you use a bigger screw to make your dimple?"

my face = <deer in the headlights>

Of course! (Except I didn't have a bigger countersunk crew, but it set me down the right path.)
This should work. (It's my punch set that came with my rivet gun.)
20100520-005-large.jpg

Setup recreated (I had a piece of tape on the skin to prevent marring.)
20100520-004-large.jpg

The hole on the left has been "enlarged." This worked great!
20100520-003-large.jpg


Okay, let's move on. Next up, I needed to locally bevel the edges where the spar and tip rib are underneath the counterbalance rib (so the top skin doesn't show the transition bulges. So I marked those, and also started thinking about how to attach these empennage tips. See the two undimpled holes to the right? Those are two (well, 4, two on top and two on bottom) tip attach points that will eventually be drilled, deburred, and dimpled. Might as well do it now so I don't have to worry about deburring between riveted sheets.
Lining things up to wrap my head around this interface.
20100520-006-large.jpg


I flipped the pieces over and drilled them to #30.
The top two holes have been drilled and deburred, ready for dimpling.
20100520-007-large.jpg


After dimpling...this #6 screw fits pretty well. (Editorial note: I'm pretty locked in to attaching the elevator tips with screws. I know there is really no reason to take the tips off, but right now, I don't want to commit to blind rivets.)
That #6 screw looks like it will fit pretty well.
20100520-008-large.jpg


Once the other side was done, I primed the interior (and taped off exterior) side of the counterbalance skin.
Priming. You can see the two #6 dimples at the top of the left side of the skin. (I'll do the rest later...the rest are all accessible in the future.)
20100520-009-large.jpg

All done. (After using compressed air to blow the flaked primer off.)
20100520-011-large.jpg
 
Let's get this thing clecoed together.
Those big dimples sit nicely in each other. Here you can see those two holes are the only holes that overlap.
20100520-013-large.jpg


Next, the manual has you rivet the following two holes (not accessible once the spar and tip ribs are in place).
Protected with tape, this rivets were set beautifully.
20100520-014-large.jpg

Without clecos, it's starting to look like an elevator.
20100520-015-large.jpg


Next, "loosely place" the counterbalance in the counterbalance skin and "partially" insert the screws.
The untrimmed (on purpose) counterweight in the counterbalance skin.
20100520-016-large.jpg


last, but not least, they have you insert the skeleton in the skin and cleco together.
Wuhoo! It really does look like an elevator!
20100520-017-large.jpg

Those screw heads are pretty flush. (They are not tight yet, so they'll sit a little better once I get them tightened down.)
20100520-018-large.jpg
 
A couple pictures of some of the interfaces.
Just behind the counterweight.
20100520-019-large.jpg

Trailing edge of the tip.
20100520-020-large.jpg

Inside corner of the counterbalance rib. (What's that stuff hanging from the top edge? I'll have to investigate later.)
20100520-021-large.jpg

Finally, the trailing edge of the inboard rib.
20100520-023-large.jpg

Ready to rivet!
20100520-024-large.jpg

One more shot.
20100520-025-large.jpg


1.5 hours, 4 flush rivets set.
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Post Title: Riveted Right Elevator
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Sat, 22 May 2010 21:34:08 +0000
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Day's like these are my favorite days. Lot's of riveting. After a few minutes of reviewing the plans and construction manual, I grabbed the needed rivets from my hardware box.
-3.5s, -4s, and -4.5s.
20100522-002-large.jpg


I know this stuff can be boring, but my basic plan was to cleco every other hole, put a rivet in the other holes, tape, rivet, then uncleco, put rivets in the empty holes, move the tape over, then rivet.
Some rivets set, about to set the ones under the tape.
20100522-003-large.jpg

The first 8 rivets looked great.
20100522-004-large.jpg

Moving on to the leading edge area. Same dance. (Rivets about to be taped.)
20100522-005-large.jpg

Taped.
20100522-006-large.jpg

WHOA! I bet you didn't think you were going to get an action shot today!
20100522-008-large.jpg

Here's a nice row of rivets on the top of the right elevator. All the little blue dots on the rivets are from where the tape stuck after it was pulled off.
20100522-009-large.jpg

Of course, for anyone who is interested, some shop heads. (A few of those need another little squeeze.)
20100522-012-large.jpg


So I keep using the tape over and over to protect the skins from scratching from the flush squeezer sets. After about 7 rivets, I replace the tape.
I need a new piece of tape.
20100522-013-large.jpg


Everyone seems to have this picture. It's a complicated intersection, but everything looks good here.
That rivet on the top is not set yet, and it looks a little short. I'll go one length taller.
20100522-016-large.jpg
 
I was humming along doing great on the counterbalance skin when I noticed this.
An undimpled hole! Luckily, the skeleton underneath was dimpled with tank dies (a little deeper), so I got the dimple dies out and just dimpled it as it sits now. (Forgot to take a picture, but it worked great.)
20100522-017-large.jpg


Okay, let's move on to "permanently" mounting the counterbalance.
This screw is a little long. I better get out a washer or two.
20100522-018-large.jpg

This one should do.
20100522-019-large.jpg


No matter how hard I try, I always seem to mar the nuts.
The outboard screw torqued.
20100522-021-large.jpg

And the inboard hole torqued. (The nutplate in the hole on the left is for any future need for more weight.)
20100522-022-large.jpg


There were four rivets on the aft end of each side that I couldn't reach with the squeezer. I think the girlfriend might be sleeping, and it's in my best interest not to make any loud noises with the rivet gun.
I also pulled the blue tape I had on the stiffener rivets off. It looks wonderful now.
20100522-024-large.jpg

From the back. The right elevator, almost completed.
20100522-026-large.jpg


After a few errands and a couple hours passed, I snuck (ha, the rivet gun kind of gives away my location) back out to the garage to finish up. I have a pretty crazy setup of a few thin steel plates wedged against eachother with a blade screwdriver (something like this) to buck in tight places.
Worked like a charm again.
20100522-027-large.jpg

I did scratch the primer a little. I'll touch this up later. (And set the lower right rivet a little more.)
20100522-028-large.jpg

Last two rivets on the other side.
20100522-031-large.jpg


All I have to do now is roll the leading edges.

Oh. And figure out what to do about FORGETTING TO USE RTV ON THE AFT END OF THE STIFFENERS BEFORE FINAL ASSEMBLY. DOH!

2 hours
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72 rivets set per side, so 144 total. Good progress.
 
Post Title: Started Left Elevator
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Tue, 25 May 2010 00:00:44 +0000
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Well, it's monday. And even though I have a couple things remaining on the right elevator, I am going to follow the flow of the directions and move on to the left elevator before coming back to finish both of them.

