I received the aluminum bar I needed to make the shims that go underneath the attach angles of the front spar on the horizontal stab. The plans give measurements to get all of the layout angles for the shims right, but I just put a square piece in place under the attach angle, drilled the bolt holes through to match the existing ones, then traced around the attach angles to get the layout. A few simple cuts and some sanding and the shims were done and in place (temporarily).
The rear of the horizontal stab has to be elevated a bit to get the incidence set to zero. An 11/32 bit placed under the rear spar should get everything where it needs to be. With that in place, I put a 12" long drill bit into the aft tooling holes of the ribs to get a measurement. Then I put the same long drill bit in the forward tooling holes of the nose ribs and measured there. It was within 1/64", so I'm calling that good! I drilled the bolt holes in the two vertical attach bars that come out of the fuselage and connect to the rear spar. I temporarily bolted things together with the top two bolts.
The elevators have to go back on for the 100th time so the pushrod can be put in place, as well as a check for general fitment. The right elevator looks great in terms of how it lines up with the horizontal stab.
For whatever reason, the left elevator looks less great. I'm not sure what is causing the difference in gap between the two sides. There's not really much wiggle room when building them, so it's hard to imagine what I could have done to create such a difference from side to side.
I slid the pushrod into position and bolted it to the bellcrank and the elevator control horns. This is just temporary for now (I still have to prime the pushrod), but helps to get everything set to the correct length.
When I bolted the pushrod bearing to the control horns, that's when I realized I had a potential problem. The instructions prior to this point had said to drill the control horns together by clamping the elevator counterbalance arms to the horizontal stab. In theory, that should put the trailing edges in a neutral position, and drilling the control horns based on that should mean perfect alignment.
Once I got everything hooked up, I saw that with the counterbalance arms level to the horizontal stab, the left elevator trailing edge was 1/2" below the trailing edge of the right side. I've emailed Van's to find out what the best way forward is. I've looked online, and there are a suspicious number of people who have had the exact same issue, down to the same 1/2" measurement. So there is a possibility that I either just built a twisted elevator, or something about the manufacturing of that side continues to spit out some parts that end up being a little off. Some builders said they noticed it early and instead of lining up the counterbalance arms to drill the control horns together, they lined the trailing edges up instead. Of course, that means that in neutral they have one counterbalance arm that is up and one that is down. Ugly. Others have said they left it all alone and have noticed zero negative flight characteristics (one DAR said that an RV6 he looked at had this issue. It was already flying, and the builder decided to rebuild the elevator, only to discover it didn't change anything about how the plane flew). I'll see what Van's has to say. It's possible I could drill key pieces of the elevator apart and correct it, but I'm not sure. Worse case scenario, for a few hundred bucks and a weekend of time I could have another elevator built. Based on what I've seen online though, I wouldn't be surprised if they said that it's unlikely to have any perceivable impact. The joy of building is that I can always fly it, and if I don't like it, I can always build a new part and replace it.
Moving on from the horizontal stab, it's time to mount the vertical stab. I drilled and temporarily bolted a mounting plate to the front horizontal stab spar.
The front spar of the vertical stab has to be cut down a bit to fit in place. I have no idea why they don't just ship the spar the right length or have you cut it before you build the thing. They do weird things like that all of the time. I set the vertical stab in place and clamped the rear spar to the aft most bulkhead in the fuselage. There are a few measurements called out in terms of where the whole thing sets vertically. After a lot of tapping and back and forth, I finally got it in place. Next up, ensuring it's actually at a right angle to the horizontal stab. 100 measurements and tapping later, I think I got it. Every time I'd tap the top portion one way or the other, that meant it slide a little vertically as well, so each tap meant remeasuring both planes. I haven't drilled or bolted it in place yet. I wanted to take a step back and come back to it another day to double check things.
