Sat Oct 27 2007

Aileron dimpling

Well in preparation for dimpling the aileron skins, I wanted to seam the edges of the leading edge skins. I ran my seaming tool down the length of the left skin. However, while I was concentrating on keeping the flange of the seaming roller tight against the edge of the skin, I managed to put this secondary crease in the skin from the far edge of the roller. Grrrr. Luckily I still have the replacement skins that Van's sent me. I deburred, drilled, and seamed the replacement skin.

I also clecoed the right aileron back together to make sure it didn't have any twist when checked with the plumb lines. Here, the inboard end is nice and parallel with the plumb line...

...and so is the outboard end. Good deal. No twist in the right aileron. I wonder why the left one ended up with some twist? Shrug.

I used my #30 countersink bit to countersink all the holes in the counterbalance pipe. Working with steel sucks compared to aluminum. You can see here that all the chips stuck to the end of my countersink cage.

Here's the (nearly) full set of aileron components after seaming and dimpling. I placed an order tonight for new aileron ribs that don't have prepunched flanges. Match drilling those should cure the skislope effect near the trailing edge. Hopefully that's actually something that Van's will supply. Otherwise I'll have to fabricate them myself (or have them made at a nearby sheetmetal shop).