Elevator Construction

Started on Right Elevator

June 5 2002

I started work on the right elevator today. I have very little time but was determined to do SOMETHING today. I got the right skin and spar out of storage, hung the elevator plan sheet where it would be handy, and then drilled the skin to the spar. Not a lot done, but better than nothing! This is going to be a hectic week (a party on Saturday and we are still preping/painting/upgrading the master bathroom) ... but afterward I intend to get into high gear on the elevator construction. Time : 0.5 hours

Painting Delays

June 17 2002

It has been a frustrating June, with house painting (and various other activities and incidents) keeping me from getting any work done on the elevator. However, we really want to get the painting done before we have a new bed delivered. One the upside, I have spent a little time getting the garage rearranged so I can create more bench and storage space. In the long run, that'll be a positive move for the project!

Laying out Stiffeners

June 25 2002

The family insisted that I work on the airplane, if only to cause me to be a bit less grumpy. The bedroom/bathroom remodeling work isn't done, but the garage is rearranged to give me more room to work. I started the stiffener layout (finally!) and hope to get this done quickly. Even with the insistence that I work ... I could only carve out an hour tonight. We had other "family emergencies" to deal with, but I intend to get back into full tilt construction this week. Time : 1.0 hours

Trimming/Tapering Stiffeners	July 3, 2002
My son and I trimmed and tapered the stiffeners. They are ready for rivet layout, and drilling to the skins. We were about to do the layout when our dinner guests arrived, stopping work. Time : 2.0 hours

Drilled Stiffeners/Skins	July 5, 2002
My son and I finished the layout of the rivet holes on the stiffeners, drilled the holes on the stiffeners, and then drilled the stiffeners to the skins. We deburred, dimpled, and primed the stiffeners. We also started dimpling the skins when a thunderstorm halted work. Time : 4.0 hours

Dimpling / V-Jig Installed	July 6, 2002
Various things kept the available time low today, but we did finish dimpling the skins and installing the v-jig for the elevators. We also spent some time practicing back-riveting, and that went superbly. Tomorrow we rivet! Time : 2.0 hours

More Right Elevator Work	July 7, 2002
We riveted the stiffeners to the skins, assembled the spar doublers and associated nutplates, and assembled the tip ribs which hold the counterweights. The back-riveting on the skins went without a hitch. Chris and I traded off doing stiffeners. Each would do a line of rivets and then the other would do the next line. Time : 3.5 hours

Finished Right Elevator Skeleton

July 14, 2002

We got quite a lot done today, even though at times it seemed like progress was slow. First came the "bending brake" and the bending of the elevator trailing edge. It took some squeezing, but we got it bent. We then continued work on the skeleton eventually finding that we needed to trim the inboard tip rib so it would clear the spar flange. This sent me on a quest to find a nibbler, which was eventually found at our local Harbor Freight store. With that trimmed and cleaned up, we riveted the tip ribs to the spar with little trouble. Next came fitting the control horn to the skeleton. That went with little trouble as well, care being taken to center the tube of the control horn on the line made by the rod end bearings down the spar. Finally, the skeleton was slipped into the skins and everything was drilled to match. At this point we just need to fit the counterweight skin, debur, dimple, and rivet. Time : 4.5 hours

Finished Right Elevator Skeleton

July 19, 2002

We drilled the counterweight skin to the skeleton and elevator skins, deburred everything, and then dimpled. We are ready to put the RTV at the trailing edge (inside the skins at the stiffener ends), cleco it all together, and then rivet! After that we start on the left elevator ... and I think we'll do the trim tab first, because if we screw it up, new parts can be on the way while we work on the parts we do know how to do! Time : 2.0 hours

Riveted Right Elevator	July 21, 2002
Today the skins got riveted to the skeleton. It went great and I was even able to get those last two trailing edge tip rivets with my no-hole yoke. Wonderful. Once again, the pneumatic squeezer was a real blessing. Once the leading edge is finished, the elevator is done! Time : 4.0 hours

Finished Right Elevator

August 2, 2002

We finished curling the leading edge, drilled, deburred, and riveted. The right elevator is finished! We would have been done earlier but for having attended Oshkosh 2002. (See the entry in the "General" section for a quick rundown of our trip!) We were hot to get this finished tonight as we are now about to head for a week vacation at the beach, and we badly wanted to finish this elevator. We start on the left when we get back. Time : 1.5 hours

Started Left Elevator

August 12,14, 2002

Back from vacation at the beach, and back to working on the plane. We got started on the left elevator by deburring the edges of the skin and spars, drilling the spars to the skins, and laying out the placement lines for the stiffeners. A little shop cleanup time had to be factored in as well (not reflected in the number of hours on this entry, 'cause it isn't really working-on-the-plane time) since things were in a bit of a disarray from right elevator work, and pulling stuff out for the beach trip! Time : 2.5 hours

