Building the Elevators – Part 1

I’ve been horrible keeping this site updated. We’ve been working on the elevators the past couple months. Things have been going smoothly, with a couple exceptions:

• I Accidentally grabbed a can of “High Build Primer Surfacer” instead of the self-etching primer I’d been using. I didn’t notice until I sprayed it on the outside of both front and rear spars (4 total). After some research, I determined that this stuff wasn’t good to leave on the aluminum, so I had to remove it with acetone and respray. See http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=23550 for more info.
• I had some problems backriveting the ribs to the skins (this is the first time I had backriveted since taking the class last April). When I got things figured out, I had to replace eight of the ribs that had small cracks.

Next up: bending the trailing edge of the trim tabs, installing the foam ribs on the elevators, and rivet the trailing edge on the elevators.

Here are some pictures from the last couple months: