Elevators Part VI
Since most of the structural stuff is done, I’ve just been slowly working on the fiberglass tips and filling in some of the ends of the elevators. There is a bit of trimming of the HS skin to get the elevator to fit but it isn’t bad. In addition, there is quite a bit of fiberglass trimming to make everything fit well.
I made a flat edge on the horizontal stab tips by bonding a piece of foam into the back of the tip with flex and recessing it just barely below the edge. Then, I corner taped the foam on the backside with fiberglass. Then, I filled the front in with micro and sanded until it was flush with the edge. I put a coat of primer over it and it looks pretty good for now.
For the elevator edges, I filled the inboard sides of both elevators. There are a couple pros and cons to this. The pros are that it looks better, may give you a tiny bit more speed, and prevents any FOD from possibly getting stuck between the elevators and the vertical stab. The cons are that it makes this areas less serviceable, impossible to inspect, and adds a little weight. I took lots of pictures of the rivet quality and any closed out areas before it was closed out to mitigate some of those concerns.
I accomplished this by cutting some low density foam to fit inside against the rib and sit down about 1/16″ below the edge of the skin. Then, I bonded the foam in with flox. After everything was dry, I filled the small gap between the foam and skin with micro just a tad bit higher than the skin. Then I sanded the micro down flush with the skin. I re-applied micro and sanded about 4 times to get the perfect finish I wanted. Once everything was flush, I shot a coat of primer on and am leaving it that way for now.
With the micro, you get a couple tiny pinholes that are a real pain to try and get rid of fully. You can try to fill them with resin and then keep sanding or use primer that helps fill them, but these methods are much more time consuming or expensive and at this point I am just going to leave the pinholes because you can barely notice them anyway. When it comes time to paint, I’ll prep much better and fill all those in.
