Today was a lot of the same stuff as yesterday, except for the left elevator this time. The morning started out with deburring the holes in the right elevator skin, and then starting on the left elevator.. I still have to deburr the edges on both skins, though. The trickiest and most frustrating part of today was countersinking the E-606 trim spar. Countersinking skins jut thick enough to be countersunk really sucks! The countersink bit has a guide post to keep it centered, but when you go right up to the other side of the skin there is nothing left to guide it... And it loves to move off to one side and oval out your hole. I avoided this on the other parts I've countersunk so far by clamping them down on the drill press. No workie with this part. It has 2 non-right angles to contend with, the flange isn't 90 degrees and the spar is narrower on one end than the other. After a couple not-quite-perfect holes, I had to find a better solution that just holding it there under the drill press. A little reading I did earlier suggested using a backer of some sort to keep the little nub lined up with the piece. I tried wood but it was soft enough that it still allowed a little motion of the bit, not bad, but not really great. So the solution was to grab the thickest piece of scrap sheet I had, .040, and drill it to match the spar hle spacing. I clecoed it on the spar and clamped some scrap to the drill press to match the angle lengthwise, and it worked great! (Duh, I just now remembered that the drill press table has the ability to tilt, and that would have been much better than the scrap). The angle of the flange didn't allow the bottom flange to sit flat on the press table, but it stayed nice and square with the backing sheet on there.
Here's one of my favorite 'modifications' of one of my tools. This is a closeup of the scotchbrite wheel on the bench grinder. After running a bunch of edges along the wheel when deburring, the would eventually create grooves in it, and when trying to work more of the wheel with the peices, they'd always slide back into one of the grooves. At first I thought this wasn't the best and I'd have to eventually work them out, but after more usage, I've discovered that these are actually great. The grooves make edge deburring a snap! I used to run the edge flat on the wheel, then do a quick, light run with the edge held at an angle to round it off nicely. With this groove, it all gets done in one swipe. Run a edge through the groove and a VERY nice smooth, rounded edge comes out. So instead of calling this careless use of my scotchbrite wheel, we'll call it the 'edge deburring mod'. :)
Here's my left part next to the right parts from yesterday. I've still got the ribs to finish edge deburring and they'll get added to the pile as well.
And here's the two elevator skins, with holes deburred, but edge not deburred yet. A nice trick I discovered with the skins. Everybody likes to leave the blue vinyl on as long as they can, and even remove just enough to dimple and rivet, to keep it from getting scratched up and whatnot. I've also come to the conclusion that that is the right thing to do. You can't see it in this pic, but the right skin (the one on top) has just the strips removed on top, but I took all the vinyl off from the inside. I figured out I could actually do everything, but the dimpling and riveting without removing any vinyl. I was removing it for deburring, too, but that can be done with it left on with no effect on the deburring process. I'm not sure I can do the edge deburring with it on, though. We'll see when I get to it..
And I got the email that my DRDT-2 was shipping for sure tomorrow. Cool! My replacement parts from Van's will be here the day after tomorrow, too. I'll get the VS finsihed up first when my DRDT arrives. It'll be super cool to have a finished part! I can't wait...
