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Michaels Web Site
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Date: 10-15-2022
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Number of Hours: 1.50
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Finished horiz tail, including fiberglass tips
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Finished installing the elevator tips, so that completes all the work on the horizontal tail! Sorry I didn't take more photos.
- Updrilled the holes to #30. The plan don't tell you that, but it's how the rivets fit.
- Dimpled all the holes.
- Machine counter-sunk the holes in the fiberglass tips.
- Put some dabs of JB Weld on the flanges of the fiberglass, before inserting them for riveting.
- Installed the pulled rivets.
The reason for the JB Weld is because the edge distance from the rivet holes in the fiberglass is not optimal. There's no way around it, the way the ribs interfere with the fiberglass flanges. I only used dabs of JB Weld because if I ever do damage a tip and need to remove it, I don't want it completely glued in there. The JB Weld just gives a little more holding power if any of the fiberglass cracks at the rivet holes.
See photo #2. The final rivet in both elevators has it's brother exactly on the other side. They should have been designed to be off center from one another. You can see I could not get the last rivet to sit in the dimple because the already-set rivet on the other side, interfered. I used my hand squeezer (all the others I did with a pneumatic rivet puller) to gently start to set the rivet. As the mandrell pulls up, the rivet gets shorter, so I kept pressure on the rivet as I made small squeezes, until the rivet head finally set in the dimple, and the last squeeze broke off the mandrel.
Well... at least that's how the first one went. The second one "almost" get down in the dimple before the mandrel broke off. There was no way I could leave it that way. So I used a pair of flush-cutting cutters to cut off the head. The rest of the rivet was left in the hole, with somewhat of a flared top in the dimple. It's not structural, so it will have to do.
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Completed! (one shown, but both done).
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The last rivet has interference from the rivet on the other side.
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Marked the rudder tip for cutting tomorrow.
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