In addition to the items they want you to do to both at the same time (roll leading edges, install rod-end bearings, etc.), I'll have to come back to do three things on the right elevator:

•Fix a few over-driven rivets (and a couple that bent over that I didn't catch at the time.)
•Figure out how to add RTV to the trailing edges after the fact (anyone have any ideas?)
•Trim down the counterbalance. I elected not to do this on purpose.
</ol>
Anyway, on to the left elevator. Here's the obligatory changing-of-the-plans shot.
On to the left elevator (and trim tab).
20100524-001-large.jpg


As I only have about a half an hour tonight, my plan was to just cover the basics. First, lay out all of the left elevator parts.
It doesn't look like a lot of work...
20100524-002-large.jpg


Devinyl the skeleton parts.
This picture is almost identical to the one before it, except for the missing blue vinyl on the skeleton parts.
20100524-003-large.jpg


Then, on to real work...kind of. The manual wants me to attach the hinge reinforcing plates to the spar, then move to the outer ribs.
Here you can see the two outer ribs fluted. I haven't straightened out the rib flanges yet, will get to that soon.
20100524-004-large.jpg


Blah blah blah, assemble the skeleton. For now, I didn't do any match-drilling. I do that hole-by-hole as I take the thing apart.
This one will be more interesting due to the trim spar.
20100524-005-large.jpg


Finally, I found one more of the stiffener angles. I got that devinyled and then cut from hole to hole to form some of the smaller stiffeners.
More small stiffeners. These go between the main spar and the trim spar (ahead of the trim tab).
20100524-006-large.jpg


Anyway, a short half hour of left elevator prep.
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Post Title: Left Elevator Stiffeners, Part Uno
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Thu, 27 May 2010 01:30:19 +0000
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Another quick night in the shop. First thing, I fired up my 6" grinder (with a scotchbrite wheel attached) and edge-finished half of the stiffeners. After that (about 45 minutes of the total 1 hour in the shop), I started the stiffener to skin drilling dance.) In this first picture, I've just placed the elevator trim backing plate in plate for the effect. On the right, my first two holes drilled (into a sacrificial piece of MDF) on the bottom of the left elevator.
Bottom of the left elevator, working from inboard to outboard.
20100526-012-large.jpg


Here are three of the shorter stiffeners drilled, and the forward most hole on the last four drilled.
3 done, 4 to go.
20100526-013-large.jpg

All of them drilled.
20100526-014-large.jpg


Next, I uncleco the assembly from the table, and recleco just the front and back holes of the stiffener so I can flip the skin over to match-drill the last hole (it's prepunched in the skin, but not the stiffener on a couple of the stiffeners). Then, I traced around the stiffeners with a sharpie, then pulled them off and clecoed them to the outside of the skin, again, to trace them with a sharpie. This will help me figure out where to remove the blue vinyl later instead of just guessing (like I did with the right elevator.
Of course, the stiffeners don't go on the outside of the skins, I am using them to mark the outside of the skin for devinyling.
20100526-015-large.jpg

See? All traced.
20100526-016-large.jpg

The inside, too.
20100526-017-large.jpg


lastly, I removed the stiffeners and marked them before prep for priming.
B2 is upside labelled upside-down. Maybe I should remake the stiffener. /sarcasm off.
20100526-018-large.jpg


One boring hour today.
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Post Title: Primed Some Left Elevator Stiffeners</title>
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Sat, 29 May 2010 20:00:14 +0000
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Not too much today. I got the lower left elevator stiffeners deburred, dimpled and primed.
Here are some of the stiffeners on the priming table.
20100529-001-large.jpg


Then, I turned my attention back to the skin to start devinyling.
Left elevator, ready to be devinyled.
20100529-002-large.jpg

Here are a couple lines showing my devinlying process. These are made with a soldering gun held against a wooden straight-edge.
20100529-004-large.jpg


Oh yeah, almost forgot. I stumbled across another Harbor Freight coupon. I bought this ~$10 storage container for wing hardware.
I have two already, one for rivets, and one for Empennage hardware. I assume I'll need a third for wing hardware (I'll combine the rivets from wing and emp if need be).
20100529-005-large.jpg


Okay, back to the project. I've pulled off some of the vinly strips.
Pulled off some of the vinyl strips.
20100529-006-large.jpg

Here, my devinyl line overlaps the tracing a little.
20100529-007-large.jpg

Another angle here.
20100529-008-large.jpg

So I put the trim spar in position, and realized I could move the line back a little, so that's what I did.
20100529-009-large.jpg
 
Next, I deburred and scuffed the skin in preparation for dimpling. (It's easier to scuff before dimpling.)
The lines to the right have been scuffed, the trim spar reinforcement area has not.
20100529-011-large.jpg

A closeup of scuffed versus not-scuffed.
20100529-012-large.jpg


To scuff an area (in preparation for priming), I scuff in one 45° direction...
45° to the right.
20100529-013-large.jpg


Then, 90° from that.
All done. You can sort of see the two directions.?
20100529-014-large.jpg


Finally, some dry stiffeners, ready to be backriveted to the skins.
Pretty stiffeners.
20100529-015-large.jpg


I always like to take a big picture shot at the end of the day.
Left skin, ready for dimpling.
20100529-016-large.jpg


Tomorrow, maybe a little skin dimpling, priming, and backriveting stiffeners.

One hour.
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Post Title: Primed the rest of the Left Elevator Stiffeners</title>
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Mon, 31 May 2010 20:00:14 +0000
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Tonight, I moved on with the left elevator by matchdrilling the upper stiffeners.
Here are the upper left elevator stiffeners, after trimming, being matchdrilled to the skin. First, I drilled and clecoed the forwardmost hole.
20100531-002-large.jpg

The three forwardmost holes clecoed.
20100531-003-large.jpg


After finishing, I traced the stiffener outlines on the inside and outside of the skin.
These will help me devinyl later.
20100531-004-large.jpg

You can see I have already done the lower surface of the elevator (it's upside-down on the table).
20100531-005-large.jpg


And, of course, since I forgot to add RTV to the right elevator (still trying to figure out a way to get some RTV in there), I wrote a little reminder on the inside of the left elevator.
Hopefully I'll see this as I pull out the last of the blue vinyl just before assembly.
20100531-006-large.jpg


Next, devinyl along the traced lines and then deburr and scuff.
Left elevator skin interior after devinyling, deburring, and scuffing.
20100531-007-large.jpg


Next up, I deburred and scuffed the remaining stiffeners. (I don't have any pictures, but after this, they got dimpled and then primed.)
Because the upper surface doesn't have the trim reinforcement plate, there are 4 (instead of 3) of the short stiffeners.
20100531-008-large.jpg


Next up, devinyl and deburr the outside of the skin.
Skin devinyling.
20100531-010-large.jpg

A small tip here. I decided that at the aft end of the elevator, i would leave a little blue vinyl instead of connecting the upper and lower surface bare spots. This way, If I need to rest the elevator on its trailing edge, I won't be damaging the finish on the trailing edge.
20100531-011-large.jpg
 
Because it was late, I couldn't use the c-frame.
Instead, I grabbed the hand squeezers and dimpled anything I could reach.
20100531-012-large.jpg

Just for kicks, I held up the trim reinforcement plate (and cover, still covered in blue vinyl) which will be riveted underneath the skin to the right.
20100531-013-large.jpg


Here are the other sides of the upper stiffeners getting primed.
I toook these inside for a good washing with Dawn before drying them, wiping with MEK, drying some more, and then shooting with primer.
20100531-014-large.jpg


I had a few more minutes, so I started match-drilling the skeleton. Here is one of the spar reinforcement plates being drilled to the spar.
I used my 12" #30 bit due to cleco-clearance issues.
20100531-016-large.jpg

Finally, before heading in, I shot a coat of primer on the other side of the upper left elevator stiffeners.
20100531-017-large.jpg


Nighty-night.
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I did much better on the trailing edge dimples than last time (see this post).
This is the worst one, but it still looks great, and is hardly noticeable unless you are really looking for it.
20100601-002-large.jpg


