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. 🙂
