So yeah, I haven’t really done much this week. I got kind of bummed Tuesday – I got an email from Van’s that my fuse kit was going to be delayed a few weeks. Seems they discovered they were missing some large parts when the kit went for crating. Presumably they’re large enough that shipping them separately isn’t feasible, so I get to wait. Really it’s not a huge deal – I’ve got plenty of work to do here on the ailerons and flaps – but it was a bit of a downer since I was getting all excited about the kit coming in.
Anyway, tonight I finally got back out to work. First I riveted the replacement spar reinforcement in place, then I assembled the aileron bracket with the replacement angle piece and riveted that on top of the new reinforcement. The riveting went much more smoothly this time with the long straight set:
Next I deburred all the holes in the skin and spar for the aileron gap fairings, dimpled the skin holes, and clecoed the gap fairings in place. For whatever reason, the instructions only say to rivet the fairing to the spar at this point, though they don’t specifically warn against riveting to the skin. I’m not sure if this is one of those times where I’m supposed to read between the lines or not. In any case, I just did the spar rivets; I’ll take a look at the plans this weekend and decide whether to proceed with riveting to the skin.
Gap fairing riveting to the spar:
Finally, I set about deburring and prepping the flap braces. Last time out, I’d discovered edge distance issues with those, but Van’s support said the braces were OK as-is; I guess that hole isn’t under a lot of stress or something. So now I have the braces ready to be primed this weekend. Tomorrow is kind of busy but maybe I can get the priming done in the afternoon, since it looks like there might be rain on Sunday.