More work on the empennage attach chores today. I hauled the elevators down from the airplane storeroom, and spent a bit of time filing metal away from the left elevator where I noticed it was a little close to the outboard edge of the trim tab. Good clearance all around now.
Then I temporarily mounted them to the stabilizer. Hey cool, the tail has moving parts now!
The next step in the plans is to make the elevator pushrods. I cut them to length using my handy dandy miniature chop saw:
I had previously picked up a quart of this SEM self-etching primer, which is pretty similar to the GBP 988 I've been using elsewhere, just in liquid form instead of a spray can.
To prime the insides of the pushrods, I taped over one end, poured liquid primer down the other end and taped it up, and then sloshed it all around inside. Since these pushrods are so long, especially the aft one, using the liquid primer here was easier than spraying a ton of primer down the inside like I did with the previous ones.
After the insides were all coated with primer, I uncorked the ends to let everything dry out.
While the pushrods were drying, I got out the vertical stabilizer attach plate and clamped it in place to test the fit.
One of the first things the plans have you do when you begin the process of attaching the vertical stabilizer is to cut 5/8" off the VS front spar. Uh, gee guys, it sure would have been nice to have known about this when I was building the thing in the first place. It would have been a lot easier to trim the spar before it was, you know, all riveted in place and stuff. Further evidence that the RV-7 is a Frankenplane: Wings and vertical fin from an RV-8, fuselage and rudder from an RV-9, and instructions from who the heck knows where. Oh well, they fly nice and look real purty.
I got as far as clamping the vertical stabilizer in place before I had to knock off for the night. I'll be away at Oshkosh for the rest of the week, but it's nice to know that I have this thing-that-looks-a-lot-more-like-an-airplane-now waiting in the garage for when I get back…
