Empennage Complete

Well, not really. I'll start on the fiberglass work. And there's a bunch of miscellaneous stuff that has to be done. But based on what I saw yesterday when visiting Scott Card, the elevators are now in the right place. Gave all four of the eyebolts a full turn in, and now the jam nuts can be torqued down. I'll wait on the torquing until torque seal arrives.

Measuring the travel on the elevators shows 34 up, 24 down on the right, 33 up, 27 down on the left. More than what the narrative specifies, but I didn't want to go any farther forward to keep the horn from interfering with the HS tip fiberglass. The very small gap between horn and tip has implications for icing safety. (My strategy for dealing with icing: don't fly if it's even a remote possiblity.)





Here's the status picture that will be posted to the VAF forums.

It's an empennage!

Visiting hours

Packed the empennage into the minivan and drove up to GTU to visit Scott Card. After that,
drove down to Round Rock to meet with Deene Ogden, Tech Counselor, EAA chapter #187.

Driving up to Scott's hanger, two RV's taxied up. I had seen them in the pattern. Turns out they were going the same place I was. They were Stu McCurdy and Bill Gunn. I'd been wanting to talk to Bill. If you go all the way back to my first posts, I mention a red RV-4 as the inspiration for my project. I mentioned the award that Van's offers and I intend to do what I can to see that he gets it. I also saw the red RV-4 leaving Lakeway the next morning from my back yard.

Somewhere in the past three weeks of no posts I cut the trim tab hinge pin to length and bent it for the safety wiring shown on the drawing. I bent it perfectly on the first try - except backwards. Crap. I managed to get it bent in the right direction but it's not perfect any more. The plans say another one comes with the fuselage. Maybe I'll try again. I claimed an hour for that.

2.5 hrs
Fabbed 3/16" keys for temporary mounting of control surfaces. Cut up a piece of brass rod into 2" lengths, sharpened one end on the belt sander, and put a slightly acute bend in after heating with a torch.
Installed counterweights on elevators.
Mount elevators to horizontal stabilizer. After checking travel, clearance of the elevator horn to the HS, and relative position of each elevator, take them off, adjust the hinge eye bolts, and put them back on. Repeat about 4 times to get it just right.

.5 hrs.
File elevator trailing edges.
Bend trim tab lower flange. For this, just used a piece of 2x4 scrap, cut a thin line in it the depth of the flange, and cut out the upper corner for relief. Similar to what other builders have drawn.
Should easily finish everything but fiberglass this weekend, and then the empennage will be temporarily complete.

1.2 hours, 61 rivets
Riveted trailing edge right elevator.
Installed remaining root and tip spar rivets. Used the squeezer for the last rivet on the upper skin, and a pop rivet for the bottom skin.
Preliminary install of hinge eyebolts.

Still haven't ordered wings. Starting to spend time doing long postponed chores, and shifting the plane activities to planning, design, and cost estimation. Still a few odds and ends to do, but only enough for a few more posts.

Thursday, June 5
.9 hours
Cleaned the right elevator trailing edge. Then mixed up the proseal, and applied to
the trailing edge. Clecoed to the angle iron. Now to let it sit.

The 1oz. batch of proseal from Vans was just enough to do this job.

Tuesday
1.3 hrs, 29 rivets
Match drill, debur, and rivet trim tab hinge to elevator.
Also installed eye bolt hinges on left elevator. Left elevator now complete, except for fiberglass, trailing edge filing, trim servo, HS mounting and pivot drill, painting, etc.. Oh, say, just another 20 or 30 hours!

Monday
.7 hrs, 28 rivets
Rivet left elevator trailing edge.

Finish spar/stiffener rivets.