Whoa. Big day today. I ended up finishing the left aileron, then mounting it, then drilling the left flap hinge after aligning the aileron and flap. Let’s get into the (counts them….SEVENTEEN pictures).
First up, I grabbed the water pipe (sorry, I mean counterbalance weight) and countersunk the holes in the counterweight so I could use the male dimple die to create a dimple in the skin.
Let’s test with a rivet.
While all of those parts are out in the driveway drying from prep and priming, I grabbed the aileron spar parts and got to riveting.
It’s a little bit of a puzzle figuring out which holes can be riveted now, and which wait to be riveted with either the trailing edge rib, the leading edge rib, or the hinge bracket.
After the spar is prepped as much as it can be, time to attach the top surface of the aileron. This is a little tricky. You’re supposed to leave the bottom surface unclecoed so you can reach in from behind with a bucking bar. Here’s the aileron a few rivets into the seam line.
And here’s a shot from inside. Notice I’ve wrapped my bucking bark in blue tape to avoid scratching the spar.
I made it all the way down the line and only screwed up 2 rivets. Drilled them out fine and reset with no issues.
After finishing that row and flipping it over, you can see how pretty the top side of the aileron is.
Next up, time to install the inboard and outboard ribs.
And the outboard rib…
That last picture also shows the lower skin attach rivets. Another 42 there.
Then I finished pulling the counterbalance rib rivets. 14 for the front of the counterbalance, and 2 from each nose rib.
HOORAY THE LEFT AILERON IS FINISHED.
Of course I had to hang it from my freshly-installed aileron brackets.
Then, I spent an hour (without taking any pictures) aligning and drilling the flap hinge.
it went absolutely fantastically, and I’m incredibly proud of the HUGE visible progress this makes. I now have movable control surfaces on the left wing.
So you can see where the magic happens, I “lowered” the flap to ~90degress, you can now see the hinge drilled to the flap brace and lower skin.
Finally, a misaligned shot of my perfect 1/4″ spacing between the aileron and flap.
Then, I quit for the night, but kept walking by the project and snapping another picture.
Another late night shot, this time from underneath.
4.0 hours. 3.0 hours on the aileron, 1.0 on the flap hinge.
8 rivets initially on the spar. 42 on the top skin. 36 rivets total for the aft ribs. 16 for both nose ribs. 42 for the lower skin blind rivets, then 16 for the counterbalance. 160 rivets total.
