I started out today by dimpling the counterweight skins.

And countersinking the counterweights themselves. Both went smoothly.

Next was countersinking the trim tab spar on the top, and the end ribs. This was difficult as the sheet is very thin. I’ve wound up with a couple holes that will need oops rivets.

Next it was time to start work on the electric trim assembly. I hadn’t even opened the box prior to today, so I spent some time familiarizing myself with the parts and then replicating the drawings to understand how everything fit together.

Here are the measurements provided by Van’s from the drawings. The resulting placement seems off-center, but when you factor in the cotter pin, I think its perfect.

Here is how I match drilled the two supports for the servo. Got to love the long cleco clamps.

Here’s a picture of the final setup. It looks off-center to the right, but the directions specifically state to leave room for the pin… which I think shouldn’t be a problem with this alignment. (I wonder if the measurements do this intentionally, because everything looks centered in the drawings…)

The final and most time consuming project of the day was deburring and priming prep.  I deburred every hole and every edge (except the skins).  I also hit every part with the scotchbrite.  The next step will be deburring the skins and dimpling all the parts.  Then it will be time to take a look at the infamous trim tab…

Tonight went well… I fixed the oil canning before riveting and without any modification! What I did was simple. The offending sections were between the 2nd and 4th stiffeners from the right (picture below). The area after the 2nd stiffener was the worst. I unclecoed the offending side completely from the skeleton and began clecoing inward from the outboard tip. I would drill the hole and then install a cleco. My hope was that I would smooth out just the slightest wrinkle in the skin towards the edge. I kept a close eye on the holes to make sure that the final drilling would not result in any holes that were eggs or oblong. When I got to the second to last stiffener I also began to work from the trailing edge forward on the rib. It worked like a charm. No more oil canning. I’m really glad this worked because I didn’t want to roll the dice on having the riveting alone fix the problem!

After that I finished final drilling both elevators, horns and counterweight assemblies. I disassembled both elevators and I’m ready for deburring and dimpling. I’m not sure when I will prime… as I still have the trim tab to do and that will need primed as well. I’d like to work it so that I only have to do ONE more priming session for the completion of the empennage but I have not looked far enough forward to see if that is feasible.

Final thoughts for the night. I’ve slowed down somewhat on construction. I’ve started graduate school in the evenings and I still haven’t ordered the wing kit. The wing kit takes about 8 weeks to ship after ordering, so I’m at least 2 months out from its arrival if I ordered today. The remainder of the empennage will not take me that long if I work fast. I hope to order the wings before the end of June… just waiting on the funding… ugh. 🙁