Tom Martin
Well Known Member
The aft portion of the RV14 elevators use foam ribs bonded in place. The kit supplies the foam blocks and some templates that you are supposed to glue to the foam and then sand to shape. I know that if these foam ribs are not exactly the same size it is going to show up with the .016 skins.
I wanted a repeatable sanding jig and traced on of the templates on a scrap piece of metal. I then made a mirror image on a second piece of metal and screwed both pieces down to a piece of ash flooring. (any flat board will work, this was just a piece that was saved before going into the wood stove!)
The foam is cut roughly to shape and placed in the jig and sanded to the metal on both sides. The foam is then reversed to get the notch on the other side.
By doing this I was able to fabricate eight identical ribs in very short order. Smaller trim tab ribs have the same angle and I used the jig for the important shape and then used the paper template for the length and final notch.
I wanted a repeatable sanding jig and traced on of the templates on a scrap piece of metal. I then made a mirror image on a second piece of metal and screwed both pieces down to a piece of ash flooring. (any flat board will work, this was just a piece that was saved before going into the wood stove!)
The foam is cut roughly to shape and placed in the jig and sanded to the metal on both sides. The foam is then reversed to get the notch on the other side.
By doing this I was able to fabricate eight identical ribs in very short order. Smaller trim tab ribs have the same angle and I used the jig for the important shape and then used the paper template for the length and final notch.
