Right Elevator Finished

Not a ton of progress on the plane today.  Instead I pulled out the chainsaw and started cutting up the trees that came down in the last storm.  Next weekend will be log moving weekend.

I pulled the aluminum angle off of the trailing edge, dropped rivets in the holes, then put tape on them to get ready for back riveting. 

For the trailing edge, the rivets are double back set (not sure if that's the term, but it's what it is).  Because the wedge is at an angle, you start by back riveting as normal, starting perpendicular to the back rivet plate.  As the rivet starts to set, you angle the rivet gun to be parallel with the wedge.  That partially sets the shop head of the rivet into the dimple.  Per the instructions, I partially set every tenth rivet or so, then went back and partially set everything in between. This is to try to keep an eye on the straightness of the edge so you can correct any bow that happens.  All I can say is easier said than done!  In the end, I did have a bow to the edge, but it is within the spec Van's calls out.  They say to try to keep any bows to 1/10."  It's hard to tell for sure, but I'd guess the bow in mine is about 1/16" at the worst spot.  I know big deviations from straight can cause handling problems, but I can't imagine a 1/16" hook to the elevator will cause any problems.

After partially setting the rivets using the back rivet set in the gun, I flipped over the elevator and back riveted from the opposite side.  This puts the shop head down against the steel plate, so I used a mushroom set in the gun against the shop head.  When it's all said and done, the shop head sits very nicely within the dimple, giving a double flush rivet.  In the picture below, the rivets at the top are the shop head, compared to the manufactured head of the rivet below.

There were still a few rivets in the aft edges of the ribs that I had left open to allow me to open the skins enough to finish with the wedge.  These rivets are too tight to even get my new no-hole yoke into, so I couldn't use the squeezer.  I used a technique I saw on one of the EAA videos instead.  I put a piece of steel onto the rivet and used the gun to back rivet it from an offset.

I don't have a picture for the last step of the elevator - filing down the portion of the wedge that was extending beyond the skins.  There was a good 1/8" of material to file down, so I hit it with the belt sander first instead.  After that, I finished with a file and then sand paper. The skins are much tighter to the wedge than on the rudder.  I'm guessing that's due to the fact that I used the rollers to slightly bend the skins in before I dimpled.  So aside from the slight bow in the trailing edge, I'd say this edge is 50 percent better than the rudder.  Maybe the trailing edge of the left elevator will be even better.