Tonight, I moved on with the left elevator by matchdrilling the upper stiffeners.
Here are the upper left elevator stiffeners, after trimming, being matchdrilled to the skin. First, I drilled and clecoed the forwardmost hole.
The three forwardmost holes clecoed.
After finishing, I traced the stiffener outlines on the inside and outside of the skin.
These will help me devinyl later.
You can see I have already done the lower surface of the elevator (it's upside-down on the table).
And, of course, since I forgot to add RTV to the right elevator (still trying to figure out a way to get some RTV in there), I wrote a little reminder on the inside of the left elevator.
Hopefully I'll see this as I pull out the last of the blue vinyl just before assembly.
Next, devinyl along the traced lines and then deburr and scuff.
Left elevator skin interior after devinyling, deburring, and scuffing.
Next up, I deburred and scuffed the remaining stiffeners. (I don’t have any pictures, but after this, they got dimpled and then primed.)
Because the upper surface doesn't have the trim reinforcement plate, there are 4 (instead of 3) of the short stiffeners.
Next up, devinyl and deburr the outside of the skin.
Skin devinyling.
A small tip here. I decided that at the aft end of the elevator, i would leave a little blue vinyl instead of connecting the upper and lower surface bare spots. This way, If I need to rest the elevator on its trailing edge, I won't be damaging the finish on the trailing edge.
Because it was late, I couldn’t use the c-frame.
Instead, I grabbed the hand squeezers and dimpled anything I could reach.
Just for kicks, I held up the trim reinforcement plate (and cover, still covered in blue vinyl) which will be riveted underneath the skin to the right.
Here are the other sides of the upper stiffeners getting primed.
I toook these inside for a good washing with Dawn before drying them, wiping with MEK, drying some more, and then shooting with primer.
I had a few more minutes, so I started match-drilling the skeleton. Here is one of the spar reinforcement plates being drilled to the spar.
I used my 12" #30 bit due to cleco-clearance issues.
Finally, before heading in, I shot a coat of primer on the other side of the upper left elevator stiffeners.
Nighty-night.
Andrew's RV-7 Build Log 