After dimpling, I wiped down all of the scuffed areas with MEK to rid them of fingerprints (oils) aluminum dust, moisture, etc., and then primed.
Primed interior. Notice how I leave a lot of the blue vinyl on the skins? This helps keep weight down (although undoubtedly adds to build time while I painstakingly trace around the stiffeners with a marker and use those lines to devinyl.
20100601-003-large.jpg


Moving back to the skeleton, I mounted a one-leg 1/4" nutplate in the forward tooling hole of the counterbalance and tip ribs. This will hold any future weight I need to balance the elevator with paint.
I used an undersized countersunk screw in the tooling hole to help locate the nutplate, then drilled one hole and clecoed from the back.?
20100601-004-large.jpg

Both holes drilled, and the main hole enlarged to something a little larger than 1/4"...I can't remember...maybe 5/32"?
20100601-005-large.jpg


Next, I moved back to the spar. I have read where a few people have added a hole in the lightening hole area of the elevator control horn/spar area. The right hole is for manual trim or for the (what I'll call "retracted") jack screw and wiring runs for the electric trim motor. I, like others, don't like the idea of the wires and jack screw sharing the same hole, so I drilled another hole, in which I will add a 3/8" snap bushing.
Pilot hole eye-balled.
20100601-006-large.jpg

****, I didn't even get a picture of the final size hole. (I drilled it to 3/8".)
20100601-008-large.jpg


After completed the extra hole, I noticed the skin was dry. Nothing to stop me from backriveting, now.
Rivets place in, and taped to, the first stiffener row.
20100601-009-large.jpg

Same thing with the trim reinforcement area.
20100601-010-large.jpg
 
After backriveting the trim reinforcement. Man, this makes me happy.
20100601-011-large.jpg

The next couple rows, done.
20100601-012-large.jpg

The bottom half went smoothly. The top half now has rivets taped in place.
20100601-013-large.jpg

Where are those stiffeners?
20100601-015-large.jpg

Here's the inside.
20100601-017-large.jpg


I love this picture. This is the trim reinforcement plate area.
So nice. (That scratch at the top is very superficial. It'll buff right out, I promise.)
20100601-018-large.jpg


Biggest lesson today was about the aft-most rivet in the stiffeners. When bending the skin out of the way to reach that rivet, everything twists out of alignment. If you start with that rivet, it is easier to make sure everything is flush than if you rivet the forward ones first. Start from the back and move forward. You will get better results.
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Post Title: Bent Left Elevator Trailing Edge</title>
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Wed, 02 Jun 2010 19:30:06 +0000
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[URL="http://n999za.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/backriveted-left-elevator-stiffeners/">[/URL]

Sick again today, but I did get a little work done.

First, I spent a considerable amount of time looking at the 4 horizonal holes below. The plans show them as blind rivets, but there has to be a way to get solid rivets in there.

After much deliberation, I think if I drill them to #40 now (gasp, without matchrilling!?) Then I can deburr, scuff, and dimple the area now. I'll do the same to the equivalent holes in the trim spar, and then attach (at a minimum) the top skin to trim spar holes with solid rivets. I think I will be able to get both sides, as I am planning on cutting off the "bent tabs" from both the elevator and trim tab.
First, drill to #40.
20100602-001-large.jpg

Then, deburr interior and exterior, and scuff the interior only.
20100602-002-large.jpg

I got the c-frame out again and dimpled the holes.
20100602-003-large.jpg


I should be able to make that work out for me, but more on the bent tab cutting later on.
Next up is bending the trailing edge. After inserting and taping a 1/8" dowel in the trailing edge, I bent it in my bending brake. This picture is about halfway bent.
20100602-005-large.jpg


Then, I removed the dowel, bent it the rest of the way, and did the same with the trim tab since I was in the bending mood. (Side note, the trailing edge on the elevator looked great, but was not constant radius...it was larger radius toward the tip. I grabbed the hand seamers and gently squeezed the areas so they were all the nice crisp radius that the inboard trailing edge was.)
Trim tab bent.
20100602-006-large.jpg


Also, I way overbent the trim tab. There are no stiffeners in there to stop you, so you can basically flatten the thing, even with the dowel rod in there. I opened it back up a little by hand, but it's not perfect. If I can't get it back to perfect, I'm going to order another one. I think I can work with this one, though.
This is a radius shot of both the elevator only.
20100602-007-large.jpg


After placing the weight in position, you cleco on the skin (difficultly) and get ready to match-drill. Of course, I met the same challenges I did on the right elevator...namely, I broke a drill bit (#40 size). After getting a pilot hole drilled, I took everything apart and separately enlarged them all to #21. Air tool oil was used with great success after the pilot hole was drilled.
Ready to start drilling.
20100610-002-large.jpg


I didn't take any pictures, though, because I was getting frustrated. (At first, I was dipping the drill bit into the oil, which meant I had to take the lid off. Then, after stepping away a few minutes later, I placed the screw lid (with the flip-up spout) back on the oil bottle and immediately flipped it over to aim oil into the pilot hole. Guess what! I forgot to tighten down the lid. There goes the lid, and about a 1/2 cup of oil...all over the counterweight, table, and floor.)

Now do you see why I forgot to keep taking pictures?

Anyway, after that debacle (which of course gets counted in the build time...it's time spent building, right?)
Anyway, here is that same assembly (sans weight) before clecoing on the skin.
20100610-003-large.jpg


In preparation for clecoing on the skin, I needed to handle E-606PP, which is the trim tab hinge spar. Since I was looking ahead earlier and dimpled the hard-to-reach holes (you can see in the skin below), I need to do something with the spar to accept those dimples. If you read ahead in the directions, the spar is countersunk on the top flange (because the hinge is riveted beneath the spar flange, it can't be dimpled), and dimpled on the bottom flange.

<strong>June 10 Update:</strong> After countersinking these four holes, I later did some more research and realized that the countersinks called for (due to the hinge) don't really apply here, because the hinge stops short of these four holes. I could have (and wished I'd ) dimpled. Boo.
Here are the two parts that need to fit together nicely.
20100610-004-large.jpg


Finally, I got the skeleton and skin clecoed together.
Wuhoo. It looks like an airplane.
20100610-005-large.jpg



A solid hour. Maybe more this weekend.
 
Post Title: Drilled E-701 (Left Elevator Skin) to Skeleton</title>
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Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:30:11 +0000
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Wow, it's been a week since I've worked on the airplane.

I have an excuse, though. I've been installing wood floors. Here's the living room, almost done.

Anyway, if you remember from the last post, I had the left elevator skin clecoed to the skeleton. I went ahead and match-drilled the skin to the skeleton. Instead of using my cordless drill (because it's quieter), I broke out the air drill and went to town. I love the way that thing sounds.

Forgot to charge the camera battery, so it charged while I drilled.
After matchdrilling both sides, this picture is me in the middle of removing all of the clecos.
20100617-001-large.jpg


Then, because I felt like I would be short-changing you if I didn't have two pictures for you, here's another one.
After disassembly.
20100617-003-large.jpg


Here's the catch, though. I have a lot of thinking and pondering to do about some things.

First of all, I am planning on cutting off the elevator tab (and elevator) bent ears and just making a rib out of them. Jason Beaver did it pretty successfully here and here, so I'm basically going to copy him.

The question is whether to prep and rivet the left elevator now, the cut off the "ears" after riveting, then try to fabricate a rib, matchdrill, dimple, prep again, etc., or should I re-cleco everything together and do all of that fabrication now.

