Well, it was a short night in the shop tonight, but after almost a week without building, it was a productive hour.
All that’s remaining before riveting the right elevator together is to finish up deburring, dimpling, and priming the right elevator skin, and doing the same (as well as getting a big enough dimple for the counterbalance attach screws) in the counterbalance skin.
First thing, I grabbed an oversize drill bit and started deburring.
I still can't bring myself to buy a deburring tool. Maybe I'm being stupid. (Who got sawdust all over my right elevator skin?!)
Then, I realized that the holes on the very front edge of the skin (for the pop rivets after you bend the leading edges together) will be very difficult to deburr if I wait until after bending to matchdrill them. I decided, like on the rudder, to drill and deburr them now.
Just making sure the #30 bit is the right bit.
After drilling, this looks like it will fit the bill when I am ready to start riveting the leading edges together.
After getting all of the holes deburred, I grabbed my scotchbrite pad and got to work scuffing. I grabbed an intermediate shot so you can see what I am doing.
Scuffity-scuff scuff.
After scuffing, I cleaned everything up with MEK (because it’s harder to clean well with the dimples) and started dimpling. Here is the inboard edge of the right elevator (which is upside-down on the table) after dimpling with #40 dimple dies.
I love dimpling. Don't know why... (Whose palm prints are all over my elevator skin!?)
A before and after shot of dimpling.
Please no comments on the lack of edge finishing here. I did all the edge finishing after this step.
Like I said, after edge finishing and another wipe-down with MEK (and the requisite drying time), I put the skin up on my garbage bins and shot some primer on the interior surfaces. If you look closely, you can see where I have left the blue vinyl on the inside of the skins. That is where I don’t want any primer (weight savings) after I am done. When the skin is dry and ready for riveting, I’ll pull the vinyl out and be left with nice shiny, untouched aluminum.
I cant wait to rivet this stuff together. I am proud of this elevator.
One little hour, but good prep work for riveting soon!
Andrew's RV-7 Build Log 