Elevators Finishing

After having the skin of the Elevators bend (intentionally), now they can be riveted to the understructure. Starting with the right Elevator (the easy one), I could set most rivets with the pneumatic squeezer.

There is one particular rivet (in the corner of the ribs and the spar) that needs to be longer, because it has extra material to go through. During my rivet check, I found I used the too short 4/16″ while it needed to be the 5/16″. If I had used the Go-NoGo gauge, it would be a NoGo, which would have saved me the burden of drilling it out.

Again I needed to drill out and reset several rivets, but this time I know the cause. There are a few rivets with different lengths and in that case I also need to adjust the squeezer, which I tend to forget.
On the aft side of the left Elevator there is a small spar to attach the piano hinge for the Trim Tab. I was certain that I could rivet those with normal rivets, although the plans called out for blind rivets. Again the plans were right, there is just not enough space to rivet them.

With the “standard” (most convenient) yoke you cannot rivet in tight spaces (trailing edges). Hence I switched to my 4″ yoke which only has a rivet set on one side and the other side is not that thick. Now I can set a few more rivets.

Unfortunately the last rivet on either side is still not possible with the squeezer. If I remember correctly I used a barn-door-hinge when riveting the rudder trailing edge. I’ll have to check my blog to see what I did there. I know the result was good.
Almost done with the Elevators, ETA on the Wings is early February, so most likely I will have some idle time.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 297/5

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