The Elevator

Start - 6/4/99, Finish - 7/4/99


The electric trim motor brackets mount to the inspection cover with three rivets.  The most aft rivet has to be moved forward a bit to have room for the shop head and dimple under the trim motor.  Now my cover has two extra holes, Oops.

Not enough space for rivet shop heads under the back of the trim motor

A couple of extra holes filled with cut off flush rivets
I will buy a "footed" bucking bar if any more rivets like these come along!

The control horn attach rivets were hard to reach for bucking
I should have bent the ends on the trim tab before those on the elevator as that is a cheaper part for the first try.

The lower tab had to be trimmed slightly to fit.
Clamping the tab tightly between two blocks produced good results.  The control surface skin probably would have turned out even better this had I bent it this way too.

Bending the outboard end of the Trim Tab.
Building the trim tab was not as bad as it sounded.  I think bending the leading edges was the most challenging part of the empennage.

The Trim Tab

Elevators and Empennage Complete!