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Section Hours: 116.2 Section Status: Complete



July 17, 2006 (9-12 step 2):  First thing tonight was to buck the remaining rivets on the lower right elevator skin.  The technique I used to do these is exactly the same as that used to do the rivets on the upper skin of the left elevator (clecoes in the picture below.  The rivet holes not clecoed along the rear spar can't be done yet because they are also used to attach the trim tabs as mentioned before)  The pics below are of the left elevator upper skin.  Since most queezer yokes aren't long enough to reach around the trailing edge portion of the skin the plans simply say to clamp the rear spar to the edge of the workbench and access can be gained with a bucking bar then.  Later in the plans they describe a technique using a special bucking bar that is needed in order to reach this same area when the second skin is attached and there is no easy access to it any more from either side.  I decided to employ this technique now since it actually seemed more stable, especially since I would be doing this solo.  So here's how I did it... First, I staggered my tables so that the edge of one table would be flush with the spar in the trim tab area allowing the spar to be clamped to the table.  The other table was brought forward to position it per the plans to use as the bucking bar fulcrum.  The tables were clamped together in this position.




The special bucking bar (included with the RV-10 "upgrade" in most tool vendor's kits) is long and thin with the bucking face cut at an angle such that when slid under the skin and resting on the edge of the table it produces a bucking surface normal to the rivet shank.  Not sure if its clear or not, but the second picture is looking up under the skin.  The bucking bar is positioned just underneath the rivet.  Again, note the tape to protect the spar while riveting!






When ready to rivet, force is applied down on the bucking bar, pivoting the bucking face up against the bottom of the rivet shank.  This actually proved to be a pretty stable method of riveting, although I almost got complacent a few times and came close to letting the bucking bar rotate off the rivet... careful!




The end result... I like it!  I think I'll keep this trick in the memory bank... maybe I can use it again in the future!
July 18, 2006 (9-12 step 5):  So here we go… I first clecoed the lower skin in place on the left elevator making sure the closeout tabs and rib halves are positioned correctly.  Then I squeezed the rivets I could.  After that it was out with the bucking bar like last night in order to get the remaining ones.  And that's it... the skins are attached to the rear spar on the left elevator!
July 20, 2006 (9-12 step 6):  This morning I'm holding off on riveting the second skin on the right elevator assembly, and electing to move on with the left.  The next step is to rivet the rib halves together.  These are very similar to the rudder ribs and go together with pop rivets.  Its a pretty tight fit, and getting enough leverage on the rivet puller is a little tough since you can really only get ahold of it with the ends of your fingers.




(9-13 step 2):  Now that the rib halves are securely fastened together the front spar assembly got clecoed in place.  Then it was more pop rivets attaching it to the front flanges of the ribs.
July 21, 2006 (9-13 step 3):  This morning I worked on attaching the skins to the front spar on the left elevator.  The plans (as I read it) seem to imply concern about inducing a twist in the elevator when doing this step.  So I looked for ways to weight it down in order to keep it flat on the table while riveting.  The break we built to bend the trim tabs seemed to fit nicely across the majority of the elevator (wide enough to cover the area we'd be riveting.  The plans call for leaving the outer 7 or 8 rivets undone at this time in order to allow access inside later.)  So, with the elevator held flat on the table, I clecoed every other hole and inserted rivets in the rest.  I then used the same ordering technique employed on trailing edges, which is to set the middle rivet, the outter rivets, and the random ones after that.  Once those were done, the clecoes came out, a new batch of rivets went in, and the same process was followed.




Once the topside was done, I flipped it over and used the same process on the bottom.  So, we're getting close to having the front spar completely attached.  A couple of internals to take care of, and then we'll close them up for good!




On another note... the right elevator had been bugging us... ok, mainly me, but both of us to a certain extent.  We had the cracked skin incident with the dimpler.  And then not too long ago there were a bunch of rivets that were drilled out of the ribs attached to the skins (I've since noticed some very, very small cracks radiating out from a good number of the rivet holes in the affected ribs).  We got the ok from Van's to go with it as is, although they implied keeping an eye on it in the future.  We got almost the same advice from our tech advisor.  Well, Angela & I talked about it a few times and decided to survey what it would take to eliminate the future hassle of potential problems.  Turns out all we'd need to do is replace the upper skin and seven ribs.  Faced with this we decided to bite the bullet and redo those parts.  So I put the order in today, and we should have them in a week or so.  Once we get them we'll have to match drill them to the existing structure, but considering the parts I don't think that'll be an issue.  We'll also have to alodine and prime them again, but hey... when it's done there won't be this nagging feeling in the back of my head.  Even though I spent more money today, I feel better...
July 22, 2006 (9-14 step 2):  Continuing on with the left elevator this morning, the first thing I did was attach the rear flange of the inboard root rib to the rear spar.  After that it was time to peel the skin back and sneak the squeezer yoke inside to squeeze the 2 gusset rivets.  One of these was a little difficult to get in the hole but I eventually "convinced" it.  Also, Van's calls for -4 rivets here, but these were way short.  I went with -5's and they were just right.




