ve been able to get cracking on the RV, but today we finally we're able to get back to work! In the last couple of weeks we had trouble bending the elevator tabs and ended up having to order a whole new left elevator skin.Today we started by etching and priming the inside of the new elevator skin and a few stiffeners that we had to make. Once the priming was dry we continued and back dimpled all of the holes on the elevator skin and dimpled the holes in the stiffeners, this went by quite quickly, and we're starting to get a good rythm in dimpling. Once the dimpling was done we backriveted the stiffeners to the elevator skin and riveted the trim tab 
reinforcement plate in. Now we're back to where we started from! (Please note: New CD Player, garage sale special, $2.50. Gotta love garage sales.)
reinforcement plate in. Now we're back to where we started from! (Please note: New CD Player, garage sale special, $2.50. Gotta love garage sales.)Once the stiffeners and trim plate were nice and secure we moved on to the daunting task of bending the elevator tabs. We've been dreading this ever since the last skin. But this time we were able to succesfully accomplish the task. We securely clamped the the skin to our workbench with carpet tape between it and a piece of wood on our bench. After a few attempts we figured that the tape was actually hurting us, for some reason it started to slip and
caused problems. So we removed the tape, realigned the skin and clamped once more. Once it was secure again we used a 1x2 piece of wood and a hammer to initiate the bend. We started with the bottom tab and found that we had to grind about 1/16 off for it to properly bend all the way. Once the bottom was done we finished with the top and finally had the tabs bent! This felt gr
eat to get out of the way, and we're happy with the results.
caused problems. So we removed the tape, realigned the skin and clamped once more. Once it was secure again we used a 1x2 piece of wood and a hammer to initiate the bend. We started with the bottom tab and found that we had to grind about 1/16 off for it to properly bend all the way. Once the bottom was done we finished with the top and finally had the tabs bent! This felt gr
eat to get out of the way, and we're happy with the results.Once the tabs were bent we were ready to rivet the understructure to the skin. We started with the end ribs and finished with sealing it all up around the perimeter. Leaving the top flange of the trailing edge spar unfastened for now until the trim tab hinge goes in. All in all, it was a good successful day.
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