The elevator horns go drilled today. This was a kind of daunting task, as I was concerned that the holes would line up nicely in each horn since they have to be drilled one at a time and you can't do the usual match drilling with all the parts in their final places. Here you can see the 'drill bushing' that I used. It is simply the plastic insulator from around a crimp-on ring terminal. I removed the terminal and cut the insulator with the box cutter to allow me to squeeze it down to fit in the hole. It's not exactly what's called out in the plans, since the inside diameter is slightly bigger than a #21 drill bit, but it worked just fine when used with that bit.
Here's the hole on the left elevator horn after being enlarged to 1/4". I ran the drill in there just a bit after it went through to ensure that I'd be able to get the bolt through both horns, and then deburred them. Without boring out the hole just the slightest bit, the bolt was difficult to push through, but it only took a few seconds of running the bit in there to get it to slide through nicely.
As you can see, it lined up just fine and the bolt fit right in there. Getting the spacing washers on was an interesting job. But needlenose pliers and a dental pick got them all on there. The spacing was just the slightest bit asymmetrical. It took 2 thick and 1 thin washer for the right elevator (on the left in the pic, since the assembly is upside-down), and 3 thick ones for the left. It'll be a definite challenge to get this thing torqued, as a normal wrench barely fit in there to get it snug.
And with that, the only thing left on the empennage are the fiberglass tips! So the only metalwork left is drilling a couple holes to attach them... Not too shabby. Only a couple screwups and about 175 hours of work. Another 25 if I'm lucky for the tips and then it's on to the wings (or at least the wing jig until my wing kit arrives in June).
