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Section Hours: 116.2 Section Status: Complete



June 11, 2006 (9-2 step 1):  Squeezing the rivets on the horizontal stabilizer center section was pretty much a one person job so Angela started on the elevators.  1st step was to cutout & debur the elevator ribs.  Each rib is formed with 2 parts.  They're stamped from the factory as one part as shown in the top picture.  Angela needed to separate the two pieces and debur them prior to joining them.
June 22, 2006 (9-2 step 3):  Another late night at work tonight... So while Angela waited for her riveting partner to get home (pun intended) she made use of her time alone by jumping back on the elevator ribs.  She finished deburring the remaining ones... always a fun job!  She then clecoed the upper and lower halves of all 16 of the ribs together and final drilled the common holes.  Right about the time she was finishing this up I made it home and out in the shop to give her a hand... we could now get back to riveting the horizontal stabilizer!!
June 24, 2006 (9-2 step 4):  Angela went on to the next step on the elevators this morning, and that was the tip ribs on the elevator.  She deburred them a bit and began the assembly of them.  They proved to be a pretty tight fit.  As she was struggling with them I came out and suggested we get back on the horizontal stabilizer skins.
June 25, 2006 (9-2 step 5):  Angela got a little frustrated with the elevator tip ribs yesterday and asked me to give her a hand.  So after church today while Angela headed off to work the first thing I did was get on them.  I first massaged the flanges a bit to get them more or less 90 degrees to the web.  After that they needed to be fluted as you can see here by the web having a bow in it.




After spending a little bit of time with the fluting pliers on the inboard and outboard tip ribs they looked much better… nice and flat the way they should be!




(9-2 step 6):  Well, I can't say it was a piece of cake but the elevator tip ribs are now clecoed together in preparation for final drilling.  It might look like overkill on the clecoes but a good portion of the holes were just slightly off resulting in bit of tension on the clecoes.  I wanted to pull everything as much as possible into place.  There's a good portion of metal in these things (relatively speaking) so they don't exactly "give" as much as the other items we've been dealing with.  It makes sense though since these are where the lead counterbalance weights will be mounted to the elevators.
June 26, 2006 (9-2 step 6):  Today home chores got in the way of building.  But I made it a point to get out and do a little something and final drilling the elevator tip ribs was just the ticket.  Once done, a quick check of the plans showed these things need to remain intact for now because they'll be fitted and final drilled to the ends of the elavators later.  So no need to disassemble and debur them now.
June 27, 2006 (9-2 step 7):  Another quick night tonight.  Actually, I was trying to sneak something in before Angela got home... wasn't succesful so she got a pic of me (still in my work clothes) trying to 'get away with it'... I basically had to separate the 4 shear clips, debur them, and then final drill the holes in the short flange.  These will be set aside like the tip ribs until later in the process.
June 29, 2006 (9-2 step 2):  No pics tonight… just took a little time to debur some of the elevator spars & such… fun, fun…
June 30, 2006 (9-2 step 2):  I started off the morning finishing up deburring the elevator parts.  Angela did a good portion of the ribs already, so on those I just went back and touched up a few of the inside bends.  I'm a little anal about those ;-)


(9-4 step 1):  Angela came out to get some hands on before heading in for a brief day at work.  After we removed the protective vinyl from the insides of all the skins (much quicker as a two person job) she clecoed and final drilled the hinge reinforcement plates to the front spars.  After that she opened up the trim cable routing holes in the spars as you can see here.  Then she was off...




(9-3 step 3):  While Angela was working on the front spars I started working on bending the close out tabs on the skins.  Per the plans I marked the bend line and then clamped the skin to my work table so that the bend line was right at the edge of the table.  The edge of our table was pretty sharp and due to bend radius concerns in the thin aluminum skin I decided to round it off slightly with a file first.




With the skin clamped in place I took a 2x4 and held it as tightly against the skin as possible as I gently started rotating it down to form the bend.  The natural tendency of the metal skin is to bend more at the end where there's more metal because you have a longer lever-arm sticking out there.  So, you have to be mindful of making sure the shorter end is being bent down as well.  I would bend it a little, check it, and then bend a little more.  Eventually you get it down to about 70 degrees or so.  The plans then call for using a flush rivet set and the rivet gun to bend the remainder, but I simply took a hammer and tapped against the 2x4 instead.  This proved very easy and acceptable.  Once done, I unclamped the skin, flipped it over, and tweaked the tab into its final 90 degree position with my hand seamer.  Not too bad, eh...




(9-5 step 3):  Once the closeout tabs were bent it was time to start clecoing some things together!  First thing was to cleco the front spars to the lower skins.  After that all the ribs and the two root ribs went in followed by the rear spar.  Once everything was clecoed together all the ribs and spars were final drilled to each other (final drilling the skins will come later).  After drilling, 2 of the shear clips were clecoed to the ribs and rear spars in the same location as the bent close out tabs.  These shear clips will eventually get final drilled to the close out tabs.