Many people use blind rivets for the extra tab fabrication, but I think I am going to try to use solid rivets. I have had some success in the past with solid rivets in tight spaces using a special bucking bar (namely, the end of a BFS ("big-freakin-screwdriver"). The question will be about dimpling.

Also, I can probably cut the ears off, but leave a little extra material. I need to make sure I line up the cuts on the elevator and tab to minimize the gab between the two, and I don't want to cut to much off of either side. Maybe I'll mock them up, cut one side to where I think it should be, and make sure the other side can be cut more precisely to match the first cut.

Also, many people use blind rivets for the four trim spar rivets on both sides (per the plans), but I think I can assemble in an order that allows me to use solid rivets, especially since I'm going to cut the elevator bent tab ears off; I should be able to reach in there with a bucking bar.

See how much thinking I have to do?
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Post Title: Started working on the Elevator Tab</title>
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Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:00:55 +0000
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After some more days of not doing anything, I managed to make it out to the Pilots N Paws fly-in today. It was good motivation for working on the airplane.

Anyway, I've drilled the left elevator skin to the skeleton, and the next step is really to take everything apart, deburr, dimple, countersink, prep, prime and assemble...

BUT...

I have some things that need to be done first. Mostly, the directions want you to bend the elevator tab "ears." Well, I don't think I want to go the bent route. Here's what I am worried about. I don't think anyone would really notice, but I don't love the way this looks.
Bent trim tab ears. I think I'm going to cut mine off and make little ribs.
20100620-pilotsnpawflyin-027-large.jpg


I think with some work, I could make them look like this, but given how finished these surfaces are, I don't know if they started as bent ears or riblets.
WHOA! This is awesome. This guy really finished this joint up nicely. Everybody be jealous.
20100620-pilotsnpawflyin-032-large.jpg


Finally, I found a really nice riblets version. I like this, and this is what I am going to be aiming for (although I am going to try to use solid rivets.
Great finish on the cut-instead-of-bend tab ears. I'm going to strive to make mine like this.
20100620-pilotsnpawflyin-055-large.jpg


Anyway, I also think cutting the ears off (not bent down in the way) will allow me to use solid rivets in the blind-rivet locations on the top and bottom of the elevator (outboard trim spar rivets). We'll see.

First step is to get the skeleton re-clecoed in the skin.
The trim spar and the inboard rib.
20100620-001-large.jpg


Van's wants you to countersink either piece for flush rivets (not for any real flush reason...I think they need to be #40 size holes, and they don't give you any universal head AN470AD3 rivets). Anyway, per standard practice, I dimpled both.
Dimpled instead of countersunk.
20100620-002-large.jpg


After clecoing together the skin, I am ready to start the headscratching with the tab. Let's find the tab spar.
There it is.
20100620-003-large.jpg


Let's go ahead and cut off these tabs. After careful measuring and marking, I'm ready to put blade to metal.
Inboard side. I'm nervous about chopping these off.
20100620-005-large.jpg

Outboard. (see how I lined up the line parallel to the flat portion near the top and to the left of the relief hole near the bottom? This doesn't work. Read on to find out why.
20100620-006-large.jpg


After a quick snip (not too close to my final line) I removed the vinyl from the interior of the skin in preparation for using a file and scotchbrite pad to clean everything up.
Devinling before finishing those cuts.
20100620-007-large.jpg


After working carefully with a file and edge finisher...
Looks good.
20100620-009-large.jpg
 
Before I really finalize things, I'd like to get my tab placement set up. First, I tried using this extra piece of rudder stiffener.
It worked okay, but I later switched to something a little longer.
20100620-010-large.jpg


After some moving around and fiddling, I re-read the directions, which tell you to bend the elevator ears down along a bend line that is perpendicular to the hinge line. Well, that means that the cut lines should be perpendicular, too. Of course, like I mentioned before, my original outboard line wasn't perpendicular. All that file work for nothing.

I drew new lines (one on top of the other, ignoring the needed clearance).
Drawing new, perpendicular lines.
20100620-011-large.jpg


Then, I made a "pretty close" cut with the snips. I'll need to really clean this up, as well as move the line to the left for clearance purposes (I'll wait until the hinges are drilled to really see what I need. (The instructions call for 3/32", but that is for the blind rivet head clearance that I won't have to worry about.)
Pretty close, but still needs trimming and finishing.
20100620-012-large.jpg


Next, I moved back to the tab. Here's my new line.
I'm bummed because the upper part of the tab, factory provided, is not perpendicular to the hinge line. That means there will be a slight angle there. Bummer.
20100620-013-large.jpg


After getting those refinished, I got the tab mocked up. I kind of worked backward. I want to use the inboard edge and the trailing edge to get placement, then verify I have adequate clearance on the outboard edge and between the tab and elevator for the hinge (there are some hinge dimensions on the plans). I think I'll have plenty of room.
This looks good, but I'll have to keep trimming that outboard edge.
20100620-015-large.jpg

Here's a closeup. You can see the edge near the top of the tab is angled a little left. This is how it comes from the factory. The marker line and aft portion of the tab are both perfectly perpendicular to the hinge line (line through the center of the rivet holes).
20100620-016-large.jpg


Later this week, I'll work on getting this perfect, then tackling the riblets that need to be constructed before doing any more work with finishing the skin.
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Post Title: $6.48</title>
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Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:06:45 +0000
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[URL="http://n999za.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/6-48/">[/URL]After getting stung by a wasp two times in the last two days trying to mow the lawn in the backyard, I gave up (shows determination and perseverance, huh?) and retreated to the comfort of my garage for some airplane work (the floors can wait until tomorrow).

Back to the tab. Before I do any more cutting on the elevator, I want to get the tab hinge drilled so I know exactly where the outboard edge of the tab will swing. I am doing this before they really tell you to in the directions (the directions have you actually finish the elevator, then start working on the tab.

Anyway, you are supposed to draw a line 1/4" from the loop edge of the tab, and first matchdrill that to the tab. (I started with the elevator side, which eventually bit me in the ***. Read on.)
I decided to mark both sides with the 1/4" line. Hmm. Doesn't look like there is going to be a lot of edge distance.
20100622-001-large.jpg


Then, I took the hinge apart (you can see the hinge pin in the next photo) and clamped the elevator side to the elevator, lining up my 1/4" line in the first prepunched hole, and aligning the first hinge loop where I thought it looked good (making sure this fit with the plans).
Hint: If you take apart the hinge, you can easily clamp the hinge half to the elevator (and tab, with the other half).
20100622-002-large.jpg

Next, I lined up the outboard side. This tab hinge is nice and square with the edge, and with the holes.
20100622-003-large.jpg


Let's drill!
Here are 6 holes drilled (I'm working inboard to outboard).
20100622-004-large.jpg

All done with the elevator side.?
20100622-005-large.jpg


Next, I reassembled the hinge and spent a few minutes just kind of getting everything lined up.
I wish this were the final product, but this is just me mocking things up before drilling.
20100622-006-large.jpg


With the greatest of coordination, I managed to hold a straight-edge against the inboard edge, line up the inboard pre-punched hole with the 1/4" line, and line up the trailing edge of the tab with the trailing edge of the elevator, AND take this picture. Boo-ya.
Looks good so far.
20100622-007-large.jpg


Then, I drilled the inboard hole. The inboard side is perfect. (Can you tell that some other part may not be by the way I phrased that?)
If you look closely (lower left corner), you can see that the tab trailing edge is further aft than the elevator trailing edge.?
20100622-008-large.jpg


I was pissed. I lined up the hinge with the elevator edges and holes, and with the tab edges and holes. This means that either the elevator or the tab isn't perfectly square.

