Since I’m waiting for the sealant on the trailing edge of the rudder to cure, I went ahead and started on the elevators.  Here’s the left skin drilled.  The missing section of the trailing edge on the left is for the elevator trim tab.

Here’s the trim access reinforcement plate drilled to the skin.

Nutplates mount around the inside edge of the access plate to provide a place for the screws that hold the access cover to attach.  Van’s doesn’t provide any guidance about how to attach these, but you’re expected to know enough by this point to do it.  The nutplates are held on with AN426AD3-3.5 rivets and the access plate is 0.032″.  AD3 rivets are 3/32″, and AC 43.13 (google it if you’re really interested) specifies that you must dimple material thinner than 0.032″ and countersink material thicker than 0.040″.  For 0.032″ material, you can do either.  If I had dimpled the access plate, it would require either dimpling the nutplate mounting ears (which would have necessitated grinding down the edge of my female #40 dimple die).  Countersinking eliminates the need to do that.  It’s a little tricky countersinking 0.032″ material for an AD3 rivet since just as you countersink deep enough, the countersink penetrates the back side of the material and the countersink cutter loses its center reference.  To avoid this, I clamped a piece of scrap to the back of this plate and match drilled through it and then countersunk through the pair.  This provided an extended center reference for the countersink cutter.

I also dimpled the plate for #6 screw to receive the dimples from the cover plate.  Here, you can see a closeup of one of the dimples and the countersinks on either side to attach the nutplate.

I deburred, dimpled, prepped and primed all of the elevator stiffeners along with the spar reinforcement plates and trim access reinforcement plate (both in the foreground).

After the primer dried (15 minutes or so), I installed the platenuts on the trim access reinforcement plate.  Countersinking the reinforcement plate was definitely the right way to go.  The mounting surface for the trim access cover is totally flush.

Here is the backside showing the platenuts and rivet shopheads.

I back-riveted the trim access reinforcement plate to the left elevator skin.

I also prepped the trim cover plate and attached it with AN507-6R6 screws.

Finally, I deburred, dimpled and put rivets in all of the skin holes where they are riveted to the stiffeners.  It’s too late to rivet these tonight, but I can knock these out quickly tomorrow morning.

Here’s the left elevator skin ready for back riveting the stiffeners.

My buddy Andre stopped by tonight to help me rivet the trailing edge.  It turned out great.

Here you can see that it’s completely straight.  One of the things Van’s really cautions you about is that setting these rivets can cause a hook in the trailing edge.  Using the sealant helps ensure this won’t happen.  I did get some very slight puckering between the rivets, probably due to slightly overdriving them.

We also got the leading edge rolled and riveted.  This was probably by far the hardest part of the rudder.  Despite how thin the skins are, these things are a bitch to roll.

I also got the rudder hinges installed.  Van’s uses rod end bearings for hinges on the elevator and rudders.  These are just screwed in to a specified distance from the spar web (or reinforcing plate in this photo).

Since I couldn’t rivet last night because of the noise, I got up early and riveted the elevator stiffeners on before work this morning.  Here’s the left elevator.

And here’s the right.  Near the trailing edge, it was difficult to get the skin bent out of the way enough and still keep everything flat on the back rivet plate.  I ended up having to drill out a couple of rivets that didn’t end up flush with the skin.

I fabricated a simple bending brake out of a 2×8 and a bunch of hinges.  I’ve heard other builders complain that they didn’t get a crisp bend between hinges, so I went a little overboard on the hinges.  They were on sale for 96¢, so it didn’t cost much.

After reading the experiences of others on vansairforce.net, I put the trailing edge up against the hinges and bent the skins basically flat (until the stiffeners were touching the opposite skins).  They spring back to roughly where they will sit once the spar is attached.  You have to put a surprising amount of force on this.  I basically climbed up on top of it and bounced (and I weigh 230lbs).  The whole process for both skins only took about 5 minutes.

Here’s what you’re looking for.  The skin stays flat right up until the trailing edge radius.

I clecoed the counterbalance rib to the end rib and attached both to the spar.  Getting the last holes in the spar flange to line up with the holes in the counterbalance rib was a real pain and required several iterations of adjusting the bend of the counterbalance rib flange for that last hole.

Here is the counterbalance skin clecoed on with the counterweight in place.  I drilled through the holes in the end for the counterbalance weight attach bolts.

Here is the elevator skin clecoed on.  This is the left elevator.

And this is the right elevator.

While I was at it, I clecoed the elevator horns on so that they could be drilled at the same time.

These pictures look the same as yesterday, but all of the holes have been drilled.  Here’s the left elevator.

And the right…

For a little diversion, I fit and drilled the elevator trim mounts to the trim cover plate.  Ignore the left/right measurements in the plans, just visually center the trim servo arm over the cutout and clamp it in place.

A few of the holes in the elevator spars have to be countersunk, but the spar flange is too close.  I took one of my extra countersink cages that I picked up on eBay and ground off part of the foot to allow it to get up close to the flange.

I didn’t like the idea of routing the trim servo wires through the hole on the left since the servo shaft (which is threaded) extends through this hole in the full nose-up trim condition.  I’d much rather avoid the potential for chafing and drill another hole.  Since there was already a lightening hole in the elevator horn, I just drilled a 3/8″ hole in the center of that.  I’ll put a snap bushing in that hole later.

I haven’t had much time to work on the plane the last few days because work’s heating up.  We’re working 7 days a week to get the new iPhone 3.0 software out the door.  I need a little break though, so I managed to get a few of the elevator parts ready for priming.  Here’s the counterweight skin.  I beveled the side and back edges where the main skin overlaps to prevent a bulge in the skin at this spot.

There’s not enough room between the trim spar flanges (partly visible in the upper left) to get a normal squeezer to dimple the rivet holes, so I tried the pop rivet dimple dies.  I only got one done before the nail broke (expected at some point).  The female portion of the die shot off with blinding speed and it took me about 5 minutes of searching the garage to find it.  I think I’ll look for another way to dimple these holes.