Feb 16 -- Left Elevator Stiffeners

Continued work on these tonight. First I cut the majority of them down to the correct length for this elevator (they need to be shorter because the trim tab). As I cut each one to length I also tapered the rear edge of each stiffener to match the taper on the original (longer) ones. Doh! They don't need the taper! Gonna have to check in with Van's Aircraft to see if this is worth re-doing...

Also drilled the pilot holes in each stiffener out to #40. I didn't cleco things together first, because these CNC holes are so accurate that there's no point in aligning to match drill. Put another way, on the other elevator I did more damage via kinks in the skin when I tried to open it wide for all the stiffener work.

Next I scuffed the pieces with Scotchbrite pads (a lot easier than after dimpling), and finally it was time to dimple each stiffener.

Total Time: 1 hour