Stiffeners

So where do stiffeners come from.  I promised this in a previous post.  You start out with about 3 – 4′ lengths of bent aluminum.  It has the customary blue plastic and part number written on it.  For the rudder they are all the same, for the elevator you have to be really careful because there are several different types and you cant mix and match.

Stiffeners in their raw form.

Cut into each of them are some odd looking holes.  On initial inspection there doesn’t seem to be any reason for them being there.

You start here with cryptic holes punched in them.

Reading the plans you soon see what is going on.  The odd holes are there to tell you where to cut.  In the picture above you see a fat horizontal cut.  Slightly above and to the right of that you see (barely) a small notch cut into the edge of the material.  Lets look at the plans.

The plans tell you what to do.

The crosshatched area of the plans is material you have to remove.  The hole and notch I described above are depicted on the right hand side of the picture.  See if you can figure out what the plan is telling you to do.  There will be a test on Friday.