I did a little fine tuning of the leading edges and installed the pop rivets.  I also installed the bearings into both elevators.  Here’s one of them (I don’t know which), but they all look about the same.  Basically, you screw these in until the center of the bearing is 13/16″ away from the spar face.  It’s not hard to be precise since one too many or one too few half turns is obviously off of 13/16″

Here’s another one.  This is the inboard bearing (the spar is wider at this point since all of the empennage surfaces taper as they move from the root to the tip).  Overall, I’m pretty happy with how the rolled leading edges turned out.  There is no puckering between the rivets as I’ve heard a number of builders complain about.  You really want to get the edges to lie flat against each other when the holes line up.  Also, putting a small roll in the top edge really helps.  I purchased the Cleaveland Tools edge rolling tool, and I’m really happy with it.

Now that I have the trim tab mounted and I’m happy with the alignment, I cut off the inboard ears in line with the inboard edge of the elevator.  I still have to fabricate a small rib to fit in here.

I also opened up the gap between the trim tab and elevator to 2/32″.  Van’s specifies the minimum gap as 3/32″, but that’s with folded ends and rivets that could conceivably interfere if something ever moved or flexed.  Since I’m using ribs here, nothing could move to decrease the clearance (There actually is a small amount of side to side play in the hinge, but the 2/32″ clearance is with the trim tab pushed as close to the elevator as possible.  The actual clearance varies from 2/32″ to almost 3/32″).  Even if hinge wear theoretically allows greater play at some point in the future, I could always increase the clearance by filing these edges back a little further (definitely not an option with the folded ends).

Here’s another shot of the elevator rib.  This picture makes it look like there’s a gap on the top edge, but the rivets will pull this down flush.

Here’s the second rib I fabricated for the outboard end of the trim tab.  The first was way off, but this fits perfectly.  I still need to dimple all of this which is why the little ear on the left isn’t sitting flat.  It was a little more work to make the ribs have these little ears to tie into the spar, but I think it’s well worth it to reduce the potential for flex and cracking.

I fabricated the inboard trim tab rib.  Just like the outboard one, it took two tries before I was happy with the fit.  It’s easy enough to make the paper template accurate, but it takes a bit of practice to determine where to start the bend so that it winds up in the right spot.

I finished riveting the trim tab with the exception of a couple of pop rivets that I need to order.  I’m really happy with how this turned out.  It’s not perfect, and I’m sure I could do better after I get more experience, but it turned out really well.

Here is the bottom side with the trim servo hooked up.  I’m not getting anywhere near the +25º/-35º travel the manual states is optimal, so I’ll have to call Van’s about that, but at least it’s all hooked up and working.

Here’s a closeup of the trim tab push rod.  I’ll probably need to file the edges of the opening in the elevator to get a little more clearance, but that can wait.

I pulled down the rudder and fit in to the vertical stabilizer.  The clearance between the vertical stabilizer tip and rudder counterbalance skin is too tight right now, but I’ll open it up a bit when I do more of the fiberglass work.

The gap between the lower edge of the counterbalance skin and the upper edge of the vertical stabilizer is nice and uniform though.

Next I got started on fitting the elevators to the horizontal stabilizer.  The horizontal stabilizer skin needs to be trimmed a bit to allow the elevator counterweights to clear, so I marked and trimmed the extra off.

The lower portion of the rear spar flange also has to be trimmed to clear the elevator horns.  This is tricky because you really don’t want to nick the spar reinforcing bars just behind the flange.  I stuck an extra strip of 0.032″ aluminum under there when using the dremel tool to give me a little insurance.  Worked great; clean cut and no nicks on the reinforcing bars.

Here are both elevators fit to the horizontal stabilizer.  It looks so cool to finally see some big parts taking shape.

I purchased a drill bushing from McMaster-Carr to ensure the elevator horns were drilled directly in line with the center bearing.  The bushing was a couple of thousandths too large to fit in the center bearing, so I spun it in my drill press and used some emery cloth to take it down until it fit.  Here is the bushing fit through the bearing and pressed up against the left elevator control horn.

The bushing has a center hole sized for a #40 drill bit.  Using a bit of Boelube, I drilled through the bushing to make a pilot hole in the elevator horn.

I stepped up the size of the hole using a couple of intermediate bits and finished with a 1/4″ unibit.  After a bit of deburring, here is the finished hole.  I then repeated the process for the right elevator control horn.

After reinstalling the elevators, I slipped an AN4-14A both through to check the fit.  The holes are in perfect alignment.  Various washers will eventually be installed here to take up the intermediate space.

I finished trimming the horizontal stabilizer to allow for clearance of the elevator counterweights.  I’m allowing for 1/8″ clearance on the front edge to the center of the counterweight (where the screws are).

The clearance between the side of the horizontal stabilizer and the inboard edge of the counterweight skin is also 1/8″ and is perfectly even here on the left elevator.

The right elevator is off a little bit.  The clearance on the back end is 1/8″, but the clearance on the front end is 5/32″ (it was over 6″32″, but a little leaning on the elevator, while it was standing up on the counterweight, brought it in slightly.  I might have been able to bring it in the rest of the way, but it would have required more force on the elevator than I was comfortable applying).  This is almost unnoticeable, so I’m happy with it.  With tonight’s work behind me, I’m done with the elevators other than the fiberglass tips.

I got started on the elevator tip fairings by cutting the relief notch to allow them to clear the counterweights and trimming the flange so that the tip can fit in completely.

Here is the tip fully in place.  There’s some unevenness between the weight and the tip, but I’ll fill that with flox when I bond this in place.  This entire front edge will be glassed and filled.

Here’s the horizontal stabilizer tip fairing rough cut and in place.  I opened the gap here up to 3/16 to give me some room to glass and fill in this area.

Here is the right side.  Clearly a lot of filling and sanding needs to be done to get this looking good.

I epoxied the foam in place and put a couple of pieces of 1.45 oz/sq yd glass in place to bond them to the sides.  It’s a lot warmer in the garage than when I did the vertical stabilizer tip, and the epoxy kicked off a lot faster.  I ended up having to mix a second batch to finish the other tip.  That’s really all I can do tonight since I have to wait until this cures.

I mixed up some epoxy and microlight filler and filled the end of the elevator tips.  This stuff is incredibly light.  A five ounce container of the microlight additive fills a container about the size of a two liter bottle of soda.  It’s great for filling and fairing.

My buddy Andre stopped by again tonight to get a little experience with fiberglass.  We riveted and glassed the horizontal stabilizer tip fairings on which took all of about 15 minutes.

Since we have to wait for the epoxy to cure, we got started on the rudder top fairing.  Here, I’m checking the fit.  All of the fairings have needed a fair amount of trimming and sanding to fit properly.  It’s easy, but it sure makes a mess.

After riveting the top fairing on, we glassed both sides.

Here is the tip with peel ply in place.  That’s all I can do tonight since this all has to cure.

I ran across a neat trick on vansairforce.net for adjusting the elevator counterbalance.  I installed a 1/4″ nutplate through the forward tooling hole in the counterbalance ribs.

This lets you add or remove washers (probably large area washers) here to balance the elevators.  Ideally, you would want to have a few washers here to balance the elevator without paint, then remove them and adjust the amount of lead to balance the surfaces after paint.

I didn’t get any pictures, but I also riveted on the elevator tips.