Ailerons and Flaps
The control surfaces on the plane are probably the easiest parts to make. It took me more time to prime the parts than the actual fitment and assembly. The ailerons were first in line and so were their brackets. The brackets for the ailerons come in a sub-kit and are all pre-cut and everything. You just have to cleco them together and assemble them.
Here is the first outboard bracket being match drilled to the outboard rib.
The next step was to do the same to inboard brackets.
Next, I match drilled the flap brace and aileron gap seals. No pictures of those. There really is not much to show there. I also formed the stiffeners for the ailerons before I started a pretty major prep and prime session pictured below.
After my all day priming session and an evening to dry in the shop; I clecoed in the stiffeners and riveted them to the aileron skins. After The stiffeners were on, I broke out my homemade bending brake and bent the skins to their final size and fashioned up some stands for the ailerons.
The nose of the aileron was clecoed together and so began the construction of the skeleton of the aileron. That includes drilling the nose rib, counterweight, ribs, spar, doublers, etc. Here you can see how I drilled the counterweight to the skeleton of the right outboard nose rib.
Here is the counterweight after drilling and deburring.
This is the left aileron after drilling and right before I had to take it all apart for deburring.
After the drilling came the dimpling of the skins and ribs. Here you can see my dimple technique to get the nose ribs that would have had flat spots if I stuck a yoke in there or tried it on the DRDT-2. I simply countersunk the counterweight to the correct depth, then reattached the nose skin. With the counterweight as a female die, I used the male die and a plastic hammer to make the dimple.
Then I used one of the blind rivets to check the depth.
Then you just "Lather - Rinse - Repeat" until the fit you want is achieved.
Harley came out to monitor my progress.
After the aileron parts were assembled, drilled, taken apart, deburred and dimpled, moved on to the flaps. The flaps are super east parts to make and I was able to finish the initial assembly and drilling rather quickly. I am saving all the parts for a single day of priming. Here is the first flap that I worked on.
Here is a picture of one half of the flap hinge being drilled.
Here are the spacers that are needed for the flaps. These are tiny little suckers.
After everything was drilled. Let the priming session begin. This was definitely a long day out in the sun. Here is everything after priming where I hung it up to dry.
After everything was dried, I clecoed things back together and started final assembly. Here is the inside of the nose skin. I primed the counterweight and the nose skin. The grey primer is for touchup on the ends. That should keep any dissimilar metal corrosion to a "nothing". You can also see my scientific marking method for keeping everything identified. Before you ask, yes those are runs in the primer on the counterweight. That came from priming the inside.
And the counterweight riveted in place with the nose rib and nose skin.
Here is the doubler riveted onto one of the spars. Ya...I see the scuf marks. I touched that up.
Here is the RTV squeezed into the trailing edges to help prevent cracking.
I clamped the ailerons to the table while I worked with them.
My very pregger sister-in-law shooting rivets with Jenni's help while I bucked them.
