Yesterday when Dan was here, he pointed out the ham-fisted way the left HS inboard ribs were put together. He was right. It’s ugly. Two rivets are close to minimum edge distance, if not over the line, and now that I see that little section of the HS (Months later), it looks like a team of chimps went to work on it with socks full of ball bearings. But I so want to be done with the empennage. I sent photos to Van’s, and they said yeah, it’s ugly, but it’s ‘hard to imagine this will cause any problems structurally.’ So I’m going to move on, and cover it up with the empennage fairing when the time comes. If it continues to drive me nuts, like some aluminum telltale heart pinging away aft of the baggage compartment, I’ll fix it by replacing the left HS inboard ribs.
Oh, one more thing.
Yesterday, my .093 Burraway developed an oscillation, due to me pullingit out of a hole at the wrong angle. In the foolish attempt to bend it back into shape, I snapped the shank right in half. That was a big ‘Oh frak’ and not the Galactica pronunciation either. Cost is $TBD in treasure, and a nice gouge in the base of my thumb from the snapped end in blood.
TC visit today.
4 hours.
Dan C and Scott F stopped by today and we went over the progress to date. It worked out great! The only squawks were some bolts without enough threads showing, some with too many, and a question of whether or not the left inboard HS ribs are outside minimums on a couple of rivets, and a suggestion on how to do the flap hinge pins, which brings us to today’s actual work.
Afterwards, we grabbed a bite to eat at Spitfire, then I watched Scott’s IO-390 powered RV7A hop into the sky like an ICBM. Back home, I farted around for a while, trying to decide what to do first. I did all the bolt squawks on the emp, then put the emp parts up in the attic, awaiting Van’s word on the rivet status of the HS rib. Then I did the flap hinges. I cut out 2 eyelets on the flap and one on the wing and ran the hinge pins in from the center. I bent them back and fastened them to the flap brace by means of a small plate and a CS4-4 rivet. Probably coulda just safety wired them below the wing, but this way the pin ends are tucked away out of sight. I did the left wing, and i’m almost done with the right wing, just need to make a hold-down plate for the pins and the flaps they izz installed.
Still waiting on my Dynon pitot/AOA probe.