Drill Right Elevator Assembly - 2 hours Today I assembled all the components in the right rudder for match drilling.
While countersinking the 0.032" elevator spar for the flush rivets that go under the control horn, I ran into a problem - the countersink cage was too "wide" to allow me to countersink the outermost hole on each end. If you look in the picture below you can see the two holes in the middle are already countersunk, but you can see how the spar flange is preventing me from getting to the outermost hole.
My workaround that worked out great was to use the manual deburring tool and slowly countersink the hole (checking for proper depth often with a rivet). It turned out great.
1/08/08 Debur right elevator - 2 hours One of the less exciting days working on the airplane, I spent two hours after work today deburring the right elevator components.
1/10/2008 Right elevator dimple and prime - 2 hours Tonight I finished deburring all the right elevator components and dimpled then primed. I had to use the vice-grip dimpler on the tips of the ribs, and near the TE of the skin. Since I only have the longeron yoke for my squeezer that can accept dimple dies, I had to use the pop-rivet dimpler on a few LE spar rivet holes. All went well though.
I did notice today though, that the spar is a little tweaked - it isn't laying flat on the table any more. This is because the scotchbrite wheel on my bench grinder "kicked back" while I was deburring the spar. I worked with it a little tonight and was able to get it much closer back to flat - hopefully assembly will pull it together the rest of the way.
1/15/2008 Right Elevator Assembly - 2 hours Tonight I started assembling the right elevator.
The skeleton went together flawlessly. I didn't follow directions (see HERE for more details) and riveted the 704 rib to the 702 spar first, THEN riveting the 703 rib to the 704 rib and 702 spar - many people have had problems with this if they follow the directions and rivet the 703 and 704 ribs together f