Finished Stiffeners, Drilled to Skin

August 15, 2002

I finished drilling, deburring, and priming the stiffeners. We then drilled the set to the top skin, but the heat/humidity caused us to call it an early night and we left the bottom half for later. I did have one "oops" however. I thought I was positioned right for drilling one of the holes to the skin, but I was just off of the hole. Oops. I thought about re-drilling in the right spot and then having to cover/fill the offending hole later, and felt that it was too close for comfort. I left the hole, and there is going to be one rivet which is not perfectly in line. Bummer. And it had to be on the top skin too, of course. Right? Time : 2.0 hours

Mis-Drilled Skin!

August 16, 2002

I started on finishing the drilling of the stiffeners to the skin, and made a tragic mistake. I grabbed the wrong stiffener, not realizing, and drilled it to the wrong position. The mistake was severe enough (and when combined with the other mis-drilling above) I decided to replace the skin. Damn. Aside from the obvious not-paying-close-enough-attention stupidity in evidence here, I think there is a critical issue at play which caused these mistakes. Complacency. I built the right elevator with NO problems at all ... and in doing so became complacent in building the left. A (somewhat expensive) lesson learned. On the up-side, I'll get to start fresh on the left elevator and do it right, and will at the same time re-work the stiffeners to correct a rivet hole spacing issue that I was unhappy with. Still, it sucks to make a mistake and screw up parts. Truly sucks. Time : 0.5 hours

Started on New Skin	August 27, 2002
After some delay (waiting for the parts to come in, etc.) I have the new skin in and started work on it. I drilled the spars to the skin and laid out the stiffener positions. I'll use the "short" stiffeners I already have and will re-fabricate the other full length stiffeners. Time : 1.0 hours

Fabricated Stiffeners (again)

August 28, 2002

Tonight I had a member of the EAA-1114 chapter (Greg Hunter) come out to see what is involved in building. We fabricated the stiffeners and then took some (a lot) of time double-checking and thinking through the positioning of them on the skin. After much discussion we drew lines, and then realized that we hadn't taken the stiffener orientation into account. Why is the left elevator being so much more trouble than the right was?? :) At that point it was late, and we called it a night 'cause building when tired makes for problems. We have labor day weekend coming up ... and while that SHOULD be a great opportunity to build, we have one final room to paint and that is going to consume a lot of our time. We'll see if I can build while paint dries! Time : 2.0 hours

Drilled Stiffeners to Skin (first side)	August 31, 2002
I re-did/re-checked the layout of the stiffeners (in the morning, well rested with no distractions) and got it spot on. I drilled the stiffeners on the first side of the elevator. The remainder of the day was consumed with other activities, so no more work got done on the airplane. Time : 1.0 hours

Drilled Remaining Stiffeners / Deburred / E-615 Prep	September 1, 2002
Even with room painting prep work going on, I got a lot done on the airplane today. I finished drilling the stiffeners to the skin, deburred and dimpled the stiffeners, then primed them. I also primed the E-615 and the electric trim servo motor cover, dimpled the parts, and riveted the platenuts to the E-615 plate. I also started dimpling the skins and ran out of time. Time : 4.0 hours

Dimpled Skin/ Riveted Stiffeners / Bent Trailing Edge

September 2, 2002

The title above says it all, really. The stiffeners (and the E-615 plate) are all riveted on, and the skin trailing edge is bent. We move on to assembling the skeleton now. We also had a visitor today ... Chuck Hall, a about-to-begin RV-8 builder. We had a nice chat talking about tools and various airplane-building-things with it likely that he'll be ordering tools and kit within the next few weeks. Time : 3.5 hours

Left Elevator Spar Reinforcement Plates	September 10, 2002
I had very little time (in a week of very little time) tonight to work on the plane. Still, I did get the spar reinforcement plates preped and the first rivet on the first plate driven. :) No, it isn't much, but a little is better than nothing! Time : 0.5 hours

Riveted LE Spar Reinforcement Plates	September 12, 2002
I'm starting a new practice (or attempting to, at least!). I'm going to get up a little earlier in the mornings on weekdays and try to put in an hour of work every day on the plane. Today I didn't get in quite an hour, but did get all the rivets driven on the spar reinforcement plates! Time : 0.75 hours

Left Elevator Skeleton Work

September 13, 2002

I didn't get as much done today as I had hoped ... since some things came up that took me away from the shop. However, I did get the skeleton parts deburred, the end rib (E-609?) flanges bent, and the front and rear spars drilled to the E-609. I also did the countersinking on the top of the rear spar to accommodate the dimples in the skin. This is so I didn't have to either dimple or countersink the trim tab hinge. Time : 3.0 hours

