Progress report

[cjensen]

i haven't posted any pics lately, so i thought i'd give a look at what i'm workin' on...

right elevator is riveted (not done though!)-



left elevator cleco'd for drilling-



...and currently as the left side sits tonight-



also, here's that trim tab before i cut it off. you can kinda tell that the bend is rounded, not sharp.



and after i took the dremel to it...



i smoothed out the edges after dremeling, and it turned out really nice. just have to fab me some ribs now!

[captain_john]

Nice work, Chad!

I gotta say... I think I got pretty lucky bending my skin tabs. I know it wasn't skill that mine came out passable!

How about that pucker prior to the bend? Time & money invested. Plans B & C rolling around in your head all the while.

One thing I thought about was the whole pucker factor thing gets more intense as the kit builds but, fortunatly our skills get greater proportionately. The risk of screwing up a more valuable part increases as we go!

I wanna see your trim tab!!!

CJ

[cjensen]

Nice work, Chad!

I wanna see your trim tab!!!

CJ

all in good time, my friend...all in good time. i should be done riveting the left elevator by the weekend, and get started on the trim tab by then. pics as soon as i have 'em!

[jim_geo]

Chad you and I are at exactly the same point as of tonight. You're doing nice work. As I was fitting my parts together tonight I stood back and wondered. Gee when do you suppose you put the little plate nuts on the trim tab access cover assembly. Doah! how about a week ago. I'm going to invest in a small yoke for my squeezers cause that 3” yoke don't fit. Well I got all seven of them placed but not before standing back to admire my work and realizing that one of them wasn't there. I mean I set the rivets but I forgot the plate nut!!!!!! How do you do that? Oh well I'm including pictures of my one real success tonight.



and the close up. I used thumb pressure to start the bend and finished with a maple stick and ball peen hammer to make things crisp.

[captain_john]

Very nice, Jim!

That left elevator is not going ANYWHERE! VERY secure with those maple blocks!

...lets see the finish (riveted) product!

CJ

[cjensen]

lookin great jim! thanks for the compliment on mine. every once in a while, i get the feeling that i'm not doing something right, but it all turns out ok. like last night, i was clecoing the skin to the skeleton, and it was all warpy and contorted. made me really uneasy, like i had screwed up something big. after getting more and more clecos in place, it flattened out and looks great all riveted together.



i felt the same way about the trim access cover as you did. i still haven't found it in the manual, so i just did it the other night using the drawings. i used my little 1 1/2 inch hand squeezer to set those after i bent one of the flanges on 615PP (i think that's the number) using the pneumatic.



that's too funny about the rivets without the platenuts!! sorry, that one made me chuckle!

the tab bends look great!! i just couldn't get mine to look right. i'll be fabing up a rib tonight.

[jim_geo]

So I didn't miss the part that NOW is the time to do your plate nuts. They just friggin spaced it. I sure was wishing that I had a small yoke. Such a rare thing to wish for. Oh by the way John that wood I used to hold the elevator in place is Bubinga Sometimes also known as African Rosewood. Way over kill as far as hardness but it had good dimensions (read that as) in I didn't have to cut anything. The block on the end was a Douglas Fir 2X4. The piece of maple was held in my hand and used as padding for the hammer blows but is not shown in any picture.Yet.

[captain_john]

Jim, I was going to say Bubinga, but I wasn't sure.

You really need to smell it in order to differentiate it from Jatoba!



I just got done deburring and dimpling my right leading edge. Let's see if I can keep from damaging this one accidentally and setting me back another week!

CJ