This week I got all the exterior of the tail reinforced. The top of the fin, the sides where the horizontal stabilizers butt up and the seams at the bottom front of the fin.
Just got the lower fuse seam to do now and that will be almost all of the fuse seams done. (there are 2 more to go after that - one around the canopy to safety cell opening and then all the area around the lower fuse panel when it finally goes on, but that job will be one of the very last I do).
After that I took the opportunity to install the elevator bell crank. A fairly straight forward operation, first off bond in the plastic bearings. So I put release wax on everything that was metal near that. Left that to set then the next day set up the bell crank so it is level in the fuse and then make sure the metal hexagons are lined up square with the bell crank and drilled and riveted the hexagons to the elevator tube.
I had to buy some Loctite 638 to do this job as the manual calls for it to make sure the metal parts are bonded together. Pretty expensive stuff - list price is £40 for 50ml, but I managed to get it for £21. Handy stuff to have around the workshop in any case.
Finally I started looking into the next job which is the wire and pins that will hold the horizontal stabilizers in place. As you will see from the photo below the plastic sleeve that the wire will run in does not fit under the elevator tube bearing. So a little Dremel work was required here to make a trough for the plastic sleeve. Careful not to overdo this as there is only about 5mm of material below before you would go right through. 2nd photo shows the sleeve fitting under the bearing now.
I'm still not quite confident enough to start bonding in this sleeve so I have put off this job till I speak to Pete for his advice about it.
There is quite a bit of work still to be done with rebuilding the lower half of the tail - it must be wider to accomodate the integrated tailwheel. Not exactly looking forward to this job as I'm not really sure how to tackle it at this stage. Will give it some more thought before I get going on that one.
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| Tail seams all done |
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| Fin top reinforced too |
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| Elevator bell crank in place |
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| Hexagons riveted to elevator tube |
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| Sleeve does not fit under elevator tube plastic bearing |
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| Sleeve fits after Dremel work |
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