More Left Elevator Skeleton Work	October 27, 2002
After a long break (see reasons on my main logbook page) I'm back to working. I had only a little time today, but got the E-603 and E-604 riveted together. I also drilled the tip ribs to the spar. Skeleton assembly is next on the list! (And, hopefully, I'm back in the building saddle again and will be making more progress than I did over the last month of non-work!) Time : 1.5 hours

Left Elevator Skeleton Completed and Drilled

November 3, 2002

Christopher and I (with my new "Main Squeeze" from Cleavland) quickly put the left elevator skeleton together tonight. (We got little time to work on things today because of a -very- late party last night!) We also put in in the v-jig with the skeleton, clecoed it all together, clamped on the counterweight skin, and did final drilling of the skin to the skeleton. At that point it was time to call it a night .... the whole family is still recovering from the party! Time : 2.0 hours

Left Elevator Deburring

November 4, 2002

I tried to get a start on a new routine today. With my new group in the company being on the west coast, I'm trying to shift my hours up a bit to accommodate. This gives me time in the morning ... a time when I really enjoy building anyway. I'm trying to get on up-and-out and into the garage to get some work done. It'll take a while to create a routine, but today I got in 3/4 of an hour and did all the deburring from all the drilling we did last night. Christopher came out while waiting for his school carpool and helped with the deburring a bit too. Next ... we drill and attach the control horn weldment. After that, it is on to bending the dreaded tabs on the skin! :) Time : 0.75 hours

Control Horn Attached

November 5, 2002

First ... it is Christopher's birthday! He turned 15 today, so clearly I need to get moving on finishing this airplane. :) Day number two of the new routine is working well, as I did get up and spent an hour on building before I sat down to work. Today my task was to position, drill, debur, and rivet the control horn onto the left elevator skeleton. That was completed, and the new "Main Squeeze" rivet squeezer worked like a dream. I think I'm really going to like this new tool! Tomorrow, I bend tabs on the elevator skin. Wish me luck. Time : 1.0 hours

Trim Servo Mounting

November 7, 2002

Well, I thought the next thing to do was to bend the tabs, and I was close. Upon looking back at the directions they really suggest mounting the trim tab servo motor now while access to the inside of the elevator is good. They have a point. :) So, I started working on that today. Since I have not really looked at that assembly yet I spent a little head-scratching time. I looked at the plans, fiddled with the parts, and went to look at some other builder's web pages to confirm that, yes, you do have to trim the z-brackets a bit. I could see no other choice, but it is comforting to see that other builders came to the same conclusion. Cut lines are marked, and the hole for the servo control wires is drilled. With that, I'm outta time and have to go to work. Time : 0.5 hours

Finish Trim Servo Mounting	November 10, 2002
I finally got the trim servo mounted. The brackets needed a good bit of trimming, and I had my share of frustrations getting it done. It is a tight fit and clamping everything together to get the holes drilled took some work ... but it is done now and I'm fairly pleased with the results. Next we bend the tabs on the elevator skin! (FINALLY!) Time : 2.5 hours

Ready to Close

November 17, 2002

After a work-week-from-hell where I got no airplane work done, I did get the tabs bent. I tried using the wedge taken from the elevator jig pieces ... but had trouble using it. Given how I was trying to clamp it all together I couldn't get enough "grip" and the trailing edge section kept slipping. After much swearing I gave up on that wedge and quickly cut me one out of a 2x4. This was more than twice as wide and when clamped in place had a lot more surface area which made it less likely to slip when I went to bend. My bends are not beautiful, but they are perfectly serviceable. This took a LOT more time than it ever should have! I then dimpled everything else that needed to be dimpled to be ready to close up the control surface. I dimpled the skins and the skeleton, and used the "pop rivet dimple die" to dimple those holes inboard of the bent tabs. It worked like a champ. Next we squeeze a bunch of rivets, and build the trim tab to finish things up on the left elevator. Time : 4.25 hours

Riveted Skin to Skeleton (almost)

November 18, 2002

Christopher and I started closing the elevator. We started by riveting the two "impossible to reach" rivets which are just inside the spar and tip ribs before we put the skeleton in place. We test fit the skeleton and discovered that a flange on the trim servo reinforcement plate did hit some rivets which were holding on the control horn weldment. We did a little trimming (which the manual warned might be needed) and then were ready to put it all together. Just before we put the skeleton in for the last time Christopher remembered that we needed to put the "blue goo" at the trailing edge of the stiffeners! A few quick dabs of goo, and we were ready to rivet. We started on the spar and got most all done and then had to break for dinner. Our time was up, but another good hour of riveting will see the main portion of the left elevator riveted. All we have left after that is the trim tab! Time : 1.5 hours

