The elevator trim tab will go down in Vans history for all the wrong reasons. From what I've seen so far Vans have produced a wonderfully designed and machined kit BUT the trim tab is not part of that! The fact it appears in the Accessories catalogue should have the designers alarm bell ringing. The ends have to be bent using wood and a dimple mallet! Yet some complex items like the rudder horn brace and ribs come pre-bent so why not this? Is this part of Van's dark sick humour? Until it does come pre-bent then all I can do is add my comments to this very thorough article.
1. I used a peice of trim aluminium using the same measurements of the elevator bend tabs for practice (see Trim Tab 2 for note on bend line measurement)
2. Even though I used the stickiest double tape I could find (Avgas got it off the best afterwards!) you can see during the bending the top block slips. I did use a hinge to try and stop this but the screw wasn't quite long enough for the first attempt. The secret of a good bend appears to be making sure NOTHING can move apart from the tab you're bending.
