Thursday March 8, 2007
Trim Tab Work (and Problems) (Left Elevator)
2.0 Hours

Tonight, I worked on the trim tab again. First, I trimmed the hinge to the proper size.

This is the inboard edge.

Here's the whole thing. Like other builders, I made sure to leave a whole section of the hinge on the elevator side at both ends.

Then I riveted the bottom of the trim tab together. I used the longeron yoke on my squeezer for most of these.

I then tried to cleco the top of the spar and the hinge together to start fitting it to the elevator. I quickly noticed that things were not aligning properly. Once clecoed together, the bottom skin started to bulge out and was no longer flat. That's no good.

Ignoring that problem for the moment, I tried fitting the trim tab to the elevator and noticed another issue. The elevator skin is not straight where it crosses the trim spar in the elevator. It's almost as if the trim spar is pushing the skin out, forming little humps in the skin.

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