Matt's RV-7 Project

The new elevator skin and some other misc. parts (extra rivets, etc.) arrived today. I got as far as doing the soldering iron and ruler trick to remove the blue plastic along the rivet lines before I had to call it a night.

Back on the horse… tonight I did the fabrication and so forth on the elevator trim servo cover plate and the brackets that attach the trim servo, and got them ready for priming.

Total parts ruined this evening: Zero (woohoo!)

So here's the message I posted to the VAF forum earlier today:

Okay, mostly I just want to vent right now. @#$% tabs on the left elevator skin!

I did the wood block thing and I thought it turned out "okay" – not cosmetically great, but acceptable. Then I looked at it closely and saw the big (5/8") crack in the top side, right at the trailing edge. It seems the length of the little flaps you bend to close out the skin in the trim tab area was too long – I trimmed them up some, but apparently not enough – and the bottom tab dug into the top skin, the pressure of which caused it to crack as I was going over it with the rivet set to flatten out the bend.

The crack is too big to live with, and I don't want to have cracks in my airplane anyway. It's also too deep into the skin to just cut it off and replace, so now I am drilling out the rivets that hold the elevator stiffeners and other stuff to the skin, and I'll order a new skin from Van's tomorrow. Sixty bucks plus shipping, ouch.

This next time around, I'm going to be smart and ignore the instructions – my new plan is to use the hand seamer to make the elevator tab bends first thing, before I complete the trailing edge bend. Or, maybe I'll fabricate a little rib to put in there instead. At least I'll have plenty of scrap aluminum available to use!

I think I'll also do the trim tab the same way, because this wood block and folded tab stuff is completely lame. I wonder why Van's doesn't just offer a little rib to put in there… I know from searching various list archives that I'm not the only one to have trouble in this area. Yet another aspect of this airplane project that makes no sense, I guess. It seems like the times when I've gotten into the most trouble with the empennage so far is when I've done exactly what the plans say and in the prescribed order, instead of throwing them out and using my head instead. I wonder how many fuselages I'll have to build before I get it right? Grr.

Okay, rant over – thanks for listening…

mcb
RV-7 emp
QB wings & fuse scheduled for October
http://www.rv7blog.com

So, here's the carnage that resulted after I drilled out every single rivet that was holding on the left elevator stiffeners and trim mounting plate. It went surprisingly fast, and I didn't really wallow out any of the holes, so I won't have to use very many oops rivets, if any. I don't recommend this as a way to practice drilling out rivets, however.

Today I deburred, dimpled, countersunk, and mostly primed the left elevator parts. However, I ran out of primer when I was almost done, so I'll have to wait until the case I ordered last week shows up. Nothing worth photographing – just look at the photos of the right elevator parts after priming and imagine them flipped 180 degrees.

Oh, one other thing I learned today: A side grip cleco will make a nice blood blister if it pops off the pieces it's clamped to and bites your finger instead.

Tonight I got the left elevator clecoed together and mostly match drilled before I had to call it quits: