Tag: Elevators

Got the parts dimpled and countersunk last night as well as deburred. Not too much to write about. It all came out fine like normal.

I spend a little bit of time this weekend working on getting the bend right on the lower portion of the trim tab skin. My initial go at it was still kind of wavy. I went to bed but didn’t like how it turned out. The next night after work I sat in there and really worked up and down getting the waviness out of the bend and the second go I feel look much better. I’m not a pro but it looked straight to me and seemed smooth enough. I used my snips to get the majority of the material off of the control horns and then cleco’ed them on. I will finalize the material removal on the deburring wheel when I go to prep the parts before dimpling. I am going to do the final size drilling tonight which shouldn’t take too long.

Another update on the wing kit! It’s all paid for and I got an email that it was crated while I was at Oshkosh and they are working on shipping arrangements. Curious to see what those shipping costs are going to be. Might be cheaper for me to take a few days off and go drive to pick it up lol.

I got the trim tab holders cut out from some spare wood that I had laying around. Even though I had to cut them by hand instead of some kind of template, etc it still came out pretty good. After doing all that work I realized I should have used some double-sided tape to stick them all together and then cut them all in the same go. Hindsight is 20/20. I also got the skins prepped for the tank sealant that will be used with the foam ribs. After that I got all 6 ribs cut out from the foam. I need to stop by Lowe’s to get a 2×8 and some hinges to make the brake that they mentioned in section 5. Hopefully I’ll get some time to get that done tonight before church.

I got a short amount of time last night to get the weights trimmed a bit more and install them. I’ve never worked much with lead, but it was amazing how easy it was to cut. I got a box cutter to trim the burrs off of the edges and it cut through it super easy. Amazing how well that worked! I even took the advice of some people from the Van’s Air Force forum and used a chisel for the large amounts that I needed to trim. That also worked really well, but I’m glad that I used the bandsaw to cut the major parts as I think the chisel would have taken forever for that work. I was surprised they didn’t have a torque spec for the bolts so I just got them snug (not tight, but snug; which was more difficult to get snug than you think since the holes through the weights were pretty tight and it was hard to judge that)

I got a tiny bit of time to get the front edge of the elevators rolled and then riveted. I also got the change to cut the basic shape of the counterbalance weights. I still need to get them smoothed out some and grind off just a tiny bit more. The band saw worked pretty good but the metal cutting band kept getting gummed up with the lead from the weight. I’d have to stop and pick it off before I could keep cutting. Other than that it went pretty good and is looking nice!

I got the trailing edges sealed up today. I put the pro seal on on Friday and it sat all weekend long until today to cure. That was basically just over 36 hours. I’m getting better at trailing edge work, but I still slip with too much pressure through the rivet gun and end up marking the skin around the rivet with the back riveting set. The back edge was very straight on both of them. One had a very slight bow downwards in the middle of it, but it was VERY minimal, but noticeable to the naked eye. I did notice one additional oddity. On the right trailing edge on the outward side it is slightly bending upward. The edge is straight but it’s straight up a tiny but. It’s so weird because the skin is pretty flush on the end, but I guess it’s off just enough to make it curl up a bit on that end. But again it’s straight along the back end and I doubt these small errors will cause any major issues. I will say, I am curious how much it will affect the mating up of the elevator tip with the elevator itself since it has that small curl. But we’ll see when the time comes I guess.

I spent my time after work finishing up the riveting on the rear spar and completing all of the front spar riveting. The Cleaveland Tools bucking bar was awesome! It follows the design that Van’s Aircraft puts in the manual and I can see why they have that. It was perfect for the rear spar and I actually got more consistent rivets out of it than my normal bucking bar. I didn’t take a picture of this but I went ahead and put on the elevator tips to see if they would straighten out some. They did, but they still aren’t perfect. I’m going to have to attach the elevators to the horizontal stabilizer to see how visible it is and if it affects the movement of the elevators.

I spent alot of time this weekend getting to where I am now. It started on Friday afternoon with dimpling more skins, deburring a bit more on the skin edges, and just getting all of the parts ready for priming the following day.

Saturday was doing some of the skin sanding that they ask you to do so that the tank sealant bonds correctly to the skin and the foam ribs, cleaning the parts off (which I accidentally removed some of my marks for reassembly… whoops!) and then masking off areas that I didn’t want to paint. Painting is getting better each time as I dial in the settings. It appears that this sprayer likes about 25 PSI. I’m curious if I should have it dump out more primer the next time and make wetter coats? The lighter coats tend to create a rough surface as it becomes more like little specs of paint that dry rather than a layer of paint that dries smooth. Spray painting is such an art with so many variables in it.

Assembly has gone very smoothly so far. I did change up the steps a bit on riveting the two elevator skins together. I used the method that we established in the rudder build, which Plane Lady actually suggested in her latest video. It made putting the elevators together MUCH easier than having to deal with assembly in that tight area. The rivet gun I have actually would not have fit in there if I didn’t do it this way, as the handles when fully extended make the tool wider than the spacing between the ribs. So their trick to extend the handles with tubes of some kind over the handles wouldn’t have worked out. I checked that both elevators were flat and level and they were so I’m happy there.

The only piece I’m not happy with is the elevator ends with the counter balance weights. I assembled them and didn’t have any issues there but when I set them down on the bench, they both were pretty twisted. I am not sure how that occurred as I made 100% sure at the very beginning of the elevator section that those things were perfectly flat and level and the flanges were perfectly 90 degrees. I will say while I was squeezing the rivets, it did seem to slightly modify those flutes that I had put in some of the flanges. I sure hope that wasn’t the issue. I mean, luckily it’s not a ton of parts if I did have to reorder and redo it, but I’m imagining there’s a way to fix this going forward. I put a video of it here on this post.

My backordered VA-140 arrived a month or so ago and I finally started back up on the build. I took a break from building to get a shed built in our backyard. This was going to free up more space in the garage and it has been a huge help!

I got the VA-140 cut for the right elevator and I final drilled every hole on the skin to the substructure. Final drilling always takes the longest, especially when I have to put a cleco in every hole per the instructions. But the right elevator is almost caught up to the left elevator when I put it away for a bit. I hope to have these parts done before the end of April. I ordered my wing kit in December when I realized the kit delivery dates were almost a year out. Luckily though they have moved the date up to June or July but I want to get the empennage kit finished before it all arrives so it’s time to get to the grindstone.

I got the skin dimpling done for the left side. I noticed that one of the holes must not have been drilled out when I was match drilling. I’ll have to reassemble that area and then drill that hole. Everything went pretty smoothly though. I didn’t have a good idea as to what to dimple on the very outboard edge of the elevator where the plastic fairing will go in the end. I left it undimpled so that I can deal with it down the road.