This morning I finished all of the dimpling on the skin and the trim attachment plate. I’ve got a family get together for lunch (MD blue crab… My favorite!) and this evening I’m hoping to prime.

Ok, the trim plate.  There is an order that should be followed on this trim plate, and it should be readily apparent, but if you’re me, that’s not always the case.

1. Match drill the plate to the skin.
2. Match drill the plate to the nut plates
3. Deburr all holes and all edges to include the inside edge
4. Use dimple die #6 for the larger screw holes.
5. Dimple the remaining holes (3/32′)
6. Dimple the nut plates

Do all of this before attaching anything.  On my last elevator I was completely not paying attention and I riveted this plate to skin prior to doing anything with the nut plates.  It was still salvageable, but not pretty nor the best method.  If you dimple the 3/32″ holes for the nut plates before the #6, you’ll find that the #6 die touches the 3/32″ dimples

This was my first time using my new dimpling setup.  The little table with adjustable height works perfectly and has definitely increased my dimpling speed.

This was also the first time I’ve used my new pop rivet squeezer.  It works way better than the old second hand pair I had before; that is to say this pair actually works. 

A close up of the end product.

Today was a productive day except that everything I did I had already done previously….

The new left elevator skin and stiffeners arrived on Tuesday. I had a final exam for my programming course on Thursday, so I didn’t even open the box until today. I quickly set to work so I can catch myself back up to where I was. I delaminated the vinyl, cut, shaped, and final drilled the stiffeners, deburred the skin for the stiffeners and finally dimpled all of the stiffeners. I’m hoping tomorrow that I can dimple the skin and prime so that this week I can find time to back rivet the stiffeners. At that point I’ll almost be caught back up with about 4 weeks until the wings arrive. Now that my class is over, I’m still confident I can finish the empennage before the wings arrive.The new skin is so much cleaner than the second hand skin I previously had. Just reiterates in my mind that I will not buy anything else second hand for this plane. (Save possibly tools)