Prep'd Flap skins for priming - 6 hours

Bit of a long day for the flaps. I had to debur the flap skins. Once that was done, I scuffed with scotchbrite. Next step after that was to dimple all the holes. Mindless work but sitting in front of Netflix while doing it passes time easily. I was sure to edge roll the flap skin where it mates with the bottom skin before dimpling.

 
Once all was ready, I took the pieces outside, wiped everything down with wax and grease remover, MEK and then primed. I decided not to acid etch these as it is quite a bunch of work and since the flaps are easily replaceable if needed I took a chance.
Later that evening after the primer had a few hours to dry on the skin, I mixed up some 3m 2216 structural epoxy to use as a liquid shim between the flap ribs/rear spar. I didn't need much of a shim at all (about 0.010") so the liquid shim will be just fine.

It works pretty good as it sets up incredibly well after about 8 hours ....however, one thing I didn't count on in its amazing ability to destroy a cleco.

Began assembling Aileron brackets - 2 hours

I gathered up the nerve to assemble the aileron brackets. I was dreading this step as I find driving the bigger, longer rivets at bit of a pain (more about the difficulty in drilling and removing rivets out of really thick material).

Well....I decided to jump in. Surprisingly everything when extremely well. First step was to set the AN426 flush rivets using the pneumatic squeezer.


Next I needed to set the AN470AD-11 rivets. Now this is where I was getting nervous. I find setting the AD470 rivets a bit more tough with squeezer as it is a tad tricky to ensure you are dead straight with the dies. (Dead straight results in great rivets....while if you are slightly off, it increases changes of a slightly slumped rivet head). It turns out that my squeezer just did not have enough power to set those AD4-11 rivets. So I pulled out my alligator squeezer. After some test pieces....Bam! Turns out it does an amazing job!



Since a few folks seem to have some questions on how the rivets are oriented on the hinge brackets, here is a few views of how I did mine.