(9-6 step 1):  The next step was to cleco in the trim access reinforcement plates for final drilling.  These plates have two flanges on them.  After locating them I noticed one of the flanges on the left one (E-615) appeard to have been hit with the bend break at the factory in the wrong location, bent back flat, and then bent correctly.  This left sort of a joggle in the web along the rivet hole line.  It wasn't severe, but noticeable.  I took a hammer and tapped it a little more flat.  It's still noticeable though.  Anyway, after deburring these, I clecoed them in place and final drilled all the holes common with the skin, and also the nut plate rivet attachment holes (the nut plates will accept the screw used to attach the cover plate)




(9-6 step 4):  After the reinforcement plates came the elevator gussets.  These are basically reinforcement pieces that fit in the corner of the rear spar and the root rib.  After deburring these and using a soft mallet to bang them to the correct angle, they got clecoed in.  The original holes took 3/32" clecoes, but the plans call for final drilling them #30.  I had to read that twice just to make sure.  I think its because there are multiple pieces joining here and the metal is pretty thick.  The holes don't line up exactly and since these pieces don't 'give' as much as most do, the final location of the holes can vary more than usual.  So drilling out more gives you more latitude in all directions for a perfect fit.




(9-6 step 6):  Next we got to attach and final drill the tip rib assembly that was set aside a little while ago.  This proved a little interesting… The last rivet hole in the upper and lower front spar flanges get quite a stackup of material:  the spar flange, the counterbalance skin, the inboard tip rib, and the elevator skin.  Figuring out the order of these took a bit as the plans weren't very helpful in this area... that is until I discovered page 1 of section 9 (thanks Angela!).  I looked ahead in the plans, but didn't think about going back to the beginning.  Anyway, you can see in the closeup below exactly what I'm talking about.  The order of the stackup is (from inside --> out):  inboard tip rib, front spar flange, counterbalance skin, elevator skin.






(9-6 step 7):  And finally it was time to close the elevators up by clecoing on the top skin!  We'll call it a night here… besides, I'm hungry!!  Say cheese :-)
July 1, 2006 (9-7 step 1):  First order of business today was to cut the trailing edge wedges to length.  So the wedges were temporarily clecoed in place, marked, removed, and then cut to length.  I then deburred them, reinstalled and checked the length.  There are 2 trailing edges (2 elevators, so makes sense) and only one of the edges on one of them needed a bit of sanding down for an ideal fit (you can see the finished left elevator trailing edge clecoed in place in the pic below).  After the trailing edges it was time to final drill the closeout tabs.  The closeout tabs close off the triangular opening between the fixed trailing edge and the movable trim tab portion of the trailing edge.  Here I'm putting the final hole in the left shear clip & close out tabs.




(9-7 step 2):  Here the elevator horns were clecoed and match drilled.  This is another place where the original holes took 3/32" clecoes, but they were drilled out to #30.  As you can probably guess, the elevator horns are where the control cables will attach to the elevators.




(9-7 step 3):  Next step was to final drill all the skin holes to the underlying structure.  A lot of holes, but a gratifying step since you know disassembling and parts prep for final assembly isn't too far behind!




(9-16 step 1):  Angela came out and wanted to lend a hand.  Since I was involved with final drilling the skins she moved ahead and deburred the trim cable cover plates.  After that she began laying out the trim tab clamping blocks.  The trim tabs are relatively small so the ribs in them are basically foam blocks cut to shape.  They will be glued in place, and these clamping blocks will be used to 'clamp' the trim tab skins around the foam ribs while they dry.




(9-8 sep 1):  Next I got to tear everything down making sure that all the parts are properly marked in order to reassemble them in the same place later.  After that I deburred the holes in the front spars, and then dimpled the flange holes where the skin will lay.




(9-16 step 2):  Once Angela finished up the clamping blocks she started fashioning the trim tab & elevator trailing edge ribs.  There's basically 5 small foam blocks (2 ribs per block), and she cut the templates out of the plans and glued them to the foam blocks with some spray adhesive.  Once in place it was a trip to the band saw to cut them out.  There are 6 trim tab ribs (3 for each side) and 4 elevator trailing edge ribs (2 for each side).  These will be prosealed in place later.




(9-16 step 4):  After the ribs Angela started working specifically on the trim tabs.  Here she's deburring the trim tab spar.




(9-8 step 2):  Next on my agenda was to debur & dimple the root ribs.  After that it was the rear spars.  The rear spars are where the trim tabs will eventually attach so the inner 29 holes of the upper flange get countersunk instead of dimpled to allow the trim tab hinge to be able to sit flush on the inner surface of the flange.  There's not really enough material here for a countersink, but since the trim tab hinge will be backing it up its ok.




(9-17 step 3):  Angela, still hard at work on the trim tab duties, trimmed up the trim tab horns.  These are where the trim cables will attach to the trim tabs.




(9-9 step 6 & 9-16 step 4):  The final thing we did for the night was to countersink the trailing edges and Angela made up our break for bending the trim tab skins.  More progress, but still a lot to go...


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