Elevators 9-14-6, 9-15-3 to 9-15-5

Prior to bending the leading edges of the elevators, I had to finish setting the remaining two rivets in the tips ribs on the inside of the elevator. The plans have you set these while bending the skins back, but I decided to make use of the lightning hole in the front spar to set these. 

I began by wrapping the ends of my tungsten bucking bar and adding additional padding at the rear end since this part would be sitting on the skin as I was bucking, and I didn't want to risk denting the skin.

Tungsten bucking bar wrapped to allow bucking but also to protect the elevator skins

After carefully turning the elevator upside down and passing the bucking bar through the front spar lightning hole nearest the tip rib, I maneuvered it into position so that it lay over the holes to be riveted.

I was then able to hold the bucking bar against the tip rib with one hand (finger), and buck the rivet from below using the rivet gun and the Boeing flush rivet set. It took a few hits to adjust my settings, but this worked better than I expected, and all these rivets were set nicely. 

In hindsight, I could have used this same technique to also set solid rivets in this location in the bottom skins, but as I had already used a blind rivet at the end of the tip rib, having an extra couple of blind rivets on the bottom skin didn't seem to matter, and was certainly easier and quicker to accomplish.

Tip rivet fully riveted into elevator

Shop heads formed well on the inside after pressure settings were dialed in for riveting

Next I worked on bending the leading edges of the elevators. Starting with the skins closest to the tip rib, I used the same technique as I did for the rudder. 

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The smaller section was relatively easy to bend and I was able able to get the skins close together, with a final small push to cleco them. 

The middle section proved much harder to get the skins bent to the same point. Forming the bend by hand, I was able to get the skins to within 3/8" - 1/2" apart. However, trying to squeeze them together to insert the clecos resulted in the skins starting to oil can, most likely due to the spar flange being deflected downward slightly as I was pushing the skins together. The oil canning went away as soon as I let the skins return to their natural bent form.

I figured I will need to add additional bend close to the spar (moving the apex of the bend towards the spar) so that I can get the skins even closer (ideally touching or thereabouts) before I squeeze them together to insert the clecoes. It won't take much additional bend to accomplish this, but this should minimize the force of the skin pushing on the spar flange, and prevent any oil canning when the skins are riveted. 

Elevator skins after initial rolling and bending by hand. Additional bend is needed

Time Taken:     2.9 hours

Dates:                January 30 2023 - February 2 2023

Elevators Total Time:             95.2 hours

RV-10 Build Total Time:      271.7 hours

Priming Total Time:               26.4 hours (not included in build time totals)