Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

Riveted together most of the left elevator. I had a little trouble figuring out how much to drill out for the blind rivets along the spar for the trim tab cutout. I asked the forum and one person said 7/64″ and another said #30. 7/64″ is a tiny bit too small, so I just reamed the hole out a little bit with the drill and it fit perfect.

Both of the elevators are almost done being riveted.

I also did a few other minor things like countersink the upper flange of the trim tab spar and prime the holes, dimple the lower flange, and rivet the horns to the trim tab.

Clecoed and then riveted together the right elevator, including attaching the counterbalance. A few of the rivets were tricky, but it didn’t take too much time. It looks great. It’s nice having a helper with small fingers to place those tiny rivets.

I was waiting until the EAA Technical Counselor came by before closing up any surfaces, but we’re having trouble arranging a time to get together. I want to finish up this empennage, because the wings are due to arrive in just 3 weeks. I also have a few other small projects around the house that I promised to finish before I work on the wings.

Clecoed together the left elevator. It turns out that I forgot to dimple the inboard and counterbalance ribs. I’m glad I noticed before I started riveting on the skin, so I could easily take care of it.

Spent last night at the local EAA chapter meeting. Lots of discussion about painting, but nothing concrete enough to use.

Tonight I worked on the trim tab a bit. I clecoed everything together and carefully clamped on half of the hinge following the dimensions in the plans and holding it up to the elevator to make sure the holes for the other side had good edge distances. Final drilled the trim tab, deburred and dimpled.

I picked up some double-sided tape, so I worked on bending the tabs on the left elevator and trim tab. Even with the tape the blocks move around a fair amount, especially when you hit it with the flush set in the rivet gun. I also had to trim away a little bit of the lower tab on the elevator with a Dremel cutoff disk. The results turned out well.

I completed the tabs on the elevator and one pair on the trim tab. I started getting a little frustrated, so I’ll leave the last pair on the trim tab for another day.

Attempted to bend the tabs on the elevator for the trim cutout. I couldn’t find double-sided tape as the instructions suggested. The block moved too much, so I’ll wait until I can get tape.

Worked on mounting the servo to the trim access cover. It’s a tight fit. I drove the forward-most rivets a little extra and the servo still doesn’t sit right. I’ll try putting in a couple of washers.

As the plans suggested, I had to file away a bit of the trim cover and reinforcement piece so that the clevis pins would clear.

Worked just a little bit on the elevators, but it was way too cold in the garage. I fashioned a block for bending the flaps for the trim tab cut out.

After a day off, I spent some time assembling the elevator skeletons. Instead of completing one side, I decided to work on both of them at the same time. That reduced the amount of yoke and rivet set swapping.

I riveted the end and counterbalance ribs together; riveted the reinforcement plates and nut plates to the spar; riveted the ribs to the spar; and finally riveted the control horn to the skeleton. The plans called for using 470AD4-4 rivets for the control horn, but after setting one I noticed that they are not quite long enough. I decided to use 4-5 instead.

After all of the time spent on prep work, the assembly sure seems to fly.

Washed, etched, and primed all of the elevator skeleton parts.

Attached the elevator trim cover reinforcement nut plates. That would have been much easier before I riveted it to the elevator skin, but it wasn’t too hard using two different yokes and the C frame. (I used the C frame to dimple the last screw hole to #6.) I was able to squeeze all of the rivets except two. This picture shows me using the C frame with a flush set in the rivet gun. Probably would have worked just as well to just hammer on the C frame.

Worked on the left elevator. Deburred the remaining holes in the skin. Deburred and finished smoothing the edges of the skeleton parts. Countersunk and dimpled all of the parts and skin. There is quite a bit of countersinking on the left elevator.

Worked on the trim access cover. Started to dimple the holes on the trim cover reinforcement, but then realized I should countersink them so I don’t have to do anything to the nut plates. Also dimpled to #6 the cover and reinforcement for the screws, but there is one hole I couldn’t reach with the squeezer. Would have been much easier if I had noticed there are no instructions for this part and did the dimpling before I riveted it onto the skin.