Right elevator skinning

Finished (pressed) the trailing edge and set up the jig for the right elevator. Cleaned up the shop a bit and put some boat parts and all the new rivets in right.places.

Adjusted the skeleton in the jig

Measured up the skeleton in the jig and fastened it with clamps and long bolts. The tip flanges will be riveted into the tip ribs when the skins are on.

Adjusted HS skeleton

Adjusted the HS skeleton in the jig. Started positioning the skin.

HS in the jig

Reconfigured the jig for the HS again. Added one adjustable support in the middle to keep it straight. Inserted a line through some additional holes in the temporary hinge brackets to see if the jig is straight through the process, and to be able to adjust if necessary.

Jig changed

Changed the jig for skinning the VS. Repositioned hinges and temporary vertical member. Need to prime the skeleton and rivet together before skinning. Wires are in the mail.

Changing the jig, ordered wires

Started changing the jig for skinning the VS. I ordered the standard wiring kit, the only one avaiilable for the -4.

Started with rudder

Sometimes I take one step fwd and two steps back. This time I did it twice... While waiting for new parts on the HS and VS, I continued with the rudder.

I made all the V-blocks for the rudder and elevator jigs, made the brake for the trailing edge bends and a countersink metal plate for the back riveting. Then I made all the stiffeners for the rudder and they are ready for being drilled to the skins.

Ordered a torque wrench, strap duplicators to drill the new skins and a few other things from Averytools, and reamers and drills from Aircraft Tool Supply.




It turns out that the HS-406 rib on the HS is a bit strange. The fwd part of the flange does not fit the skin, making it impossible to achieve the correct dimension at the tip of the HS (11 inch cord) while the skin at the same time fits properly on the HS-406. When my skins fitted properly, I measured a cord of 10.5 inches. I thought that it was obvious that the skin should fit the ribs and that the tip cord would become whatever it became. This was wrong, because the tip has to fit with the elevator and the balancing arm. According to Van's I should simply disregard the poor fitting of the fwd part of the flange by not putting any rivets there, because the strength of the structure is in the curvature of the skin, not the rib. I think this will look strange having unriveted flanges, so I ordered two new HS-406 ribs that I will modify so they fit, either by making the tip longer by 0.5 inch, or by widening the tip angle. I also ordered new skins, all the rivet holes were finished before I found out about the 11 inch glitch.

On the VS-408 I managed to cut the forking 9.5 inches instead of 8.5 inches. A new one will come with the skins for the HS.

So, the drawings are correct, even though the parts doesn't allways fit accordingly. It is therefor much better to modify the parts instead of "modifying" the drawings. Also, from now on I will allways wear glasses while building...

HS measured and ready for skinning

Trimmed the skins so they fitted in the jig. Measured and clamped the skeleton into the jig. Made an additional fasteners so that the HS-405 ends will have correct distance from each other and from the CL. Temporary fastened the HS-407 with wood to prevent them from bending while fitting the skins. Marked centerlines and measured distances for rivet lines onto the jig.

Have to make some paper templates to prevent drilling into the fluting, otherwise everything is ready for skinning.

Now I thing I start to understand the reason for pre-punched skins.