I thought about just moving the tab forward, but then there would be slightly different distances between the skins from inboard to outboard. I measured it...it would have been about 1/32 difference. No one would have noticed except for me.

But...I can't leave it alone. I'm going to reorder the hinge and try again. This time, I'm still not going to follow the directions. If you make the hinge perfectly square to the tab, it's going to be off on the elevator side. I'm going to have to split the difference between both by first clamping the tab in perfect position, then clamping the hinge in place and matchdrilling a few holes.

Admittedly, I should have followed the directions by starting with the tab edge, but it wouldn't have mattered, it still wouldn't have been a perfectly square hinge line after I was done.
The tab hinge is AN257-P2 according to the materials list in Section 4, but the part shows MS20257-2.
20100622-009-large.jpg


I also think, given my edge distance worries (must be okay because it is per the plans? I don't know), I am going to order the MS20257-3 (or AN257-P3, which is 1 + 1/4" wide instead of 1 + 1/16"). I checked with Van's, and they want $9.70 (plus $4 handling, plus $12 shipping or something) for an 24" piece of AN257-P3.

I checked aircraft spruce, and they wanted $4.75 for a 3' piece and $1.73 shipping via USPS.

Which one do I choose?

Duh. $6.48 for my first re-ordered part. Bummer. (It's better than a $60 elevator skin, though!)
Here are my edge distances.
20100622-014-large.jpg
 
Post Title: Left Elevator Riblet, Day 1</title>
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Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:41:25 +0000
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After the huge success last night, I was ready to move back to the elevator so I could get to prepping and riveting. First thing tonight was to take some small measurements, then transfer some lines to a piece of cardstock to create a template for the riblet I need to create. (Notice the title of the post is ...Day 1. There will be multiple days of this dance, unfortunately.)

Here's my first try at a template, and then the adjusted second try before being cut out.
I don't know why my first try was so big. Must have measured wrong.
20100628-054-large.jpg


Here's a shot of the space I am trying to fill. It's not edge finished here, but will be after I get a riblet created.
Left elevator's trim tab cutout.
20100628-055-large.jpg


Ginger was being bad inside, so she was banished to the garage ("go annoy your father"). Ha, little did we know that there was sawdust that she could be rubbing her face in. Serves us right for trying to punish her.
She's not cute at all.
20100628-058-large.jpg


So this is actually my second aluminum riblet after bending one of the flanges up in a vice. I think that edge is too sharp.
It's looking good so far.
20100628-059-large.jpg


But, even though I was really careful to finish all the edges before bending (like I forgot to do on the first one), I still got a crack.
I put a picture of my crack on the internet. Ha.
20100628-060-large.jpg


Even with the crack, I thought I would show you what I intended before scrapping the piece and starting over.
This is the general idea.
20100628-061-large.jpg


But then I got frustrated and just cut the forward part of the riblet off, and put it in place to see what it would look like.
Hmm. This doesn't look horrible, but I'd rather have the forward part of the rib, and the tie-in to the spar.
20100628-062-large.jpg


So, after an hour outside, I have to scrap the part and start over. Boo.

(To be honest, this is the really fun part of building. I get to use my thinking cap.)
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Post Title: Left Elevator Riblet, Day 2
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Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:30:20 +0000
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Captain's Log: Day 2. Great success with the riblet.

So after yesterday's wasted (I know, it wasn't really wasted) time making two FAILURES of riblets for the elevator trim cutout, today's worked out much better.

I had actually woken up at 3am in a cold sweat; "Oh my gosh, I need to tie the front of the riblet into the elevator trim spar." (Warning: Cold sweat may be exaggerated.)

Anyway, I got out the jigsaw with a fine metal-cutting blade and found that this technique was far superior to the snips, which leave little ridges along the cut.

So, more measuring, tracing, and drilling/cutting.
This is try #3.
20100629-002-large.jpg


Then, after judiciously edge finishing (which is a must before bending aluminum...ask me how I know.)
Okay, Those bends are pretty good, let's work on the front.
20100629-003-large.jpg

Hey pups! (I took about 15 pictures of them for your viewing pleasure, but this is the only one that wasn't too blurry.) Jack and Ginger, curious about the airplane.
20100629-004-large.jpg


Also, I had picked this surface conditioning kit up at Harbor Freight. 1-inch diameter, and blue is finer (I think) than maroon.
This worked pretty well for quick finishing. I want to try the larger sizes, too.
20100629-017-large.jpg


You can see from the paper template on the right that wasn't going to tie in to the spar. I cut out the corners on the piece to the left pretty roughly.
Old template on the right, current work piece on the left.
20100629-020-large.jpg


So then I edge-finished and bent the three tabs that tie in to the spar. Because there was a dimple already in the bottom flange of the spar, I went ahead and drilled and dimpled that one ear on my new riblet.
How do you like the nice sharp picture of my set of needle files and permagrit block? (And very blurry pic of my riblet being dimpled. The yoke and die just barely fit.)
20100629-023-large.jpg


Here's the almost finished product.
It's kind of cute.
20100629-024-large.jpg


So it doesn't fit "perfectly" in the openeing, but this is close enough that I don't need to remake it. I'll tweak it a little and reduce some of those gaps you see in the coming days.
Pretty darn good.
20100629-026-large.jpg


The big gap on the left is actually the elevator skin bowing locally that I need to fix. The riblet is actually straight.
I'm so happy this one worked out.
20100629-029-large.jpg


Next, time to deburr and dimple the left elevator spar.
Me dimpling.
20100701-005-large.jpg
 
And after everything was dimpled, a nice picture down the spar of my blurry recycling bin, golf clubs, and motorcycle jack. (No motorcycle anymore, but the jack comes in handy to lift the corner of a car when a tire needs to be taken off for one reason or another.)
Spar! (I'm tired, so we are down to one word captions for the day.)
20100701-007-large.jpg


Another shot of the same.
Dimple! (Wouldn't it be annoying if I everything I wrote ended in an exclamation mark?!)
20100701-012-large.jpg


After edge finishing the two hinge reinforcement plates, I shot them with primer.
Primed!
20100701-013-large.jpg


Then, my attention turned back to the tab. I've clecoed the elevator half of the tab hinge back in, and on the right you can see my drilled riblet!
Drilled riblet! (Okay, I've had enough of the exclamation points.....!)
20100701-014-large.jpg


Here's a better picture. I basically drew a line perpendicular to the hinge line up from one of the holes along the trim spar, then spaced them at 1.5 and 3 inches. That spaced everything evenly, and gave me plenty of edge distance all around.
Don't look at my edges, they aren't finished yet, but you get the idea.
20100701-015-large.jpg

Other direction, just for kicks (not as much deflection due to cleco interference, but again, you get the idea).
20100701-017-large.jpg


Because I bought a longer section of hinge to replace my bad first attempt, my hinge pin was long enough to actually fit (Van's says they will send you the real one (because it needs to be longer than 18") in the finish kit.
I got to bending.
20100701-020-large.jpg

