It took a lot of muttering under my breath, but I finally got the nose skin wrapped around the counter weight tube and clecoed to the top skin and spar. It was insanely tight! It made the tank skins seem like a walk in the park. In the end, I had to use ratchet straps that went over and under the bench to pull the skin to the spar (very carefully).
As the nose skin gets clecoed to the spar, the top aileron skin turns into a wave from the tension. This is apparently normal, but it sure is disconcerting to see.
Now the reason for the ultra flat bench top comes into play. Because of the tension and top skin wave, the entire structure has to be weighted down so it lies flat on the table during match drilling to the spar and when the trailing edge is drilled. First I match drilled the nose skin to the spar, and also match drilled the counter weight tube to the holes in the skin. Drilling the tube was easier than I thought - slow speed with Boelube worked pretty well.
Next up was the trailing edge. This uses a wedge, just like the elevators did. To keep everything as flat as possible, I drilled into the bench top and clecoed every hole as I went.
That's everything for the aileron. Well, except the fact that I have to take it all apart, deburr, dimple, countersink, prime, etc. Most of the parts get dimpled, but the spar gets countersunk due to its thickness.
The last step in prepping the parts was countersinking the wedge. The last time I did this, I took a while to set the drill press up at an angle and used a jig to hold the wedge in place. It worked fine, but was kind of fiddly. This time I took a different approach. Tool makers sell a tool specifically for countersinking the wedges. It's simply a piece of metal bar that has an angle cut out that mirrors the wedge, essentially allowing the top surface of the wedge to be flat and perpendicular to the drill. I unashamedly stole the idea and just printed it on the 3D printer instead.
This worked great. Because the material is countersunk on both sides, the hole gets enlarged as the countersinks meet up. Without a solid setup, the countersink bit wallows and creates a nasty looking hole that is way too big. The drill press setup ensures that the bit doesn't wander. The black electrical tape is just there to keep the cage from spinning with the bit as it's lowered.
