Brief Description: Finish preparing both flap assemblies
Spring break is over. Daughter and I finished earning our advanced open water diving and Nitrox certifications and enjoyed many great dives in the FL Keys. Back to work. Countersunk the left flap spar and dimpled all other holes in the assembly. Set it aside to proceed with the new right flap. On the right flap, I used the original hinge half which was match drilled to the wing skin and flap brace. So on this flap I had to clamp the flap to the undrilled lower half of the hinge at it's ends. The bottom of the flap spar obviously had not been match drilled to the flap skin bottom yet either, so I held those two pieces together with duct tape. Slipped the top flap skin onto the lower assembly while it was hanging and with a taught string drawn along the trailing edge of the aileron/flap assembly, I adjusted the flap skin so it was perfectly in line with the aileron and string. Duct taped the top skin onto the bottom skin here and there temporarily. Proceeded to start at inboard end and drilled the lower hinge half to the flap spar through the prepunched holes in the skin one at a time, clecoeing one hole, move on to the next one. That proceeded well all the way across. I rechecked the trailing edge alignment, adjusting the duct tape slightly to maintain alignment. Spring clamps held the top skin tight to each flap rib. I started in the middle of the bottom overlap drilling/clecoing a few holes left, then a few holes right. Always double checking the alignment to the string. With that done, I still managed to have about 1/64 mis match between the aileron and flap where they meet each other. Good enough for me.... unless I want to redrill another bottom hinge half and pull the flap up 1/64. I think I will let it be. I'm not even going to mention this to my builder buddies.. They'll hide my drills.