After more bending, I ended up with something like this.
20100701-021-large.jpg

Ooh, isn't that pretty! The safety wire hole I drilled earlier is in the middle there, and will allow me to safety wire this hinge pin to the spar so it won't COME OUT IN FLIGHT!
20100701-025-large.jpg



Two hours of late-night-hinge-pin-bending bliss.
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First thing, I got the new piece cut to length. It ended up being a little shorter than 18 inches... I made sure the elevator side had a hinge "ear" on each end.
I eye-balled the hinge pin length a little long. Van's tells you the hinge pin they ship with this kit is not long enough to bend and safety to the elevator, and that they'll ship the real one in the fuse kit (or finish kit, can't remember). I guessed it was about 2 extra inches I needed for the bends and then cut the hinge pin.
20100628-020-large.jpg


Then, I spent a good amount of time Just getting everything lined up. I am a little frustrated at this point, because the supposedly straight line of holes on the elevator is not parallel to the supposedly straight line of holes on the tab. This means that with the trailing and inboard edges of the tab aligned with the elevator, the gap between the leading edge of the tab and the elevator cutout is smaller near the root than the tip of the tab.
Inboard and trailing edges aligned perfectly.
20100628-021-large.jpg

Here's my inboard edge.
20100628-022-large.jpg


So, again, I strayed from the directions. I held the hinge in position, making sure the actual pin was directly in the middle of the gap as shown in the picture above at the root (smaller gap) edge and at the outboard (larger gap) edge. I figured as long as the pin was directly centered, I'd be okay. Then, I clamped it in place, and marked a single hole (see below) for drilling. I couldn't pick the edge hole, because it was covered by my square.
On the drill press, ready to drill a single hole.
20100628-023-large.jpg


I repeated this for another single hole on the tab side, again, making sure the hinge pin was perfectly centered between the two surfaces.
Two holes drilled and clecoed.
20100628-024-large.jpg


At this point, it was close to being locked in place. I did notice that these hinges are somewhat flexible, so while I marked every hole for drilling, I really only drilled a few more before clecoing it in place and match-drilling the rest of the holes.

(A more technical side note...because I upped the hinge size to a MS20257-3, the hinge was too wide to fit inside the radius of the elevator and trim tab spars. When matchrilling, I had to change the order of the skin, hinge, spar to accommodate the extra length, then I went back and ripped a small (1/16") strip off of the hinges so they would fit nicely in the radii of the spars.)
Here are my feet, ready to keep going on the hinge.
20100628-025-large.jpg


Fast forward after some drilling noises, and here are the two halves, each clecoed to their surfaces.
Ooh, looks good.
20100628-026-large.jpg


I still have a little bit to trim on the elevator skin, but I trimmed enough to allow some motion today.
You can just see the rounded (so it slides in easier) tip of the pin in this picture.
20100628-027-large.jpg


Here's a closeup of how much extra pin I think I need to make the bend forward (along the spar flange) and then down (along the spar web) to a small safety-wire hole I have yet to drill to safety the pin in place.
Man, that thing is long. (TWSS)
20100628-028-large.jpg


After getting the pin in, I took out every other cleco on each surface so I could move it back and forth.
Neutral.
20100628-029-large.jpg
 
Tab up (or elevator down trim).
20100628-030-large.jpg


asdf
Tab down (or elevator up trim).
20100628-031-large.jpg

After dancing around for a little due to how great the tab looks on the elevator (and how well-aligned it is), I took the thing apart, ripped the 1/16" off of each hinge half, and fired up the scotchbrite wheel to clean up all of the edges.
Look on the lower right part of the tab. That little angled cutout is so the hinge hides nicely under the tab skin.
20100628-032-large.jpg


I figured now would be a good time to finish match-drilling the tab. Let's go find E-718 and E-717.
There they are!
20100628-033-large.jpg


Apparently I thought it would be a good idea to show you my scotchbrite wheel. That little groove is just getting to the right size so I can run the edge of a piece of aluminum down it and it perfectly rounds both sides.
I love this thing.
20100628-034-large.jpg


Back to the tab horn. The directions would have you use the clevis pin (don't have this yet because I haven't ordered the tab motor) to line up the two horns. How about two perfectly-fitting #30 clecos?
For balance purposes, I put one on each side.
20100628-035-large.jpg


Three of the holes are pre-punched, and two are not.
Just before match-drilling everything.
20100628-036-large.jpg

All done.
20100628-037-large.jpg

All done. (From another angle.)
20100628-038-large.jpg


I was planning on at least polishing the tab for now, so I marked off where the horn sits. I'll prep and prime this little area under the horns, but I'll leave the rest polished. (The bottom of the tab is going to be a good place to teach myself how to polish aluminum.)
The horn location, marked for future priming.
20100628-039-large.jpg


Whew. That was a good two hour work session today. It was like a sauna (more like a steam bath...this is the south!) in the garage today. I kept sweating on the airplane. (People say they put blood, sweat, and tears into their projects. I've got one covered, and will undoubtedly bleed and cry because of the project sometime in the future. Have to have something to look forward to, right?)
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Post Title: Started Prepping Left Elevator Skeleton
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Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:04:14 +0000
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Even though it was my day off, I spent the day trying not to get stung by bees (mowing the forest behind my fence) and meeting the girlfriend for food. After that, I managed to waste an hour or so installing a fan in the garage. Recently, it's been brutal in the garage, so this morning, while I was walking around Lowe's, I saw a small ceiling fan for $17. I couldn't say no. It was harder to install than our nicer fans inside (no little quick-disconnect fan blades or anything), but in the end, it makes me cooler in the garage (double meaning intended).
Huzzah!
20100702-007-large.jpg


Then, I moved over to the spar. These four holes get countersunk because they attach E-705, but the elevator horn has to sit over the rivets but still flush against the forward face of the web.
Beautiful countersinks.
20100702-003-large.jpg


While I had the countersink cage set up, I pulled the trim tab spar out of the elevator and started on it.
Countersink the top flange, dimple the bottom flange.
20100702-004-large.jpg

Aren't these countersinks nice?
20100702-005-large.jpg


After countersinking, both the tab spar and the left elevator main spar were scuffed (more), edge-finished, and then got a trip inside to the sink for a quick rinse before coming back outside to eventually get a coat of primer.
I'm getting close to riveting something, watch out!
20100702-006-large.jpg


Anyway, two very productive hours, and I think I can rivet some reinforcement plates tomorrow if I want. Wuhoo!
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Very Nice Work!

That looks like some really nice work. Thanks for the pictures. I remember when I did mine last year.
 
Post Title: Riveted E-705 to Left Elevator Spar
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Wed, 07 Jul 2010 01:20:26 +0000
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Well, I thought I would head out to the garage tonight to rivet 4 little rivets. I had the parts primed from the other night, and I just wanted to get something done on the plane tonight. I grabbed the elevator spar and admired how nice the countersinks looked.
Looks like I didn't get total coverage there on the spar, but that's okay, a light coat is all you really need.
20100706-003-large.jpg

Here are the AN426AD3-3.5 rivets that will go in those four holes.
20100706-005-large.jpg

Here's the first one set. Pretty nice, if you ask me.
20100706-006-large.jpg


I got the other outboard rivet set, then moved to the two middle rivets. Then, tragedy struck, and my flush squeeze set slid off part of the rivet as I squeezed. Boo.
"Well, this will be easy to drill out and replace." -famous last words.
20100706-010-large.jpg

My drilling wasn't perfect, but I didn't booger up the hole too badly...yet.
20100706-011-large.jpg


After resetting, I thought all was well, until I turned the part over.
That's not really flush, is it.
20100706-013-large.jpg


After 6...yes...SIX times of setting and drilling out a mis-set rivet, I finally gave up, drilled the hole to #30, cleaned up the countersink, dabbed some primer in the hole, and used an oops rivet.
OOPS! (Looks okay, though. And you will never see this.)
20100706-014-large.jpg


I can't believe I had to drill out six rivets when trying to rivet four little AD3-3.5 rivets. Bummer. That's not going to help my batting average...[calculator sounds]...yup...went from 5.7% drilled out to 6.0% drilled.