Riveted Skin to Skeleton (more)

November 19, 2002

I spent a little time before work today doing more riveting. This will be all I can get done myself today and we have a little left to go, but slowly (as always with my building!) but surely we'll get it finished. Tonight Christopher had some time so while I had to go run other errands he worked on some more riveting. If he had been sure about which side of the trim tab section to rivet, he would have gotten it all finished! As it is, there is a small handful of rivets left to be driven. Maybe tomorrow! Time : 1.25 hours

Tiny Bit of Riveting

November 20, 2002

I had no time to work, but Christopher finished up all the solid rivets needed on the elevator (except for the top of the trim tab spar, which has to wait for us to fit the hinge). We now just need to curl the leading edge and put in a few pop rivets both there and on the trim tab spar and bent tabs. Slowly slowly, bit by bit .... By the way, it is great (and amazing) that I now have a helper that can do stuff unsupervised. Christopher is getting to the point where he can get independent work done ... and do a high quality job, too! Wow! How cool! The picture shows the left elevator with all the solid rivets driven and ready for the CS4-4 rivets to go at the far end of the trim tab spar. The clecos in the top you see are there waiting for the trim tab hinge to be fit and riveted on. Time : 0.25 hours

Pop Rivets Installed

November 21, 2002

I had just a few minutes again in a busy day to install a few rivets. I installed a grand total of 5 rivets. Amazing. These were the CS4-4 rivets which go on the bottom. I'm leaving all of the top rivets until I install the trim tab hinge, so all I have left to do is to curl the leading edge. I hope to do that tonight, and then we can essentially call the left elevator done. At least this counts toward the "touch the project every day" school of thought. :) Time : 0.25 hours

Left Elevator Finished

November 24, 2002

I wasn't sure we would actually get around to putting in any work on the airplane today, but really hoped we could. The question had to do with whether I survived putting in the paving stones beside the driveway or not. The paving stones are sort of an airplane-related activity because they are needed due to me taking over the garage and forcing us to park all our vehicles in the driveway! We finished curling the leading edge and installing all the needed pop rivets. I'm considering the left elevator to be done, with the trim tab being a related but individual part. Therefore, this is a completion milestone! :) Time : 1.5 hours

Trim Tab Started	November 28, 2002
We started work on the trim tab. The skins were drilled to the spar (and deburred) and the spar bottom holes were dimpled. We machine countersunk the top holes on the spare to accept the dimples from the skin, and so we would not have to dimple and/or countersink the hinge. Time : 1.5 hours

Trim Tab Bottom Finished

November 29, 2002

We got the (#**%*$#*@*%*%) tabs on the ends bent, and the bottom side of the trim tab riveted to the spar. And, yes, bending the tabs was a pain until we figured out a way to get a good bend line. However, now the rivets are in and the control horn is on. Close to the end now! The swearing you see above is all about the tabs on the ends of the skin. I know that they say to use the wedges from the elevator jig, but I could not clamp them in place well enough to avoid them sliding as bending force was applied to the tabs on the skin. It would slide inward, and my bend would slide along with it. I caught this before it ruined the skin, thankfully. (And, yes, I had the same problems on the elevator tabs too.) Eventually I cut a larger wedge, which worked ok on the elevator but was still inadequate for the trim tab. Finally I took a piece of aluminum bar stock and used it for the edge to bend over, and used my wedge to hold it in place. Once that was done I could bend the tabs with firm taps from a plastic-headed hammer. This gave me nice straight bends right where I wanted them. A picture of my setup is included here. Time : 2.5 hours

Trim Tab Attached / Elevator Finished!

December 1, 2002

As planned (I love it when plans work out) I spent the afternoon working on finishing up the elevator. I fit and riveted the hinge on the elevator, and then did the same on the trim tab. I also did all the final riveting on all the parts (mainly a few pop-rivets). With a little Boelube the hinge pin went back in with almost no work at all. I then installed the MAC trim servo in the hole made for it, and had to do some extra trimming to get it to go in (updated picture included here). That is a tight fit, but with a little work it does go in! As with the other empennage components, I'm leaving the fiberglass work until later. With the elevators I'm not installing the counterweights now either, as I see no value in storing them with the weights on, and potential opportunity for damage with the weights on. They'll be easy enough to install when the time comes .... most likely when I do the fiberglass work. It is now time to move on to the wings. Amazing. It sure has taken long enough! Time : 3.5 hours

 

Total Time : 70.50 hours 

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