Well, time to catch up on this past weeks work. I have not been keeping really close track of time or keeping up with this log as I've been working sporadically over the past week or so. some of the work was not really productive... Moreless, time tinkering in the shop. I' m going to estimate the real work time at 8 hours. I got a ton done! At this point we are calling the empennage kit structurally complete!!!! :-) I do have a couple small tasks to do like fit the trim tab and servo, and roll the leading edge. The rest is just fiberglass work.
- Riveted both right & left elevator skeletons.
- Fitted & riveted the control horn wedments. I ended up moving up to #5 rivets on the welments due to trying to get text book rivet orientation. Needless to say, it didn't go too smooth.
- Put a gobb of Dow Corning 3145 mill spec RTV on each of the skin stiffener intersections in the trailing edge & shoved in the skeletons.
- Final riveted the skins to the skeleton and we're done.
- Torqued the counter weight bolts to 25 inch lbs and applied torque seal.
- Started fitting the fiberglass tips.
I missed two dimples on the left elevator which I have no idea how I'm going to get to. I messed up the trim access panel (E-615pp) by dimpling in the wrong direction. Usually, you can reverse dimples once on thin material but this piece was pretty thick & reversing the dimples created stress fractures around the dimples. Waiting on a replacement from Vans. I also left the counterweights at their original size. I'll balance the elevators later once mounted on the plane by drilling holes in the lead.
