Brief Description: Finish elevator tips installation.
Cutting the elevator fiberglass tips with tje Dremel tool may be tricky but its the only way to go. Band saw blades dull quickly as well as hacksaw blades. The Dremel is a wonderful tool! We decided to cut some 0.025 alcad to line the insides of the tip flanges so that the pop rivets would have something to hold on to other than the fiberglass. After countersinking the fiberglass I saw that it was the way to go. There would not be much fiberglass to rivet through without the alluminum to hold the rivets. I could see the fiberglass giving way to vibration. We used liquid nails to adhere the alcad to the inside edges of the fiberglass and then match drilled the tips with elevator. The trailing edge holes would not take the hand squeezer for the dimpling. I used a wood spacer in the traililng edge with a hole and countersink and then hammered a dimple die inserted into a 2x2x4 to dimple those opposite holes. The pop-rivets were too long and touched each other on the top and bottom holes, therefore, I shortened one pop-rivet by taking it apart and cutting off some the cylinder that is swedged by the pin as it is pulled out and snapped. It worked! I couldn't believe it. All that's left is the filling and smoothing with expoxy and filler along with the sanding and cursing that will accompany the work. Arggh!
