Back at it
Another week of travel, and now I’m back to hit it.
I didn’t get the left elevator buttoned up. I ran into two mistakes. The first one was that I didn’t add RTV to the trailing edges of the stiffeners. The consensus on VAF is that this isn’t a problem. I have asked Vans for a ruling, anyway. If I have to do it, I’ll have to remove the main spar. This means many, many rivets to remove. Remember, each rivet to remove is a chance to screw it up completely.
The second issue is the trim tab spar. I drilled countersink holes using my hand held drill and I am not happy with the results at all. I think the problem is that even on it’s slow speed the electric drill goes too fast. I didn’t even bother attaching it to the elevator. It’s one of those gut feelings that it isn’t up to par. Since I was going out of town anyway, I decided to order two spars from Vans. They were only $9.00, so it’s cheap insurance. I can test a few ways of doing it, and then get it attached.
Today is the rudder. If you remember, I messed up a skin a few weeks ago. These rudder skins are just paper thin, and so easy to mess up. I got the parts two weeks ago, and they’ve been sitting there waiting for me to finish the elevators. Well now it is their turn today. I made the new stiffeners and and primed last night. They are ready for assembly today.
