Dec. 9, 2001  1.5 hours

I managed to take some time away from the RV to participate with the family in some Christmas activities this weekend.  I still had to get my "RV Fix" so I slipped away Sunday night and did some riveting.  I riveted the skeleton of the right elevator together, assembling the reinforcing plates and the end ribs to the spar.

 I aligned the horn to the spar and drilled it in place.  I then added the skin to the skeleton and drilled all the holes.  

Dec 10, 2001  3.5 hours

I started the night by deburring all the holes that I had drilled Sunday night.  Then is was countersinking all these holes.  (The pneumatic squeezer makes this job simple.)  I made the finishing cuts on the jigs and aligned them on my H-jig to hold the elevator straight.  I needed to crunch the trailing edge of the elevator.  After making the initial bend on the trailing edge, I moved the skin of the elevator out to where just the last couple of inches of the skin were resting on the wooden brake.  I wanted to make sure that these edges were square so I took 3 lag screws, (one on each end and one in the middle of the brake) and tightened these down.  I couldn't seem to make a consistent squeeze without having something to help put pressure on the brake.  (any kind of a large C-clamp would accomplish the same but I didn't have 3 large C-clamps.)

Then into the jig, cleco everything in place and start riveting the skin to the spar.  I had to take it back out of the jig to add the Permatex to the end of the stiffeners as I had overlooked this step.  Then back into the jig. 

A very productive night.  I riveted the spar and one of the end ribs before calling it a night. 

Dec 11, 2001  3.5 hours

Finished up the right elevator tonight.  I finished riveting the elevator together.  Then the most favorite part of all, forming the leading edge.   I had to look at the elevator attached to the HS. It looks like I have more of a gap at the top between the counterbalance arm and skin than at the bottom.    I really don't know why. I only have it attached with a couple of nails so it may be a little out of line (update 12-12 See below for the rest of the story)

(Update 12-31-01...  I couldn't stand looking at this screw-up even if it was cosmetic.  I visited with the TVRVBG during a trip to Alabama over Christmas and realized how other builders examine each others work.  I was looking at the great job these guys had done on their project and knew that I would never be satisfied with this gap.

I decided to drill out the rivets holding the E-613PP counter balance skin to the E603 & E604 and the elevator skin.  My intention was to order a blank piece of aluminum and cut and fit it back to cover up the gap.  I started by drilling out the 2 pop rivets just to see how hard it would be to get the pop rivets out.  Turns out that this wasn't too hard. Then I drilled out the other 4 rivets where the elevator skin, the spar and the counterbalance arm meet.  

Would you believe that with these rivets out on both sides that there was play in the arm that would allow the counterbalance arm to come back in and close the gap.  I was really pleased that this was going to be easier than I had hoped.  I had ordered some "oops" rivets from Van's just in case.  All I needed to do was to re-drill the holes and re-rivet with the "oops" rivets.  I drilled the holes out to a #30 size hole.  The original holes were only about a 16th or 32nd out of line.  I don't really don't know the exact measurement but it looked like a very small amount.

Bottom line is that it worked out great!  I feel much better about this now.)

Dec. 12, 2001 3.5 hours

Tonight I started assembling the spar for the left elevator.  Made pretty good progress tonight.  All the holes for the spar to ribs and skin are bored (except the horn), then disassembled  and deburred.  Ready to countersink. 

I think I might have figured out what I did wrong with the counterbalance arm having a larger gap at the top than on the bottom on the right elevator.  I followed the usual draw a line down the middle of the rib and and align the pre-drilled holes in the skin to the line.  WRONG (at least I think, time will tell as I finish the left elevator. ) I believe that the critical point is to keep the exact same distance from the edge of the skin to the rib.  The plans state that it should be 1/2 inch.  Here's a picture of the left elevator that shows what I'm talking about.    Notice the equal distance showing -- shiny skin versus white rib.  The right elevator doesn't have this equal distance.  The distance increases as you move further out to the trailing edge, thus the mis-alignment on the right elevator.  Cosmetic I know and too late for me, hope it helps you.

Dec 13, 2001 3.5 hours

Dimpled all holes in skin, ribs and main spar.  Countersunk the top of the back spar and dimpled the bottom.  I used the drill press to countersink the #40 holes.   This seemed to produce the least amount of chattering.  I aligned and riveted the horn to the spar.  Skeleton completed and the skin is dimpled.  

I started working on the electric trim.  The plate with the nut plates attached. 

Dec 14, 2001  3 hours

I began the afternoon by attaching the servo to the "z" brackets. Here's the "Z" bracket marked and ready to be cut out.  You end up trimming more from these than what I expected.      Both "Z" brackets fabricated and drilled to the plates.    And finally the servo attached to the brackets and the brackets riveted to the plate.    I back-riveted the "Z" brackets to the plate.  I then back riveted the inside plate to the skin.  I waited until everything was fabricated and in place before riveting the inside plate to the skin.  This worked well for me.

Now it's finally time to "crunch" the trailing edge of the skin.  I then closed the end of the skin of the elevator.  I think this worked out ok.    I did this by placing the presswood cut from the middle of the jig inside the skin, carefully aligning the edge of the wood with the cut outs of the skin.  Then I took another cut out of wood  and clamped it down on top of the skin.  (I took this all apart before taking a picture.  I'll follow the same procedure for the trim tab and I'll try to get a couple of  shots before disassembling.)  I then took a scrap piece of 1x3 and a mallet to make the bends.  It seems that one of the tricks to this is to make sure that the end of the wood that is stuck inside of the skin is not to thin on the end against the trailing edge.  It should be as blunt as the radius of the bend in the trailing edge.  If it is to thin, when you clamp the top piece of wood down onto the skin, it tends to squeeze the trailing edge too much and the laps of the bends would be exaggerated and stick out past the skin.  Hope this makes sense.  It does to me now but it's mid-night so who knows whether it will in the morning. (: