Another big day. I picked up by marking the material on the
tab that needed to be removed. It amounts to about 1/16" maybe less. About
the width of my dremel cut off wheel. I performed some delicate surgery and it
was a success. I noticed that I had scuffed the skin when bending the long tab
over so I scuffed the area up and re-primed the tab. Also by using the double
sided 3m tape on the wood block, I had removed a little bit of primer in the
trim tab. I scuffed and touched up those areas as well.
While I was waiting for the primer to dry I moved on to the
trim tab and the hinge. I match drilled the horn and I cut the hinge so the layout/orientation is exactly as the
plans show. JUST enough hinge...Just.
I then took a lunch break.
After a few hours of giving the primer time to dry, I then
folded the last tab over. Perfection!
I then set off to work on the alignment of the trim tab and
the hinge. This took a fair amount of time at least 1 1/2hours to set up. I
used painters tape, clamps, etc. I used scrap material to ensure that I
maintained the 3/32" clearance between the elevator and the trim tab. I
fiddled with it a bunch...made sure that it was perfectly aligned along the
trailing edge. i marked each hole as a reference guide. I then removed the
hinge pin and clamped the one side of the hinge to the elevator. I very
carefully started to match drill the holes and cleco as I went. I put
everything back together....checked alignment again, and then repeated the
process for the trim tab side of the hinge. Perfect!
It was getting late but I was on a roll so I decided to
start dimpling the skins....I just did a few and then WHAM. I made a whoops!!!
Oh crap! I was a little rambunctious with the pneumatic squeezer and
mis-dimpled the aft-most hole for the CS4 that attaches the fiberglass tip. (It
was a tricky spot do to the tight area) I sent Van's an email to see what
options I have....CRAP!
