So I just screwed the eye bolts in the right elevator for now. I'm going to put together the Sam Buchanan "Genuine Aeronautical Control Surface Interface Insertion and Adjustment Tool" to put them in all the way. So today I moved on to the left elevator. I deburred all the edges and went about the painful task of bending the tabs where the trim tab goes. Bending the trib tab ends was easy compared to this, as this skin much bigger and more unwieldy. But here's the tabs bent over.
Not without problems though. The top tab got bent upwards a little by accident when bending the bottom tab. When I went to bend it back down everything looked fine until I tapped it nice and flat with the rivet gun. Then the dreaded crack appeared. Everything else looked good, so I stop-drilled it and went about asking questions to see what other thought. The conclusion after talking to several people is that this is not a structural problem, but the crack may actaully be beyond where I drilled. At this point, I'm thinking I'll just leave it like it is and just dab a little epoxy on the crack to hold it all in place. If worse comes to worse and the crack starts spreading, I'll cut the tabs off, fashion a rib to fill the gap, and blind rivet it in there.
