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These first three photos are actually from last night. I used the Dewalt mitre
saw to cut pieces of this aluminum angle to length for the flap actuator
attachment reinforcement brackets.
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The bandsaw made short work (pun intended :-) of chopping down one of the flanges
to the correct length on these two brackets. A quick touch with the sander and some
filing and these were all ready to be match drilled to the flap spars and flap brackets.
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I also bent these two flap brackets to roughly 6.3 degrees. The vise left some
marks in the surface of the aluminum, so I used the scotchbrite wheel to polish
the marks out.
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After work today I was very happy to see that my replacement aileron ribs arrived.
I ordered these without any prepunching in the flanges.
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The odd thing is that they joggled the flanges where they meet the spar, but
didn't put the bend relief in like the original ribs.
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You can see how the joggle caused the sides of the rib to bend out slightly.
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...so I put a single flute in each flange and squared up all the flanges with
the seaming pliers.
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I think they're gonna work great. Since I'm heavy into working on the flaps
right now, I'll finish getting them ready for priming before match drilling
these new ribs to the ailerons.
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I match drilled the angle to the spar, then match drilled the ribs and angle
to the flap reinforcement bracket.
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The last hole to drill was the 1/4 inch hole for the flap actuator rod eye bolt.
The drill really dug in, so I had a hard time drilling this hole. I think
I'll do the next one on the drill press. You can see that the edge of the hole
has chatter marks around it rather than a nice smooth chamfer. I also drilled
the nutplate to this bracket and the rib.
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Lastly, I deburred all the right flap components. This pile doesn't show all the
components, but rest assured, I deburred them all, including the skins and the
internal ribs. The only thing not drilled or deburred for this flap is the hinge.
I'm going to wait on riveting that until I can determine the best location
for the hinge so that the flaps match up nicely with the ailerons and I ensure the
edge distance is good for the hinge rivets.
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