A frustrating half an hour tonight.
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Post Title: Riveted Elevator Horn and Trim Tab Spar
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Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:30:19 +0000
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I don't really love working in short bursts like this, but I do what I have to. Let's do the elevator horn tonight.
I first clecoed every other hole. The left elevator horn was actually easier to cleco on than the right. I can't figure out why.
20100707-001-large.jpg


Anyway, a few loud noises later, and I had the first six done for the day.
Nice shop heads.
20100707-006-large.jpg


And again, a few minutes after that....
Six more, for a total of 12 so far.
20100707-009-large.jpg


Then, I convince the girlfriend to come outside and try her hand at squeezing.
Looks great.
20100707-010-large.jpg

She did great, but one of the rivets split diagonally as it was squeezed. It wasn't her fault, but I'll have to replace it tomorrow.
20100707-011-large.jpg


14 rivets. 0.5 hours.
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Post Title: Prepped and Primed Left Elevator Skin
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Sun, 11 Jul 2010 20:59:21 +0000
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Well, after an exiting morning with the South Carolina Breakfast Club, I was fraught with motivation. (I don't know if I am using "fraught" correctly...)

Next thing on my long laundry list of things to do on the left elevator is to prep the skin for riveting to the skeleton. First thing, I got out the soldering iron and pulled off some more of the blue vinyl. While I was at it, I pulled off the blue painter's tape I had been using to protect the back-riveted stiffener rivet lines.
All that shiny aluminum really makes me happy.
20100711-114-large.jpg


Then, on to deburring. I deburred both exterior sides of the skins, and then moved on to deburring the interior of the skins. I follow very closely with my maroon scotchbrite pad to help me remember where I have deburred (you can easily tell the difference between a deburred hole and one that has yet to be deburred...I am more using the scotchbrite pad as an excuse to give my fingers a rest...it is hard spinning that drill bit over and over and over).
The background holes are #40 (3/32") and the foreground holes are #30 (1/8"). I drilled these holes to #30 now because I don't want to wait until after the skin bending (at which point I won't be able to deburr them). Also, having the holes to final size will help with the annoying pop rivets that go in them.
20100711-116-large.jpg


Next up, dimpling the skin-to-skeleton holes. I scuff the interior of the skins before dimpling, because it is easier to scuff without dimples getting in the way.
I use my masking tape trick on the male dimple die, and I get ZERO circles around the dimples. So nice.
20100711-117-large.jpg

All holes dimpled.
20100711-118-large.jpg


Time to move on to edge-finishing. This little 90° corner is a tough one, but I think this ended up nice.
Edge-finishing.
20100711-125-large.jpg


After edge-finishing, I cleaned up, wiped everything down with MEK, and primed. Fast forward 30 minutes later, and now I get to pull the vinyl out of the skins (I'm trying to remind myself constantly to not forget the RTV in the trailing edge of the elevator bend before riveting.)
I probably add some time to the project by masking all of this stuff off and priming just the contacting surfaces, but I think it looks great (no one will ever see it) and I think I'm saving weight. Maybe not, but I sleep better because I do this.
20100711-127-large.jpg

It looks so good. I love this part of a subassembly, I'm getting close to riveting!
20100711-129-large.jpg


Last, but not least for the day was to prep and prime the two outboard ribs. These fit back to back and support the counterbalance and counterbalance skin.
On the priming table after getting a light coat of self-etching primer.
20100711-132-large.jpg


3.5 hours today on the project, but I'm only logging 3.0 here. See here for the other 30 minutes.
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Post Title: Genuine Aeronautical Control Surface Interface Insertion and Adjustment Tool
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Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:44:39 +0000
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Well, I keep forgetting to make the rod-end bearing tool outlined on Sam Buchanan's site (http://home.hiwaay.net/~sbuc/journal/odd-ends.html).

Anyway, I was standing in the aviation department at Lowe's, and I turned around and there were the 1/2" PVC sections.

All you'll need is a "T" fitting, a coupling, and a length of 1/2" PVC. They usually sell the pipe in 10' sections, but if you dig through the pile, you can usually find a scrap piece that they'll give you a discount on. I ended up finding a 6' piece, but half was damaged beyond use. They marked it down from $1.53 to $0.51.

THAT'S AVGAS MONEY RIGHT THERE! WUHOOOO!

Anyway, I just eyeballed the pipe length and used an old hacksaw. It took about 10 strokes to cut through. (Sometimes it's nice to be working with something that isn't difficult to cut.)
Where's that yummy smelling PVC cement?
20100711-110-large.jpg


After cementing the T onto the straight piece. I used a hacksaw on the end of the pip and cut two slots (just wider than a rod-end bearing).
I had to use pliers to break these pieces off.
20100711-112-large.jpg


Then, I cemented the coupling on. I had to cut the coupling in half, because the coupling has two halves with a lip in the center.
It would be bad if this was the finished product.
20100711-113-large.jpg


After letting the cement cure, I took the end to my grinder, then scotchbrite wheel.
Looks good.
20100711-120-large.jpg

Nice and smooooooooth.
20100711-121-large.jpg


Let's see if it works.
Wuhoo.
20100711-123-large.jpg


Although now that I am thinking about it, there may be a bigger size bearing I didn't think about. Hmm.
DAMNNIT! While I wanted it to be long (to clear the bends in the front of the control surfaces), I made this 1/2" too long. I should have thought about where I was going to store this before making it.
20100711-124-large.jpg


No biggie, though. Since the coupling side is the harder side to make, I might just cut the T off, and cement a new T on.

30 minutes of Misc empennage work.
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Post Title: Left Elevator Counterbalance Skin
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Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:14:31 +0000
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A short half hour tonight. First thing was to grab the primed end ribs and get them clecoed to the left elevator spar. No problems there.
Looks good. Ready to rivet (but not tonight).
20100713-001-large.jpg


Next, I need to get the counterbalance skin taken care of (must be riveted to the skin before the skin can be riveted to the skeleton).
You can see I clecoed it in place and drew a line where the two overlap; I'll use this as my primer line.
20100713-002-large.jpg


Then, I realized I'm going to have a hard time deburring, dimpling, and scuffing with the blue vinyl on. [sigh] Off with the vinyl, re-cleco, redraw my line, then back off to deburr, dimple, and scuff.
After dimpling with tank dies where the skin sits under another dimple, and regular #40 dies where it doesn't.
20100713-004-large.jpg


While I had the #6 dimple die out (I'm attaching all fairings with screws for now), I moved over to the elevator skin and dimpled there, too.
Make sure you drill all holes that need to be dimpled with the #6 dies to #28 drill. This is slightly larger than the #30 you are used to.?
20100713-006-large.jpg


Again (for the search engines), the correct drill bit size for a #6 screw and #6 dimple die is #28. Ask me what happens when you dimple a hole that isn't drilled to the right size. (Hint: the same thing that happens when you overdimple using something other than a dimple die because you are too cheap to buy a #10 die...see below...)

