Category Archives: Ailerons

Time: 6 Hours

Today’s task was to get the left aileron buttoned up and riveted while watching game #2 of the Blackhawks vs Wild. I had prime red all the parts last night before heading out to dinner so they would be ready for today.

First thing to do is rivet the spar reinforcement plates on both ends of the spar. There are only a couple holes you can do, the 3 inner one on both ends, as the rest will be done in sequence with the forward and main ribs. You also can rivet the nutplate on the inboard end. This is needed as the 3 bolt for the inboard aileron bracket will be inboard of the main rib and you have no access to put a nut on it.

The leading edge ribs are then blind riveted to the counterbalance.

I then put the counterweight/ribs into the leading edge skin. I then slid the aileron spar into the main skin and the attached it to the leading edge assembly. I only clecko’d the top side of the skins to the spar as I need the bottom skins open to rivet the top skins. I set this aileron on the shelf for a while so I could work on the right aileron. I did this because I need the 2×4’s I used for the counterweight drilling to make the next jig for the riveting process. The right side is done with the same process as the left. All parts were assembled to match drill including the counterweight. The countersinking was done by sight again.

The riveting process for the aft skins is to lift up the bottom skin enough to get a bucking bar inside the skin to access the spar. To aid this I have seen other builders some 2×4’s to make brackets for you to screw down the aileron and hold it securely so you can rivet.

I bought a new bucking bar that was 1″x1″x6″ with a angled end and a squared end. The angled end was too steep so I ground the squared end to a good angle. I then wrapped it in tape to protect all the parts from getting scratched. Here you can see how it fits and how you rivet the top skin.

It took me about 30 minutes to rivet the total line of rivets and they turned out real nice.

You then rivet the top of the leading edge ribs and slide in the 2 main ribs and rivet their top holes along with all the rib to spar holes. You can then bolt on the aileron brackets and torque them.

So you then flip the aileron onto the top so the bottom is available to work on. The first task is to rivet the counterweight with the blind CS4-4 blind rivets.

The plans say that you need to weight down the bottom skin to keep it flat as you rivet the skin. I decided to use a couple of flat shelve boards and clamps to keep the skins flat. Then you can rivet the bottom skin to leading edge and main ribs.

I then riveted every other hole of the leading edge skin, main skin and spar holes with the same CS4-4 blind rivets and then the remaining holes.

That’s the left aileron all done! Now I need to finish up the right one tomorrow. Most of the prep is done on it except the edges of the leading edge skin and priming. I couldn’t resist and had to put the aileron in the wing to see I what it looks like! Fun weekend in the Hangar.

Time: 7 Hours

I started to work on the assembly of left aileron so I could match drill all the parts. First up was to match drill the inboard and outboard brackets to the spar/spar reinforcement plates.

I also grabbed the leading edge rib and the main rib and match drilled those with the skin off.

Then the spar/rib assembly was slid into the skin and the leading edge skin clecko’d in place along with the galvanized pipe used as a counterweight.

With the skins I place I match drilled the holes in the leading edge to the ribs and there counterweight.

I will be tossing that drill bit away since it was getting full from going thru the pipe. I had to enlarge the holes into the pipe to a #30 for the larger flush blind rivets that go here as well as the row on the skin to spar line of the bottom side if the aileron.

There is one rivet that gets place through the leading edge rib to the counterweight. To drill this you have to remove the leading edge and drill through the aft hole of the rib with a long bit.

After all the holes are drilled I disassembled the aileron and worked on the counterweight. You need to countersink the holes so it will accept the dimple of the skin. I’m not sure how dull this made my bit but I think I will order a new one when I’m all finished. I just used the bit without the cage since this is a round surface.

After I took care of the counterweight i figured I would tackle the dimpling of the skin that rivets to the counterweight. The issue is that the holes are right on the radius of the skin. This caused a problem with the female side if the dimple dies as the die is flat ad would cause some serious deformation of the skins curve. I read a couple other builders blogs where they made a rod to attach the male end if the dies to. Then they would strike that rod/die against the skin while using the countersink in the counterweight as the female side. Instead of fabricating a rod I just drilled a 3/16″ hole in the unused side of one if my bucking bar.

