John's RV-10 Build - 907TR: Elevators - John 4 hours, Mike 2 hours, Tyler 1 hour

My oldest son came home yesterday from A&M to surprise me for Father's Day. It was a great surprise and he, my youngest son, Ryan and my nephew, Mike, went out for dinner. Great Surprise and a great day.

He is studying Aerospace Engineering so he is very interested in the RV Build. He came over this afternoon and helped for a while.

I started the day off with bending the close out tabs. This is a little nerve racking because once they are bent, it would be nearly impossible to change it. If it didn't come out correct, it would be another replacement part order and I don't want to do that on something as large as the skins. I clamped the skin to my workbench which is made of maple and then started the bend with my hands and a small block of wood followed by using the flush rivet head on the rivet gun and then finished with the hand seamer. I think they came out real nice. These are pictures from the end of the day when things were match drilled and clecoed together.

I moved on and clecoed and then match drilled the E-910 hinge reinforcements to the spar and then started building the elevators. Mike and Tyler came out and things started moving a little faster. It is nice to have someone move the clecoes around while you match drill things together, just have to come up with an easy system for doing so. We were able to get to the point of having the skins on both sides and attaching the elevator horns. It is nice to have something that resembles parts of an airplane in the garage so I left it that way. The next step is to match drill the skins to the spar/ribs and then disassemble/debur/prime.