Today I got the Jeff's trailing edge bender from Darrell, one of the other local RV builders. So I put it to good use and bent my skins. It was surprising how rediculously heavy that bender was, but is sure made for easy bending of the skins. Quick and slick. After bending them, I checked and noticed I had not deburred the edges of the skins yet, so I had to do a little of that. Then came assembly time for the right elevator. First I put little gobs of RTV silicone at the ends of the stiffeners as Van's suggests. Here's a pic of the right skin where you can see the great riveting job I did on the stiffeners and the blue globs of goo at the ends.
Here's the next step, putting the two skin to skin rivets in the elevator skin to counterbalance skin holes. This is so you don't have to use blind rivets there after the skeleton is attached. You're also supposed to put the lead counterweight in there, too, but I forgot and had to take out a bunch of clecoes afterwards to get it in there. No biggie, but still an extra step that I shouldn't have needed to do if I was being more careful and following the instructions better... I also had to drill out the first two rivets after I realized that I should have given the top skin a little bend on the edge before installing it to make sure it fit together tightly after riveting. The instructions didn't mention that, so I can't be blamed for not reading them for this easliy remedied mistake.
Here it is all clecoed together. It looks really good! Although I really feel like I'm nearing the end of metalwork for this kit. And still 10 more weeks or so until the wings arrive. I'm sure there's plenty to keep me busy. I've heard the fiberglass work is a lot of fun. NOT!
