filled up the disk last week with Matt’s baby pictures. Naturally. So hopefully this ware still takes new entries.
More trim tab stuff
1.5 hours.
This could have gone badly. But it didn’t. First thing that happened was that I noticed a mistake. I countersunk the bottom of the left elevator trim tab spar and dimpled the top. It’s supposed to be the other way round, because the trim tab hinge is supposed to lie flat against the inner top edge of the spar and the dimpled skin is supposed to go into the countersunk holes on the outer top. After posting a question on VAF and getting no response in the short time I waited for one (patience has never been one of my stronger qualities), I decided to match-drill the hinge and dimple it. The only answer was from an older post about flap hinges, and supposedly, countersinking, doubling, and dimpling are all acceptable options. The only drawback of dimpling the hinge is that it distorts the metal and makes it harder to get the hinge pin through the eyes. Mine became a little bit stiff, but not that much, and the hinge travels freely. I’m going to call it OK. I still have to trim off the excess hinge to bring it into line with the inboard edge of the elevator and trim tab, but that’s a no brainer. Once I get that together, I have to do the trim access plate and the trim tab horn, and we’ll be ready for deburr/dimple/prime on all the left elevator bits. Right elevator skin needs to be deburred/dimpled, and all the skeleton parts are ready for prime.
Picking up the tab.
4 hours.
The whole bent-tab design on the elevators and the trim tabs of the RV series is frakking retarded. There. Got that off my chest. The elevator tab turned out messy. The inner tab looked like it got worked over by somebody looking to collect a debt or extract information. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, it was just me. I had it clamped in the blocks, to make the bend, but during some light work with the rivet gun, it slipped and I bashed the hell out of it. The outer (upper) tab went a lot better, and looked fairly decent. In my attempts to get the lower tab looking a little better, I managed to crack the metal near the relief notch on one end. No big deal, cut the cracked part out (crack was less than 1/8″), round it out, deburr. As soon as I got that done, I bent the upper one (the good one) out just a bit so I could get to something and it cracked too. So I built a riblet. I probably could have built it out of a thinner material, but the scrap available was the same gauge as the root rib and spars. The good thing about that was that I could machine countersink it to accept dimpled skins and not have to worry about getting a dimpler inside the riblet. I like the riblet, but it cost me a couple of hours.
After that, I got going on the trim tab itself. Bending the tabs on that is much easier. And like someone said on VAF, it’s a lot easer to do any tab-bending before you bend the skins in the brake. It’s probably easier to do it before you rivet the stiffeners on, too. But I got that done, then drilled in the trim-tab hinge to the trim tab spar, and that’s where I’m at right now.
Elevator stuff
7 hours.
I’m not gonna let 2006 go by without an update. Yours truly has been a busy bee. Most of the “busy” is in trying not to frak things up by being slow, careful, and thorough. So here’s the current poo: Primed all stiffeners, riveted stiffeners to left elevator, drilled, deburred, dimpled left elevator and new right elevator skeleton. Bent tabs on the elevator skin at the trim-tab area, which didn’t turn out perfectly, but turned out OK. I was having a ratbastard of a time with the wood wedge process. The bottom tab didn’t turn out that hot.. A few dings from my not-so-wonderful work with a flat set, but the top one’s OK. At least it is now. During the process, I managed to crack the metal where the tab tapers down at the trailing edge. I wound up removing about 1/4″ of the tab, but there’s enough for some filler to get hold of.
I’ll post a picture of this soon, but right now my ftp is being weird.
slow progress, but progress.
1.5 hours.
I don’t know if ‘progress’ is the right word. What’s it called when you’re catching up to where you were supposed to be before you had to take two steps backwards to fix something? Today I finished manufacturing the stiffeners for the rt elevator and rudder. Deburred, and dimpled, ready for priming.. Didn’t get to that either. Next week.
More stiffeners, drilled rt elevator stiffeners to skin.
1.5 hours.
Finished drilling stiffeners to Rt Elevator skin. Also fabbed rudder stiffeners from R-915’s. Let’s not kid ourselves. The only reason this is happening is because yours truly is taking another swipe at the tail control surfaces. It was boring the first time, it’s even worse this time around. I’d just as soon not look at another freaking stiffener ever again, but I need to get these parts right or I’m going to have to seriously consider buying a finished emp kit on the web.
The plan now is to get everything drilled and dimpled, then prime the whole wad all at once, since I find priming even more odious than remanufacturing stiffeners.
Injury of the day: Managed to grind off some skin from the left index finger on the Scotchbrite wheel.. Let’s hear it for shop safety.
Rt Elevator
.75 hours.
Clecoed Rt Elevator stiffeners to skins. drilled out exposed holes, need to shift clecoes and drill out the rest. Did I mention that I’m still kicking myself in the arse for having to do this again?
I hate commercial air travel
Flew to San Francisco for the Green Festival this past weekend. Lots of eco stuff, green building, organic farming, alternative energy, etc. We took Southwest from LAX to SFO. It sucked, both ways. They were the cheap seats, so we sat in the very back near the commode, listening to the turbofans. The seats were crammed about as close together as they could have been. On the evaluation card, I think I mentioned that they should just put us in horizontal racks, since that worked so well for slave ships and gulag trains. Airline fun comes from any direction.. It could be the kid behind you, kicking the seatback, or the businessdrone in front of you who has to lean it into your knees every ten minutes with a full body stretch, or the plumpling next to you, arm-fat oozing into your tiny and expensive space after its conquest of the armrest for the duration of the flight. On the other side of you might be a chatterbox who fails to understand that one person’s way to pass the time is another person’s relativistic dilation of hell. And then there’s the screaming kid, who might be in any one of the above zones, but could come from anywhere, the farther away the better. The inverse-square law IS your friend. We got all this and more, this trip. The sound of the turbofans is kind of cool at first, and does a lot to pave over the other annoyances, but it gets on your nerves after a while and the only way out of that is earplugs. I don’t like earplugs, especially in a tube full of strangers where I might, much as I’d rather not, have to interact with one of them at any time.
Every time one of these little annoyances would crop up, from the security checkpoint to the ass-in-the-face waiting to get off the plane, I thought of my little RV in the garage, and my ride with Dan Checkoway last year in N714D. Motivation comes in many forms. Thanks, Southwest, for strengthening my resolve to press on with my plane so that I can take care of my own regional aviation needs.
Rt Elevator
.5 hours.
finished making the Rt Elevator stiffeners, prepped the skin (took blue stuff off where the rivets will go).
Small bites, early mornings before work. That’s when my time is the most free, oddly enough. And it’s easier to get motivated before a day of work than after.
Rt Elevator Stiffeners v2.0
.5 hours
Cut new Rt Elevator stiffeners. Also realized I need 7 more rudder stiffeners. I can’t seem to find the original packing list from Van’s that came with the emp kit, but no matter. I’ll sort it out. Like the new color scheme? I know FA about css and html hacking, so I just poked around with color values til I got what I wanted.
Have to go to San Francisco this weekend w/wife for the Green Festival. No building.