Okay, back to the counterbalance skin.
These are dimpled to #8 (I don't have a #10 dimple die). last time, I used a punch set (with a little rounded lip on it) to enlarge the dimples to the equivalent of #10 dimple die.
20100713-007-large.jpg


Let's countersink the counterweight as a female dimple die.
Looks good.
20100713-008-large.jpg


Uh oh. I went a little far with my makeshift die. I stared at this for approximately 0.0000001 seconds before realizing I had to scrap the part.
See the ginormous cracks? Yeah. Not good.
20100713-009-large.jpg

A closeup of the other one. Oops.
20100713-010-large.jpg


So, the reordered part count is up to 2.

I'm not worried, I have some other stuff I can be doing while I wait for a replacement counterbalance skin (E-713, $8.85) from Van's. Also, I immediately put in my order with Avery for a #10 dimple die (along with some clecos, an edge roller tool, and some more drill bits).

USE THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB, ANDREW!
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Post Title: Riveted E-703 and E-704 to E-702
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Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:00:55 +0000
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Even though I haven't been feeling all that well in the last few days, I did sneak out in the garage for 30 minutes. I was mostly motivated by the arrival of my replacement E-713. Here she is, in all her beauty. (Let's not mess this one up, too, Andrew.)
Ah, a non-mangled part for a change.
20100718-001-large.jpg


After admiring E-713 for awhile, I moved on to riveting E-704 and E-703 together. Here are 8 lovely shop heads.
Looks good on this side.
20100718-005-large.jpg


And then I riveted my extra credit one leg nutplate in the tooling hole for further control surface balancing. Because I'll want to balance the control surfaces pretty well while they are polished, if I ever decide to paint, I'll have to add weight back in. This will be the best way to do this.
Thinking even further ahead, if I put a screw in here, I'll make it short enough that it falls out before binding. Or, I'll safety wire it. I'll have to think more about that.
20100718-007-large.jpg

And the other side. This was fun to rivet because I had to do both rivets at once.
20100718-008-large.jpg


That was it for today. 14 rivets, one of them had to be drilled out and replaced. Now, I'm just waiting for my latest Avery order so I can finish up the replaced counterbalance skin.
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Post Title: More work on the Counterbalance Skin
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Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:26:24 +0000
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Things have been slow with the airplane recently, right? Well, after a few weeks of letting the garage slowly spiral into a mess of hall closet items (while I'm redoing the floors), saw dust (while I'm redoing the floors), and aluminum dust/shavings (I am working on the plane a little), I decided it was time to get things cleaned up. After an hour of cleaning and organization, I snapped this picture of a nice clean workbench and floor area. Doesn't really do it justice, but something about a clean workbench makes me happy (notice how I am not showing you a picture of my second workbench!)
(Don't tell the girlfriend I had the vacuum cleaner up on the table going back and forth. It works pretty well, but I accept no blame if you try this at home.)
20100720-001-large.jpg


Okay, finally on to the project. My replacement E-713 came the other day. instead of trying to cleco it on to the already-dimpled skeleton and matchdrill, I am going to trust Vans' pre-punches and just run a #40 bit through the appropriate holes before deburring and dimpling.

After that was complete, I taped the outside of the skin that I want to protect from primer and scuffed everything up.
Ready to prime...almost. I'm still waiting on a #10 dimple die from Avery. Should be here any day.
20100720-002-large.jpg

Because this part of the exterior side is under the main left elevator skin, I'm going to prime it. Those two smaller holes need to be drilled to #28 before dimpled for #6 screws.
20100720-003-large.jpg


After that, I grabbed my two trim tab horns, and deburred, scuffed, and dimpled the flange holes.
I still need to trim these down per the plans for the electric elevator trim, but I also haven't ordered my electric elevator trim kit yet.
20100720-004-large.jpg


Finally, I disassembled the trim tab to get a little start on that. Here's the spar, deburred, scuffed, and dimpled on the bottom flange.
The top flange (on the left side of the picture) needs to be countersunk for the upper trim tab skin, because the hinge sits just below the flange, and can't accept a dimpled flange.?
20100720-006-large.jpg


2 hours in the shop today, but only 1 hour counts as build time. Hooray clean shop!
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Post Title: #10 Dimple Die from Avery...and More
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Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:03:52 +0000
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My latest tool order from Avery showed up.

Edge Roller tool, #28, #30, and #40 cobalt drill bits, #10 spring back dimple dies, and 101 clecoes. Why 101 clecoes? Because my total with 100 was $99.60, and they cost $0.40. I wanted to get to $100. Why? BECAUSE AVERY HAS FREE SHIPPING OVER $100.

Oh wait. No they don't. That's the Yard Store.

So I go to set the bag of clecos (and the one separate extra cleco that they had to throw in to get to 101) next to the other stuff, and it didn't look good for the picture. So I grab the bag to flip it over, and guess what? The top wasn't sealed, so 100 (+1) clecoes fall out onto the table (and my foot, and the floor) and scatter everywhere (roll under the workbenches, etc.)
sigh]

It was like 52 card pickup, except with clecoes, and there were 101 of them.
But, I got over it, because these are nice new shiny clecoes. If you zoom in, you may be able to see what I paid, for reference.
20100721-001-large.jpg


After closer inspection, I pulled out the #10 dimple dies and set them next to the #40 dies, for scale.
#10 dies require a #12 drill bit (it's for a #10 screw). #40 dimple dies require a #40 drill bit.
20100721-006-large.jpg


The new clecoes almost fill my patent pending (not) cleco bin.
Shiny!
20100721-007-large.jpg

You can see the stratification of old (bottom) and new (top) clecoes.
20100721-008-large.jpg


Finally, the edge roller tool.
Nothing really special here, this should make some of my lap joints look a little cleaner.
20100721-009-large.jpg

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Post Title: Preparation for Left Elevator Skin Riveting
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Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:05:45 +0000
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Now that my #10 dies are here, I can proceed with the counterbalance skin and preparation for riveting.
This is how #10 dimples are supposed to look.
20100721-003-large.jpg

No cracks!
20100721-005-large.jpg


After beveling the exterior of the counterbalance skin, drilling the two fairing attach holes (that will be doubled up with the elevator skin) to #28 and dimpling to #6, I threw the counterbalance skin and the little trim riblet up on the priming table, opened the garage door, got the respirator out, and shot these two with primer.
Primed.
20100721-010-large.jpg


After that was done, I clecoed the counterbalance skin in place and riveted the two rivets on each side that can't be reached after the skeleton is inserted.
There's a nice lap joint there that could have used some edge-rolling, except I FORGOT TO EDGE-ROLL, EVEN THOUGH I JUST BOUGHT AN EDGE-ROLLING TOOL!
20100721-011-large.jpg

The two rivets in question on the top.
20100721-012-large.jpg

Nice shop heads.
20100721-013-large.jpg

And two more on the bottom.
20100721-014-large.jpg


Then, before inserting the skeleton, you loosely place the counterweight in position and partly insert the two screws.
Okay...
20100721-015-large.jpg


Then, I riveted the little riblet I made to the trim spar.
Skeleton, ready to be inserted into the skin.
20100721-016-large.jpg

Closer look.
20100721-017-large.jpg
 
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