Now the question is how to hold the skin and counterweight so that you can dimple it? I read a post by Brad Oliverand how he accomplished this task. I just copied his technique and it worked out great. I used two 2×4″ and made a jig where I taped two 1/4″ dowels on the top to give the counterweight a place to rest.

I hit the the bucking bar with a rubber mallet and the dimple turned out really nice.

I then turned my attention to deburring all edges, corners and holes. I also used the countersink to hit the holes that will be under the rib flanges and attach the single nutplate that holds the aileron bracket on. All the holes got dimpled as well.

It was a great day in the Hangar!

Time: 7 Hours

I decided today I was going to work on the inboard bottom wing skins as I will hopefully get those riveted in this weekend with the help of my friend. I grabbed the soldering iron and removed the strips over all the rivet holes so I could debur them later. After that I got out all my different grades if sandpaper to finish off the edges. Did I mention before how much I dislike finishing edges? It takes a long time for me to get them to the quality I want, maybe my OCD is a problem here but it’s my airplane! 🙂 It took me 2.5 hours just to finish the edges.

After spending around an hour deburring every hole top and bottom I grabbed the DRDT dimpling tool to dimple the holes. I started with the #8 dimple dies for the center nutplate holes. These holes/nutplates hold the inspection panels in place. There is a slight recess in the skin to allow for these panels to sit flush with the skin. It looked like the edge of my dimple dies would clip the edge of the recess and deform it. So it took dies over to the bench sander and took down a corner of the die to allow for that recess.

I then switched over to the #40 dies and hit all the rest of the holes fairly quick. When I finished those I got out the pneumatic squeezer and attached the nutplates for the inspection panels after I shot some primer on the area where the nutplates attach in the bottom side.

With both sides done I’m now ready to rivet those in this weekend so I just but them on the wings to give them a place to hide until then.

The next task that I wanted to get done today was to bend the aileron skins so I could start the assembly of them. When I got my wood brake that is used for the rudder/elevators I found that I made it around 1.5″ shorter than the aileron skins. I was worried that this might cause a problem when squeezing them and decided to run to Home Depot to grab a longer 2×6″ board. So that took me around an hour to get and replace it in the brake. I then screwed it down to my workbench and added the the left over 2×6″ to the center as 2′ lever/handle. This have me some great leverage to bend the skins and I wish I had done this earlier (sorry I forgot to take a pic of this). I was able to bend the skins really easy and just had to do a little tweaking on both of them.

I had a little bit of energy left so I took the right aileron spar out and matched drilled the reinforcement plates to it, these are made from blank sheet. I also drilled the aileron brackets and opened the holes with my new 3/16″ reamer for the AN3 bolts that will holed them on. I will finish the left side up later this week.

Time: 3 Hours

I started today by visiting McMaster-Carr which is local here in Chicago for a couple of new reamers, a .25″ and a .1875″ one.

I got to work on all the prep on the aileron skins. This included deburring all the edges, deburring all the holes and dimpling the holes the attach the stiffeners.

The stiffeners get back riveted so I set all the rivets in their holes and taped them in place.

Once they were all taped in the riveting process is fairly easy and I made quick time of getting both the left and right done.

I decided to call it a night as I was up early this morning for a flight and I’m getting tired. I know that my workmanship decreases as I get tired.

Time: 5 Hours

Had a fun breakfast with the guys and got several questions answered for upcoming tasks. When I got home I had to take care of some errands, mainly unloading the storage unit of the remaining items that I had stored while the wings were in their stand. When I got back to the Hangar I needed to finish up the aileron stiffeners. I hit them first with the bench disk sander up to the lines I created in them, then to the scotch-brite wheel. I was able to complete a stiffener in 4 minutes, that’s 4 min x 32 stiffeners = 2hr 8min just for these little parts.

I then clecko’d all the stiffeners to the right aileron and matched drilled them.

I deburred all the holes and then grabbed the pneumatic squeezer and dimpled them. I then hit them with primer.

I repeated the ckecko, drill, debur and dimple on left aileron. I will work on the skins next so that these can be back riveted in prep to squeeze the skins shut. The goal this week is to get the bottom wing skins prepped so that I can be ready to rivet those on next weekend as I have the offer of help, thanks Glen! For now I’m gonna call this weekend done and a great time in the Hangar.