Definitely looking airplane-like!
Plans call for 3/4″ clearance. I’m at 5/8″. I’m not entirely sure what to do about the 1/8″ difference. I’ll email Van’s but it seems like there’s plenty of clearance.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 0.5 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 193.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 193.0 |
Got a long 1/4″ drill bit at home depot and finished getting the horizontal stabilizer attached.
Attached the vertical stabilizer and rudder.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 2.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 192.5 |
| Total Time (hours): | 192.5 |
Fabricated a spacer block to act as a drill guide and clamped it between the horns. Double checked that the elevators were still clamped in the trailing position. Match drilled the left horn to the right horn.
Checked to make sure everything was aligned and nothing was binding. All was good. Nice and smooth through the whole range.
Positioned the horizontal stabilizer on the aft fuselage and bolted the forward spar to the attach bars. I clecoed the middle holes on the aft spar to the aft attach bars. I drilled the two top holes and installed bolts.
Unfortunately I could not get the drill squared up to the spar for the lower holes because of interference with the aft bulkhead. I’ll have to head off to home depot to get a long 1/4″ drill.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 1.5 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 190.5 |
| Total Time (hours): | 190.5 |
Screwed the rod end bearings into the elevator forward spar.
Fitting the right side was very tight. I’m sure theres a proper tool to do this but I ended up using a cresent wrench to twist the bearings. There was no way I could do it by hand.
On the left side I couldn’t even get the threads to engage. On close inspection I discovered that the nut plates were a hair off center from the hole in the spar and reinforcement plate. I enlarged the hole by a 16th being careful not to damage the nut plate. Then I was able to get them screwed in with the cresent wrench. I screwed them in to the measurement called out in the plans.
I temporarily attached the left elevator to the horizontal stabilizer. I checked the clearance of the forward edge at the maximal up and down deflections. I used a digital level to fin the maximal deflection points. I had remove the elevator and backed the rod end bearings out three turns to get the necessary clearance.
I used a clamp to lightly hold the elevator in the trailing position to locate the pivot hole in the elevator horn.
I made a spacing block as called for in the plans and clamped it in place. I then honed down the drill bushing to get a snug fit in the bearing and used it to drill a #30 hole in the elevator.
I enlarged the hole hole to 1/4″ with a step drill and deburred the hole. Then repeated this whole process on the right elevator.
I reattached both elevators to the horizontal stabilizer. I used the appropriate hardware to make up the center hinge. It was extremely challenging getting the washers between the horns and the edges of the bearing. I ended up taping the washers to a small piece of scrap aluminum and using it to shoehorn the washers in place. Then I lightly clamped both elevators into the trailing position.
I measured and marked the location for the control attach hole on the right elevator and drilled a #40 hole and final drilled it to #12.
Tomorrow I’ll make a guide block and match drill the hole to the other horn.
| Today’s Time (hours): | 3.0 |
| Empennage Time (hours): | 189.0 |
| Total Time (hours): | 189.0 |
Ron's RV-14A Build Log 