(9-14 step 4):  Here's a case for making sure your flanges are 90 degrees to the web… I attached the tip rib to the elevator and noticed the skins had a slight curve up toards the tip.  Checking a bit closer it was apparent the inboard and outboard tip ribs weren't exactly 90 degrees when the tip rib skins were riveted on.  The first pic shows the tip ribs when I first installed them.  Notice the slight curve up.  I removed the rib & tried to straighten the bends a bit, although I could only do so much since the tip ribs are all riveted together now.  The second pic shows the result of my attempt... a little better, but its still noticable.






(9-14 step 5):  The next step was to pull the skin back and rivet the tip rib assembly to the front spar.  Again this was a tight, akward fit.  I initially thought I could use the squeezer, but it simply wouldn't fit, and if it did it would gall a lot of aluminum up.  So, I busted out the rivet gun and bucked 'em.  The rivets along the web of the front spar required the offset rivet set.  The ones on the end flange of the front spar could be done with the straight set.  All of them required a mirror in order to see if they were set correctly.  Well, as you can see here, one of them was set a little too much!  Gotta drill that one out...




(9-14 step 6):  The last thing to do in order to close this guy up was to rivet the last bit of skins down.  This was mostly easy, however there were a couple of places where the skins attach to the tip ribs that were slightly challenging.  Two rivets on both the top and bottom skins aren't accessible from the outside so they can't be squeezed.  So, once again I had to reach inside with the bucking bar.  You can only do this to one skin since you're reaching in from the opposite side.  Once you rivet the first skin in place there's no way to reach inside for the second skin.  Therefore these two holes are filled with pop rivets on the second skin.  The plans reccommend bucking the top rivets for cosmetic reasons.  That way you can have the pop rivets on the bottom.  Anyway, other than that the remaining rivets were prettey straight forward.  One thing... I would like to put a plug in here for an adjustable set holder if you're using a pneumatic squeezer... I can't tell you how many different times I've had to adjust for different length rivets.  If I had to pull the thing out and adjust the number of washers... jeez... its takes long enough as it is.  I don't even want to think how much longer it would take.  Once you bite the bullet and get one, you soon realize why they cost so much!  A recommendation... if it's close to OSH or Sun-N-Fun or something like that, wait and get it then.  We picked ours up at about a 25% discount.




(9-15 step 7):  The next thing I did was adjust the cover plates a bit to try and get them flat.  The dimpling caused them to warp a bit.  Once satisfied with them I attached the trim cable attachment brackets to the cover plates.  I used AD4-5 rivets here.




(9-17 step 8):  Next up was putting a slight bend in the leading edge of the top skin so that it'll lay flat against the bottom one when they are rolled and closed.  After that I was looking for something else I could do before having to dig into the proseal.  I found that I could go ahead and attach the trim tab horns to the trim tab skins.  Well, I found out that the aft-most rivet on the inboard horn was a pretty tight fit (the one closest to the closeout tab bend).  The horn was pushing the flush set one way, while the bend in the closeout tab was pushing the upper yoke the other.  there was no way to set the rivet properly with the set up I had.  So I took one of the flush sets I rarely use and ground one side of it down in order to clear the bend in the horn (see below).  This allowed me to get the squeezer close enough to the horn in order for the yoke to clear the bend in the closeout tab inside the skin and actually sit flush on the rivet.  This actually worked out nice.




