I was off to a great start – back riveting my elevators and soaring through the process when it happened. My back riveting plate slid backward ever so slightly from the vibrations of my rivet gun. All it took was one or two quick hammers from the rivet gun unsupported by the plate and I creased and cracked the skin right over top of the rivet hole. Here are a couple of pictures:
You can see how slight and small it looks, but here is a zoomed in image as well.
That tiny crack is all it takes across the entire skin to force a redo. Once you create a crack in the skin, you create a blueprint for the skin to continue cracking along that line rapidly while under the many stresses of flight. As funny as it sounds, this small error is cause to completely rebuild the entire elevator skin, which I fully intend on doing.
Even as I sit here to type up this post, I have already come to terms with the whole process and event. One of the real challenges of a builder is knowing when to call a foul on yourself – and this certainly is one of those incidences. I emailed Van’s as well just to double check, but their technical support team agreed with my assessment. Oh well – onward and upward I suppose!
Total time today = 1.5 hours
Total time empennage = 101.5 hours
Total time aircraft = 101.5 hours