Last night I spent a couple hours on the trim tab. I’m deviating from the plans and I removed the tabs from the elevator and trim tab and I’ll be making riblets. I’ve seen several people attempt to make the trim tab following the plans and it can be very difficult. By going down this route it is a lot easier.  

 
Here’s the tab after I lined everything up and match drilled the hinge to the elevator. Everything lined up perfectly!  

 
Here you can see the trailing edges of the trim tab and elevator are perfectly straight. There’s a little curve in the tab skin that I’ll straighten out before riveting the the hinge.  

 
Here are the bottom rivets holding the trim tab spar to the tab skin. You can also see the push rod attachment point on the bottom of the tab. 

Next up is final prep of the the riblets, and I might need to drill out some of the rivets along the edge of the tab, and then fab the riblets and re-rivet things together. 

This week has been a very intense week, but I’ll start with the news that I passed my PPL checkride on Wednesday! It was a grueling 8 hour day including hour long flights to and from the examiners airport, and 2 hours for the checkride itself, 3 hours for the oral exam! But at the end of the day, I flew home a private pilot! 

On the building front, I’ve completed riveting the left elevator structure to the skin, I also began work on the trim tab, I am going deviating from the plans in regards to folding the tabs, and I’ll be fabricating riblets for the elevator and trim tab. It should make for an easier time overall. I hope to close out the left elevator this weekend, if I’m not out flying friends and family around that is! 

Tonight I spent about an hour on the vertical stab and rudder fiberglass tips.  

 
Here’s the rudder tip riveted to the rudder, it will be filled and sanded to smooth out all the joints.  

 
VS tip riveted on, the opening will be filled and the joint also filled and glassed to make the transition unnoticeable. 

Last night I finished the last four rivets on the inboard rib at the trailing edge, finished rolling the leading edges and blind riveted everything together.  

 
Here you can see the pre-bent leading edges vs the completed leading edges. The trick here to get enough of a bend that the rivets aren’t strained holding the two halves together.  

 Here you can see another view of the leading edge before/after.  

 This view shows the rivets and the two mating surfaces of the leading edge. 

I also put the berrings in and measured them to 13/16ths per the plans. Now on to the left elevator and trim tab

Tonight I stopped by Home Depot to buy a saw that I could use to finish cutting the lead counterweight. It was by far the most difficult task to date. 2 hours of cutting and filing. 

Once that was done, I refitted it to the elevator. I then put silicon caulk at the trailing edge of the stiffeners, and then clecoed the skin onto the skeleton. 

  
I then riveted the skin on and fitted the fiberglass tip just for fun. 

  
One down and one to go! 

Tonight I began riveting the right elevator. 

   
 
Started off by riveting the nutplates and reinforcement plates to the spar. Then I riveted the inboard rib.  

 
Then I riveted the elevator horn k.  Here you can see the rivets for the rib to spar attachment and the factory heads of the elevator horn rivets.  

   
Here’s the shop heads of the elevator horn rivets.

   
 I then riveted the end rib and counterweight rib to the spar. Here you can see the shop heads. 

I then prepped the the skin with the counterweight skin and counterweight. Next up is to begin riveting the skeleton to the skin.