Recently in Empennage (Section 6) Category
You can see how I was able to accurately drill the hole in the port elevator horn. It worked a treat having had the AN4 bolt drilled through the centre perfectly.
It also acts as a bushing and protection for the bearing! The hole was initially drilled at #40 then opened up in stages to accommodate the bolt shank
Image is slightly blurred but still illustrates the drill through principle I used on this 'tricky if you get it wrong stage' of the build.
A replacement bolt, nut and spacing washers will be used to secure the elevator horns together via the bearing. The nut head's have just enough space to avoid the weld seam, but not too much!
A string is place from a temporary fitting at the rear of the VS and measured equally from a centre point.
The string is also attached to a forward centre point on the fuselage. When both strings are equally distanced from the VS it's deemed centralised!
This shows the port side of the VS alignment procedure
Using the method as per the plans, two strings are attached to a common centre point on the fuselage from a fixed rule attached to the rear of the VS, then when both sides read equally, the VS is deemed centralised.
This picture shows the l/h elevator and the final rivet line on elevator and also the hinge is riveted to the elevator.
Notice too that the tabs are both bent and riveted with pop rivets.
Apologies for the out of focus picture. This is the view between the skins and shows that the elevator skeleton can now be placed between the skins with no longer a need to pop rivet. It's just an elegant and simple solution.
My kit is of the older type and some parts are NOT prepunched. As a precaution, I bought another copy of the most recent drawings thinking I could keep up to date with the mods etc. This is not so. You must use the original plans issued with your own kit number. This is because many parts are in fact modified and cannot easily be switched. However, I did pick up the tip to rivet the weight skins separately not in assembly with the ribs, this allows one to use solid rivets instead of the pop rivets called out for in the 'original' plans.
This is the other alignment that is essential. The gap between the elevator and the trim tab must not be less than 1/8th of an inch.
I used a drill bit as a spacer to ensure that the gap met the criteria.
