Brief Description: Rolled leading edges of elevators
In finishing up the elevators, I had to roll the leading edges, like I did with the rudder. It was a real job. I started with the left elevator and rolled the first edge ok. Rolling the second edge, it caught the other edge and bent the aluminum. It took me a while to try to make the unsightly mess look presentable.In bending the left elevator leading edge, I mistakenly thought that the longer side would be rolled outside of the shorter side. Wrong. I studied the plans and found the opposite. It seems counter-intuitive for if to work this way, but this feature allows the top to be on the outside so that water can run off the leading edge and not into the elevator. I feel certain that very few (if any) RVs spend their lives outside of a hanger, so I do not think this feature is critical.After discovering my mistake (after riveting) I went on to roll the right elevator. The first side went fine. I had Vicki help me with the second side. It works better if two people work it; one to muscle the vice grips on the pipe and a second to guide the bending edge past the already rolled edge of the opposite side. This all worked beautifully except we did not really roll the second edge enough. When I riveted the two rolled sides together (this time correctly with the top side on the outside) there were ugly gaps left where the leading edge did not quite come together. After some contemplation, I decided to place more rivets between the existing rivets on the rolled leading edge. That worked fine. The leading edge of the right elevator now looks good.Next, I went back and fixed the left elevator. I drilled out the leading edge pull rivets. The plans say that it is difficult to drill out these pull rivets, but they came out easier than the driven rivets. I then pulled the top skin outside of the bottom skin on the leading edge roll and re-riveted the whole thing together again. Looks good.I am now about 99% finiished with the empenage. I will have to clean out the shop to make room for
L & R elevator leading edges. Note the extra rivets in the top elevator.
