Author Archives: Michael

Time: 6 Hours

Today’s items for the hangar were to rivet all the stiffeners to the skins as well as the trim servo plate. The servo plate was made possible as my tool order from Avery tools arrived. I needed a #6 dimple die to dimple the plate where the #6 screws will hold the plate on the elevator. All these parts get back riveted.

Here you can see the trim servo plate support riveted in place. It has the 7 nut plates riveted to it for the #6 screws to attach. Notice the smaller heads of the NAS1097’s compared to the AN426 rivets.

I just laid the trim servo plate on it to see the fit. The support plate allows for the plate to sit flush with the skin. A perfect fit!

The next step will be to bend(flatten) the trailing edge of the left and right elevators. For this you need a brake and Vans describes how to make one. I used 2×6’s, one 5′ long and the other a little shorter. Then hinges are screwed to combine the two boards.

This creates a hinged press or brake.

I then removed the blue protective film on the inside of the skins as it will be hard to do that after the skin is flattened.

I have read that using a small dowel in the crease will help keep the radius as you squeeze. It worked pretty well on the rudder so I’m going to use it here.

I decided to secure the brake with some countersunk screws into my table.

Then you place the skin in the brake and use a couple clamps to give you leverage to squeeze.

I was able to get about half way done but my clamps started slipping, so I stopped for the night and will get better pipe clamps tomorrow. Half way done and they look great, it just takes a lot of torque! and need a good clamp. Today was a great day in the hangar, I’m going to have to order the wings soon since I’m running out of aluminum. 🙂

Time: 5 Hours

Today was more work on the elevator stiffeners and the trim plates. First up was to edge finish and scuff all the stiffeners. Once that fun task is done I dimpled them to accept the dimples from the skins. There are 28 stiffeners that need to be done and my pneumatic squeezer makes quick work of this task.

Them they are off to be primed.

In between the priming coats I stated to work on the trim plate. The rivets that hold the nut plates are NAS1097 which are small and have a very shallow head. So rather than dimpling I countersunk them very carefully by hand.

Next was to dimple the skins.

The DRDT machine makes quick work of both skins. I was pretty tired from today’s work but wanted to tackle one more project, the trim servo attach brackets. A few measurements from the plans and I had everything lined up and ready for drilling.

I will let the priming cure before riveting. All in all a good days work.

Time: 5 Hours

I’m waiting on rolling the leading edge of the rudder until I get help from my friend Glen when his schedule is open. So I started to work ahead on the elevator’s. The first items, like the rudder, it’s to form all the stiffeners. Not too hard when you use a bandsaw and scotch-brite wheel. I got both the left and right sides done.

Next was to match drill to the corresponding skins.

I needed to order a couple dimple dies to use on the trim doubler plate that is in the L elevator. This plate allows for a recess for which the trim servo plate will sit allowing it to be flush with the skin. This plate will use screws to attach to the plate doubler. Those screws are a #6 and require a #6 dimple which I ordered tonight. I have plenty of work to do while waiting for those to arrive.