Today I set about dimpling and cleaning up the skins and stiffeners. First, I hit each of the 32 stiffeners with the scotchbrite pad.  Its easier to do before dimpling, and doesn’t ruin the pad as quickly. 

Next, I dimpled each stiffener. 

Then it was time to do the skins.  Well, wouldn’t you know it.  My tables were not very level, and in the midst of my 5th dimple, I slipped and made an extra hole.  I was pretty pissed off, but $45 later a new skin is on its way.  Its not a major set back.  The mistake could be repaired, but I’d prefer to have a pristine aileron. 

The right skin came out perfectly. 

The two part epoxy primer I have doesn’t produce overspray at all.  The primer dries so fast all you get is a lot of dust.  Despite this, I’m a little leery to even give the impression that there could be overspray while residing at the airport.  I don’t want to create any bad blood.  If I was alone in the hangar that would be one thing, but I’m not.  And while I can easily pull my hangar mate’s plane outside and close the door, I have so little priming left to do I can easily do it elsewhere.  This being the case, I continued work on the remainder of the aileron.  I deburred the edges and lightening holes of the spars.   

Removed all the blue vinyl and deburred every part I could get my hands on. 

I also fabricated the spar reinforcement plates. 

Be careful.  Not all of the holes are #30.  Some are #40. 

The final product.  On Tuesday I plan to prime at my Uncle’s and then I will continue the aileron fabrication. 

First up on today’s to do list, removing the blue protective plastic with the soldering iron. Sometimes I don’t want to do this. It’s much quicker to just rip it all off, but then I remind myself that the extra protection is worth the extra time. 

I do, however, remove the entire vinyl from the inside of the aileron skin. 

Next time to cleco and label the aileron stiffeners in place. 

I label each stiffener from left to right with a number and a T for top or bottom. I actually use all 16 numbers so I know 1 to 8 are bottom and 9 to 16 are top. I also mark the skins where one begins and 16 ends. 

At first glance, the left and right aileron skins appear to be identical and perfectly symmetrical, meaning they could go either way. They are NOT identical. The bottoms of each aileron will have one section of three rivet holes that are closer together.

Additionally the alignment of the outer edge rivet holes is different. This is for the aileron hinge. You can see the difference in the two corners below. 

Finally I intended to dimple the skins and the stiffeners, however, in the move to the hangar I seem to be missing the pole to my c-frame and my male 3/32″ dimple die.  Very frustrating. Every session this weekend has had an issue, but its to be expected in a new shop.

Since I decided to finish the ailerons before the flaps… its time to work on the ailerons.  First step is stiffeners.  Always a lot of work for whats seems like little reward.  First step is to remove the blue plastic.Next up its time to mark the areas to be cut and removed.  The aileron stiffeners are a little easier than the elevators and rudder because these are all identical.  I mark the areas to be removed with Xs to make sure I cut on the correct side of the line.  After fifteen of these and multiple cuts with the die grinder and cutting discs its easy to lose track. You could probably use a set of tin snips, but I prefer the cutting disc.  Snips tend to cause slight bends. 

After cutting all of the stiffeners its time to hit them with the scotchbrite wheel.  I round all of the edges and remove the notches with the hard disc, and then I use the light wheel to give it a final once over. There are 32 stiffeners.  16 per aileron so it takes awhile to do this properly. I forgot to post my new toys from Harbor Freight.  Two new hoses for the air compressor.  The orange one was originally intended to be a backup, but the hose and reel below still needs a few attachments to work.  Additionally, I’ll need to figure out where to mount the reel. 

A picture of the hangar dog!