Flaps

Today I drilled the left flap to the left wing after having it lined up as good as possible. It seems that the trailing edge bend on the flap is thicker than the one on the aileron. I wonder if there is still time to correct this. Tried with the bending brake, but no luck. If the flap would have a sharper edge, they would line up perfectly with the aileron...

I kept the minimum edge distance on the hinge in view by means of a pen line on the hinge.

And here it is all drilled and clecod.

The flaps are done! Primed the spar and riveted the right flap together today.

Now that the hinge has arrived in the fuse kit, I can continue putting the right flap together. Drilled the hinge to the spar and countersunk the spar holes to receive the skin dimples. Dimpled the bottom skin. Alu-ectched the spar in preparation for priming tomorrow.

Scotch-britet, alumi-prepped and primed the right flap ribs. Dimpled bottom skin with C-frame.

The left flap is done!

And remember these balloons you used for leak-testing the fuel tanks? They are great for protecting the skins while riveting the inside of the flaps as well :-)

Quite a productive day for the flaps today. I deburred and dimpled the top and bottom skins today. For the top skin I used some blocks underneath the skin to make it easier to dimple the row of rivet holes on the leading edge.

I riveted fl706b on the inner rib and put the platenut on the other side. I also riveted fl706a on the spar (left the 3 holes for the rib connection open).

Last thing of the day was the fabrication of a flap craddle from some plywood and a piece of the wing stand that I had left. Clecod the flap together and put it in the craddle for riveting. The spar was removed to make it easier to get to the inside of the skins.

Primed the ribs and fl706 pieces of the left flap today.

Finished match-drilling FL-706A and B. I made a silly mistake and used a #28 drill instead of a 1/8 so the whole is slightly too large. Luckily I noticed while starting the second bracket what I did so I didn't repeat it again. On the picture you can see it as the difference in size between the middle hole and the ones that go through the rib.

Deburred and scotch-brited all the left ribs and alumi-prepped in preparation for priming.

Match-drilled top and bottom of the right flap skins to the structure. Deburred edge and holes of both left and right top skin and scotch-brited the inside skins.

Started to match-drill FL-706A and B to the inboard rib.

Match-drilled both bottom and top skins of the left flap to the structure.

Fabricated the FL-706 brackets and bend both the FL-706B's. Also clecod the 701 top skins to the flap structures.

Clecod the flap spar, ribs and skins together tonight. Since my parents are visiting for two weeks my dad has been helping me out nicely!

More match-drilling of the flap spar and ribs with the 702 skin. And ARGH: I drilled the piano hinge of the right flap on the wrong side of the spar :-( That's one wasted hinge and tomorrow a call to Van's to add a new one to my fuse kit. Fortunately the left side went okay and I have one correctly drilled hinge on that flap.