Elevators Part I
Got started on the elevators. These (in particularly the left one) are known to be a tough part of the build due to the trim tab. In this update, I mainly started on the prep work and haven’t got to the trim tab yet. I began trimming the stiffeners and deburring, dimpling, and priming them. I had a little mess up during this part. In the plans, it has you attach the stiffeners to the skins and match drill all the holes up to #40. Since I am using the special dimple dies I got from synergy, I could skip this step and go right to dimpling the stiffeners. What I didn’t realize is a couple of the stiffeners had no hole drilled for the most aft hole. Then, for the left elevator, the plans have you trim three of the stiffeners shorter, with the guide being the second to last hole (see pics). Well since I never drilled the last hole, the hole that I thought was the second to last was actually the third to last. I ended up cutting 6 of the stiffeners way too short. I didn’t realize this until after everything was primed unfortunately. I have more on order but not sure when they’ll be here. Once those are installed I will be able to bend the trailing edge and continue with everything else.
In the meantime, I’m upgrading my trailing edge brake because the pieces of wood I was using are slightly cupped, which made for a lot of work getting the bend right for the rudder. A guy form work has a planar that he’s letting me use to get my 2x8s perfectly square, which will be nice.
Past that, I built up the skeleton’s for the left and right up until the point I needed to start attaching it to the skin. They are all ready to drop in once I have the stiffeners in and the skins are bent.
