These elevators have a surprising level of complexity to them and have taken longer to assemble than I had originally estimated. With this part of the process, it isn’t the large volumes of repetitive work that slow you down, it is the small detail work that takes a long time… Read More »Stairway to Heaven – aka “The never-ending elevator”
Today started off innocently enough with me getting back into a rhythm after being out the past 10 days on vacation (which by the way was magnificent – thanks for asking). I completed riveting the leading edge spars on each of the elevators and then moved on to the counterbalance… Read More »Tank sealant and rivets – breakfast of champions
NEW TOYS For starters, yes, yes I am quite pleased with myself for that delightful pun. If you have read even one other post prior to this, you’ve already prepared yourself for it so hopefully it didn’t sting as much. All kidding aside there was some excellent progress made yesterday,… Read More »A real “uplifting” session on the elevators
As you can probably tell by the title, my priorities were elsewhere this evening. I didn’t get started on the elevators tonight until after the Cub game ended. Normally this isn’t a big deal, but after taking 2 of the first 3 from the Nationals, I could barely keep focused… Read More »Cubs win NLDS Game 2! (and a few brief rivets)
PRIMING PREP Today was the kind of day that I have been looking forward to for a while. I have spent more days away from my plane than with it recently and am glad to begin trying to turn the tide on that. Well, minus vacation next week of course,… Read More »Major elevator work day
Plain and simple: fall has been crazy. I have loved almost every minute of it, but it has been packed. Lots of swimming events with the kids, heading out of town for long weekends, and just the usual kind of fun that we like to have in the late summer… Read More »Trim tabs and parts are in
I’m not sure why I did, but I put off actually ordering the new parts. I guess somewhere in my mind I wanted it to work out, but I knew that this elevator skin was beyond repair. Anyways, here I am – time to order my new parts. I laid… Read More »Ordering new elevator parts (and tools)
As I continue to rivet and get work done while waiting to order parts for a new elevator skin, I have been reading ahead in the manual as well. I noticed that I will need to once again construct some wood supports to exact specifications for the trim tabs. You… Read More »More woodworking
After the incident during back riveting a couple of days ago, I set back out to complete the remaining skins on the elevators, survey the damage to the skin one more time, and keep making forward progress on the elevator. I was able to successfully back rivet the remaining portions… Read More »Riveting what I can
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… Read More »Looks like I get to build ANOTHER elevator