Elevators finished

Even the 31 drill is too small for the dimple die. Drill up all the holes to 30 and dimpled. A few stems protruded maybe 1/10 of a mm or less, which was easy to fix with a scothbrite wheel on a drill. So I think I continue with 30 drill bits for now. Also drilled the hinges on the H-stab.

Sonex will send new parts for the defect vertical stab parts.

Drilled elevator skins

The 31 and 32 drill bits came today from Aircraft Tool Supply. The 31 drill bit works, but the 32 drill bit is nonsense. It is nonsense because the hole becomes too small for a cleco. Although it is possible to push a cleco in there by force, you don't want to do that because you will damage the skin. The cleco itself does not work properly when the hole is too small, the friction will be so large that the spring does not engage, so the cleco does not clamp the pieces together. I haven't tried the dimple dies, but I would guess also the 32 holes are too small for the dies.

Elevator and H-stab

Finished the elevator as far as I could without match-drilling to correct size. 1/8 rivets usually requires #30 drill bit. But from Mike when using flush rivets the holes needs to be smaller, and #31 or #32 drill bits shall be used. I am not entirely sure why, but I would guess that if the holes are "too large" the stem will break off too late and will protrude above the rivet, and this will not look good. I ordered a bunch of 31 and 32 drill bits as well as #30 since my last one got worn and useless when drilling the elevator horn (what kind of steel is that horn made of? )

Both halves of the elevator are now drilled in place with the hinges. The only way to fit the stab-side of the hinges is now to completely finish the elevators with the hinges riveted on, or else I could end up with having to file each and every of the 66 lobs on the hinges if I am a fraction of a millimeter wrong.

The hinges on the elevator shall be 1.45 mm down from the upper surface. Luckily I had a large carpenters ruler that were exactly 1.45 mm thick that I used as an offset.

Tried the skin on the stab, and to my surprise it fits. Several brackets and ribs on the stab needs modification though due to interference.

Hardware from ACS and elevator

The hardware from ACS arrived. Left everything in their small bags, but sorted the bags. Continued on the elevators. It was a lot of measurements and drilling in this area, but the measures on the drawings are logical and correct with proper datum, so it is fairly easy (not like the -4 where everything is floating and with drawings out of scale). I'm not totally sure how the hinges and everything will add up in the end, so I hope the drawings are correct, and I left the root ribs still undrilled.

More stab

Deburred all the parts for the stab (except the holes that needs to be match drilled). I also cut out the elevators from the stock Xenos "ruddervators". Left a 5 mm oversize on the root to be able to trim to correct size.

The tip ribs have this groove. I measured it to be 0.7 mm. I drilled a hole to stop any eventual stress risers. One of them was quite heavily skewed (wonder what Sonex say about that). The attach angles (T04-12) are oversized and needs to be trimmed to be able to fit flat on the spar.

I have to wait for the hardware, hinges in particular, to be able to work further, so I started to sort out the parts for the vertical stab, an will bend the vertical spar tomorrow as well.