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.