Preparing The Elevator Stiffeners
12/03/2003 Filed in: Right Elevator
I have been up late for the last two nights and up early with our forced outage at work. I had to take care of the important thing first tonight... I had to re-route satellite TV from the basement out to the garage. I have been spending so much time out in the garage, I haven't been able to watch satellite. Now I have 200+ channels to flip through when I should be working.
After moving satellite, I spent the rest of the night cutting elevator stiffeners for the left and right elevators. Van's has done a nice job with the stiffeners, as they are all pre-punched and notched where the stiffeners should be cut and tapered. Almost no measuring is required, just draw lines between the "notched" cut-out locations.
I was a little confused when it came to the trim detail as there is an "x-dimension" that refers you to note #1 which states that for stiffeners E-720 J, K, and L (left elevator) to be trimmed to various dimensions to fit into the left elevator. Being confused, I cut stiffener E-720L from the pre-punching's on the uncut stiffener from Van's. It fits correctly without being trimmed and the additional material from the trailing end. The print denotes that from the center of the second hole from the trailing edge to the edge of the stiffener should be 2" (i.e.: X=2). If I would have trimmed the trailing edge as per the print, the last hole in the trailing edge of the elevator skin would not be attached to the stiffener. I will watch this closely when I fit the skins together tomorrow. Van's has been pretty accurate so far so I want to make sure I am correct before I disregard Van's instruction on this.
NOTE: Later, I check the fit of all the stiffeners again. They will need to be trimmed per Van's instructions, however, I would match drill the most aft hole prior to trimming stiffener IAW note #1 (if possible). In some cases, very little material was removed from the stiffener.
After moving satellite, I spent the rest of the night cutting elevator stiffeners for the left and right elevators. Van's has done a nice job with the stiffeners, as they are all pre-punched and notched where the stiffeners should be cut and tapered. Almost no measuring is required, just draw lines between the "notched" cut-out locations.
I was a little confused when it came to the trim detail as there is an "x-dimension" that refers you to note #1 which states that for stiffeners E-720 J, K, and L (left elevator) to be trimmed to various dimensions to fit into the left elevator. Being confused, I cut stiffener E-720L from the pre-punching's on the uncut stiffener from Van's. It fits correctly without being trimmed and the additional material from the trailing end. The print denotes that from the center of the second hole from the trailing edge to the edge of the stiffener should be 2" (i.e.: X=2). If I would have trimmed the trailing edge as per the print, the last hole in the trailing edge of the elevator skin would not be attached to the stiffener. I will watch this closely when I fit the skins together tomorrow. Van's has been pretty accurate so far so I want to make sure I am correct before I disregard Van's instruction on this.
NOTE: Later, I check the fit of all the stiffeners again. They will need to be trimmed per Van's instructions, however, I would match drill the most aft hole prior to trimming stiffener IAW note #1 (if possible). In some cases, very little material was removed from the stiffener.
22 stiffeners, snipped, sawed, and de-burred tonight. A lot of tonight's time was spend on the band saw and the bench grinder.
