I took today off work, because, well I can.  So I started out working on the trim tab.  I didn’t get very far.  I match drilled the brackets shown here.

Then I removed the pin from the hinge and carefully reviewed the plans.  The instructions state to clamp the hinge in place using the measurements on DWG 4.  I only see two measurements on DWG 4.  After I made sure those measurements were ok… they actually don’t make much sense… I clamped and drilled.  

The very first hole is shown here.  It is supposed to be, and is 1/4 inch from the edge as shown.  But the edge distance towards the back of the hinge doesn’t look good to me.  At this point I stopped and reviewed the plans again.  I don’t see anything that I’m missing.  Next stop VAF and Mike Bullock’s site.  From the pictures on Mike’s site, mine looks fine.  Except the edge distance.  I was thinking it was Saturday so I gave Mike a call.. in retrospect since its Friday he was probably at work.  Either way he agreed to meet me at the airport when he is next there to go over the trim tab.  This seems to be the part everyone has trouble with, so it’s best if Mike give’s me a hand, and his help is much appreciated. 

With Mike agreeing to help, I stopped work on the trim tab.  The other day I brought one of my white boards from my office to the shop to keep track of my “To Do” and “Shopping” lists.  I started on my to do list.

First up was finishing the few remaining rivets on the rudder.  Since I last did the rudder I’ve bought two tools that will allow me to complete this.  I had to pop rivet the last one, but I’m quite ok with that. 

This rivet in the corner of the elevator horn was a real beast to get to.  I tried several different setups with my squeezers with no luck, so I had to resort to banging the rivet with the gun and bucking bar.  The space was very tight and holding the bucking bar was difficult.  In the end, I got two proper rivets installed. 

Storage has been on my mind lately.  With the wings arriving at the end of the month, I’ve been clearing space and planning storage.  I temporarily attached the rudder to the vertical stab and hung them both back up. While I had the vertical stab down, I should have replaced the two rivets that need to be replaced, but of course, I forgot.  Soon…

I also moved the mounting bracket for the horizontal stab up much higher.  I’m planning to also temporarily attach the elevators to the stab for storage.