Final Elevator Prep and Initial Assembly

I spent alot of time this weekend getting to where I am now. It started on Friday afternoon with dimpling more skins, deburring a bit more on the skin edges, and just getting all of the parts ready for priming the following day.

Saturday was doing some of the skin sanding that they ask you to do so that the tank sealant bonds correctly to the skin and the foam ribs, cleaning the parts off (which I accidentally removed some of my marks for reassembly… whoops!) and then masking off areas that I didn’t want to paint. Painting is getting better each time as I dial in the settings. It appears that this sprayer likes about 25 PSI. I’m curious if I should have it dump out more primer the next time and make wetter coats? The lighter coats tend to create a rough surface as it becomes more like little specs of paint that dry rather than a layer of paint that dries smooth. Spray painting is such an art with so many variables in it.

Assembly has gone very smoothly so far. I did change up the steps a bit on riveting the two elevator skins together. I used the method that we established in the rudder build, which Plane Lady actually suggested in her latest video. It made putting the elevators together MUCH easier than having to deal with assembly in that tight area. The rivet gun I have actually would not have fit in there if I didn’t do it this way, as the handles when fully extended make the tool wider than the spacing between the ribs. So their trick to extend the handles with tubes of some kind over the handles wouldn’t have worked out. I checked that both elevators were flat and level and they were so I’m happy there.

The only piece I’m not happy with is the elevator ends with the counter balance weights. I assembled them and didn’t have any issues there but when I set them down on the bench, they both were pretty twisted. I am not sure how that occurred as I made 100% sure at the very beginning of the elevator section that those things were perfectly flat and level and the flanges were perfectly 90 degrees. I will say while I was squeezing the rivets, it did seem to slightly modify those flutes that I had put in some of the flanges. I sure hope that wasn’t the issue. I mean, luckily it’s not a ton of parts if I did have to reorder and redo it, but I’m imagining there’s a way to fix this going forward. I put a video of it here on this post.