TitleGarrison

No bird ever flew nonstop from New York to Tokyo, or raced 15 miles high at triple the speed of sound.                                                                                                   
  But birds do something else.
  They do not conquer the air; they romance it.
.”

  Peter Garrison

HoursAndCounting

Jur's RV7 Aircraft Factory
2917 hours
and counting
Some decisions in life are bare of any obvious logic

 

Work continued on the rolling of the left elevator.

You may remember that I completely messed up during the weekend on the rolling of the leading edges. Large openings, insufficient bending, curtain style match between the skins and last but not least, some serious dents in the skin by trying to bend with the pliers.

My girlfriend came up with a fantastic idea on removing the bumps from the  skin. She used a marble (and a lot of patience and strength) to roll out the bumps. The marble will not create new bumps as it's surface is round and nicely follows the contour of the already made bend. Just push locally when the marble passes over the bump. It requires a lot of strength in the fingers to do so but the result is really remarkable. The bumps have almost completely disappeared.

The star with the marble:

For the first time since the build started, I have deviated from the original plans. The picture below shows then front side of the left elevator where the electric trim engine is installed. The electric engine has a threaded push rod that moves in and out of the engine and meanwhile makes the actual motion of the trim tab. On the plans, the threaded push rod that moves out when the engine is completely pushed in share the same hole as the electric wires to control the engine. Threaded rod and electric wires through the same holes sounds like suicide on the long run. It may not happen right away, but be sure that at some point in time, the wire will scarf the rod and might create a short circuit, or blockage of the motor. You can only hope the trim is not at full extention at that time.

To avoid such problems, I decided to surf other builders websites and found some people that had the same scary ideas about this as I had.
The best place to put the additional hole was in the lightning hole of the elevator horn. I drilled it for a SB437 snap bushing. The snap bushings seemed a little loose to my likings and I added a bit of RTV to secure them in place.

View from the front:

View from the inside:

I then continued to roll the leading edges using the PVC tube I used before for the right elevator.

This improved the original bends quite a bit. However, they were not perfect yet. 

I first tried to 'massage' the edges in an attempt to make them flatter. This is hard and painfull to the hands.

Finally came up with a better alternative. Using a small plier (flat jaws used for electricity), I was able to slightly bend the edge of the outside edge skin on the last 3 to 5 mm so that it pushes nicely to the other skin when pulled in by clecoes.

Finished it of by drilling the 1/8 holes and installing the AD-41-ABS pop rivets. Two of them don't sit completely flush to the skin so I might drill them out later.

Once the curve it made, I installed the rod end bearings. There are a lot of examples for tools that help with installing rod end bearings but I used something much simpler that I found on the site of David De Ridder. David all credit goes to you on this one.

Use the cleco pliers and take a piece of cloth to put between the rod end bearing and the cleco plier. It works very wel and the jaws of the cleco pliers fit nicely around the ball in the rod end bearing.

Once that was completed and measured to 13/16", I torqued the 4 nuts on the counterweights of both elevators to 25 lbs/inch and marqued the position of the nut with sealant lacquer.

 

And then.... After 112 hours of work, the elevators are finally ready for assembly on the horizontal stabilisor.

Right elevator:

Left elevator:

How to use

Use the kit buttons in the top ribbon bar to see a chronological overview per sub section per kit. For the full chronological article list, see chronological build link in prelude menu here below. The easiest way to lookup information is by typing in some part numbers or keywords using the search option in the ribbon bar

 

Caution !

Some advice on reading my log for fellow builders !

In some articles, I made corrections at later date on the original article to rectify my own stupidities or faults. Read through the entire article if you intend to use my findings/experiences on your own project !

Social Networking

Share This

Legal Mumbo-Jumbo

It’s possible (not likely) that I’m not as smart as I think I am. (Occasionally, I have moments when I know this to be true. Fortunately, the feeling passes quickly.) Although I have tried to make this information as accurate as I can, it is not only possible, but also quite likely, that erroneous and misguided information lurks within these pages. I cannot and do not warrant these pages to be error free and correct. Furthermore, I accept no liability for the use of this (mis)information. And, as many would say, your mileage may vary. If, after reading this, you are intent on proceeding, please be aware that the contents of this site are protected by copyright (copyright © 2011 and 2012). Nonetheless, you may copy this material subject to these two conditions: (1) any information used is for non-commercial purposes, and (2) the source of the material is properly credited. Of course, you may link to any page herein. At some articles, snippets of the plans from Vans are visible. These are for educational and illustrations purposes only and should never be used as plans for part construction or assembly as plans may have changed since the picture was taken and more important they are protected by Copyright by the Vans Aircraft Mothership company.

JSN Megazine is designed by JoomlaShine.com