Jen and Dot worked on removing the rivet tape for me.
The end ribs' flanges were too wide for a conventional squeezer yoke to work (even the longeron yoke...it just missed by a few mils), so we had to shoot and buck the 10 rivets holding each end rib couple together.
Here are the end ribs, having been riveted. These rows of rivets are what I was talking about yesterday in terms of them being too close together. If you're building an RV empennage, make sure you spread the holes further apart width-wise so the counterweights fit without shaving.
A bit of the flanges on the inner rib coupler need to be trimmed so that they don't interfere with the spar's flanges. After trimming and deburring (with the die grinder and ScotchBrite wheel), I marred the primer a bit, so I'll have to touch this up when I prime stuff later today.
Ok, it's later...I've prepped the parts with Alumiprep and Alodine, and they're drying before priming.
Ok, I've primed the parts.
Here you can see the reinforcement plate riveted to the elevator spar. There are four of these total, two on each spar.
I riveted the elevator skeletons together, which was pretty uneventful. After that was done, I drilled the individual control horns to each skeleton. Here's the right side right before riveting.
And here it is after being riveted.
Before finishing the elevators I worked on the elevator trim access plate and reinforcement plate. The reinforcement plate rivets to the skin and has 6 nut plates so the cover plate gets screwed on. Have I said "plate" enough? Here are both plates after having been dimpled, and after the nut plates were riveted on.
I riveted the reinforcement plate to the underside of the left elevator skin.
Here's what it looks like on the outside.
And here it is with the cover in place (with one screw finger tight at the top). Basically, picture a small electric servo underneat this access panel. The servo has a switch in the cockpit to actuate it in either direction (to trim up or down). The servo has a control rod that exits through the little hole here and moves the elevator trim tab one way or the other. You'll see...
Here are the V-groove jigs for rigging up the elevators plumb and level.
Here's the right elevator in the jig.
Drilling these elevators was a buttload more work than I thought it would be. It's not rocket science, but you have to drill these counterbalance skin doublers.
There are just a zillion holes, at least it seems that way.
Multiply all of this times two elevators...here's the left elevator in the jig...same deal, but more...you have to drill the rear spar. The right elevator doesn't have a rear spar, but the left one does...it's where the trim tab hinge attaches.
In case you noticed, it was almost 1am when I got started on the left elevator. By the time I finished drilling and disassembled everything it was after 1:30. I could have pressed on and deburred, dimpled, and riveted everything, but man am I exhausted. I'll save all that for tomorrow.