We decided to mount the elevators onto the horizontal stabilizer and checkout the up and down travel before drilling out the elevator horns. Should be easy, yeah! To get the bolts through the rod end bearing and hinge, without any room for your hands, was almost impossible. I happened to see a tip on someone's website that used bent 16 penny nails as temporary bolts. What a great tip! We finally got the elevators on and found that one must trim the skin at the end of the HS to allow the balance arms to clear the skin. I looked on the drawing and sure enough, it said to trim the skin for a minimum clearance of 1/8". Well off came the elevators and out came the tin snips, Dremel tool, and fine files. It took two tries to get the proper clearance. That meant we had to install the left elevator again. Thank God for the bent nail tip! The right side trimming of the HS skin went quickly because we only mounted the elevator after trimming was complete. We had the measurements from the left side and they proved to ge good for the right side. Lessons learned? Need to study the plans more before just following the directions in the manual. Read more websites of the other builders and find their tricks and tips. Hopefully I'll be able to pass some tips along to others through mykitlog.
