Sunday September 27, 2020
Left Elevator Control Horn Doubler, Misc (Aft Fuselage)
3.0 Hours

Today I set out to fabricate my steel doubler plate for the left elevator control horn where the edge distance was less than specified.

First I made a small paper template of the rough size that I wanted.

Then I cut it out of the new piece of steel.

Drilled some pilot holes for rivets in the horn.

And then match drilled them through the doubler.

Then I enlarged the holes to 1/8" and drilled a lightening hole in the doubler.

Looking pretty good, although there's still more metal on the doubler than is necessary.

So I trimmed it down some more (making sure to keep the 3/8" edge distance on the bolt hole.

Looks good.

I bolted the elevator bellcrank and torqued the bolt.

I primed and painted (with some rustoleum pro gray) the doubler.

Then riveted it in place. This came out perfectly. I mounted the elevators to the HS again and made sure there weren't any clearance problems.

Then I unbolted all of the rest of the empennage pieces from the aft fuselage.

They are safely back up in storage.

I riveted the elevator up stop to the aft fuselage skin.

I prepped and primed the shims for the HS forward spar.

I also prepped, primed (the usual SEM self-etching), and painted (Rustoleum Professional Machine Gray) a piece of scrap sheet aluminum to test for painting the cockpit. It looks nice so far. I'm curious about durability, though, so I'll wait until tomorrow and see how it resists scratching.

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