Time: 4 Hours
I haven’t had the chance to get in the hangar for few days but today was a perfect day to get some work in. First up was to finish up all the edges of the right elevator substructure. Then deburring all the drilled holes followed by dimpling. In preparation for priming I scotch-brited all the surfaces, fun work!
After I cleaned all of the parts for priming I set them aside to dry. I figured it was a great time to trim the counterbalance weight. There are two weights, one for each elevator. On the right side there is less weight in the elevator compared to the left side. That’s due to the left side having the trim servo and trim tab. The weight needed to counterbalance the right elevator needs to be less than the left. So Van’s has you trim the right side weight as seen on the plans.
I laid out the section that needed to be removed. I placed it in a clamp and used a hacksaw to cut trough the thick lead. Then I used a rounded file to create the radius and a flat file to finalize the size.
The lead weight didn’t take too long to form so I decided to step ahead and start working on the left elevator. Just like the right elevator process you start with matching up pieces and match drilling them. The skin, spar, ribs, trim spar and and elevator horn all get drilled. 
That’s where I stopped for the evening to break for dinner and a movie. I’ll be back at it tomorrow morning and will get a good weekends worth of work done.