The last thing I did for the night was to attach the trim tab spar lower flange to the skin.  This was pretty straight forward except for the most inboard rivet.  This rivet probably needs to be set before the horns are attached since the edge of the head is right up against the flange of the horn... literally!  In order to set it I built up a couple of layers of scrap and taped that in place over the head of the rivet, and then set it.  Wasn't perfect, but they're done now.
July 23, 2006 (9-18 steps 1-3):  Just poked my head in the garage to say I did something today.  I cut the two trim tab hinges to length and then deburred the edges.  After that I marked off and drilled the end holes that are used to locate them on the rear of the elevator.  This hole was then used to cleco the hinge to the rear of the stabilizer.  I then aligned the opposite end in about the right place and used the existing hole in the skin/spar to match drill a hole in the hinge.  This hole got clecoed and then I did the same thing for a hole about in the middle of the hinge.  As much as I want to finish this right now I need to go...
July 25, 2006 (9-18 step 3):  Alright… time to finish drilling this trim tab hinge.  This hinge is where the trim tabs attach to the elevators.  In order to hopefully get this thing as straight as possible and prevent the pin from binding when the hinge is swung up and down I would drill a hole mid way between clecoes.  So now that the end and middle holes are done, the next one I did was mid-way between the middle cleco and one of the end clecoes.  I just kept splitting the difference like this clecoing each hole as I went until all the holes were done.  The hinge swings freely!




I don't have the trim tabs 'glued' together yet so I'll hold off on match drilling it to the hinge just yet.
July 28, 2006 (Redoing the upper right elevator skin & rib halves):  Ok, lets try this again… the elevator replacement parts came in.  As mentioned before we're replacing the upper right skin and 7 of the associated rib halves.  We're only replacing the rib halves that attach to this skin so we'll only need half of the ribs in the pic below.  So... as before, I started separating them and deburred the halves we needed.




After that I deburred the skin, bent the close out tab, clecoed the rib halves in place, final drilled them, final drilled the remaining holes, clecoed the assembly to the lower skin and final drilled the close out tab holes, disassembled, and then deburred all the holes… fun, fun!  Then I got to scuff the inside of the skin, clean the dust off and then the dimple.  Finally I masked the skin for the foam ribs... Now done, I'm back to being ready for alodine & prime... I think I'm going to save that for tomorrow morning :-)  It's always "fun" to redo stuff... I guess technically this is the 3rd time I've done this since there are two elevators and I'm redoing part of one of them.
July 29, 2006 (Redoing the upper right elevator skin & rib halves - cont'd):  First order of business today was to get these replacement elevator parts alodined & primed.  I pretty much had everything prepped so it was a matter of getting everything out and doing it… so I did!


(9-11 step 3):  While Angela was having all the fun with the tailcone parts, I got to work back riveting the new rib halves to the new upper right elevator skin.  After that the assembly was clecoed on the lower skin assembly.
July 30, 2006 (9-12 steps 5 & 6):  Got a late start today.  Unfortunately it'll have to be an early finish also.  So let's get going!  First step was to rivet the top skin of the right elevator to the rear spar.  As before, I'm only riveting the rivets outboard of the trim tab area.  After that came the pop rivets joining the rib halves together.


(9-13 steps 1 & 2):  Next I clecoed in the front spar assembly, followed by pop riveting it to the front flanges of the ribs.




(9-13 step 3):  After that the skins were riveted to the front spar.


(9-14 steps 1-3):  Then the aft flange of the root rib was riveted to the rear spar followed by riveting the gusset to the root rib.  After that I closed the skins on this end of the elevator.


Welp… that's it for the night.  I'll see if I can get this thing done (at least as much as the other one) sometime this week.  It'll be nice!
August 1, 2006 (9-14 step 4):  Today I waited until after work to get on the plane (sounds like I'm going someplace ;-).  I knew I'd be using the rivet gun so I didn't think that would go over too well with the neighbors at 5:00am!  So, first thing is to attach the elevator tip rib by squeezing the 2 rivets attaching it to the shear clip.  Can't remember if I mentioned this before but I accidentally dimpled all the rivet holes in the shear clips so I'm using flush rivets on these even though the plans call for universal head.




(9-14 step 5):  Next step was to bust out the rivet gun and rivet the tip rib to the front spar.  This is by far the most tedious step of this process since you have to manuever a bucking bar inside the assembly and 'buck by braille'.  I just made sure to take my time this time around.  It was quite frustrating on the left elevator, but I approched it with a much better attitude this time and didn't try to force the issue.  Worked out great!


(9-14 step 6):  Now before I start closing up the final portion of the top skin I went ahead and final drilled the 7/64" holes for the 2 blind rivets that'll be installed in the lower skin so I could make sure and get all the shavings out.  Then I riveted all the remaining skin holes to close this puppy up for good!


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