After I thought I had the hinge arrangement figured out, I went on to priming everything.  Like I have done several times before, no new developments when priming these components.

The pictures below, kind of jump forward to the completed trim tab.  I did not need to use any blind rivets on the trim tab except to rivet the trim tab bends on the side.  Three rivets on the right side and two on the left.  In the picture below, the trim tab doesn't look to bad.

Little blurry here, but as far as I can tell, the trailing edge of the left elevator and trim tab are very straight.  I don't have any concerns with that...

The picture below shows one of my concerns (probably more of a cosmetic issue than a flight issue).  There is about 1/16" to 1/8" difference in the trailing edges of the trim tab and the left elevator skin.  If  you look at the hinge arrangement I was discussing above, it appears that there would have been enough room to move the trim tab forward enough to take out that difference without the trim tab hinge eyes rubbing against the trim tab spar or elevator skin.  This was challenging to see when putting the dang thing together with cleco's.  Now that I have got it together, I know how I would like to adjust it.  FIGURES!!!

Here is another angle of the trim tab to elevator edge.  If you look at my trim tab and elevator tab bending log entries, it will show how I was unable to get a really nice and straight bend on the left elevator tabs.  After mounting the trim tab, I have Van's minimum clearance and this don't look to bad from the top.

The bottom looks like crap.  My only saving grace here is that it is on the bottom and not easy to see by the casual observer.

On the picture below, I guess what I am trying to show you is that the lower trim tab skin will rub (or bind) against the trim tab spar when the trim tab is lowered.  I see other builders have just put a slight bend in the lower trim tab skin in order to prevent those two surfaces from rubbing.  Next time I take the trim tab off, I will use the hand seamer and put a slight bend in it.

Alright, so far my efforts today have gotten me luke warm results.  When I put the trim tab together with the electric servo, I started getting PO'd (next two pictures show you why).  Here you see the trim servo mounted to the bottom of the elevator with the connecting rod to the trim tab.  Now this is not adjusted which only means the situation is worse than it is in the picture.  Currently the servo is fully extended and the connecting rod drags on the elevator skin.  I am going to need to remove yet more material so the connecting rod can clear.  I had already removed what I considered to be a lot of material here.

When I attempted to mount the trim servo to its bracket, the bracket was so short (aft side) it couldn't be fully tightened down as the trim servo rubs on two rivets that secure the servo bracket to the plate. I re-squeezed those two rivets to see if I could gain any additional clearance.  It helped, but I could not gain enough clearance.  Looking around the net, other builders have shimmed the trim servo with washers between the trim servo and the bracket.  This will also compound my connecting rod clearance illustrated above.  One builder commented that Van's had told them that this is a common occurrence.  If it is that common, why don't they fix their brackets?  I can't believe that it would be that hard for them to fix the fabrication of the bracket.

I am considering re-doing the left elevator all together.  I am somewhat disappointed with my results on the trim tab area of the left elevator.  Before, I get that extreme, I think I will take some time to look at other RV's to see what they have done in this area.  I definitely could do this better in a fraction of the time the next time around.

I am off to Dallas today for a week of training on protective relaying.  Between that and my remaining college work, it will probably be a couple of weeks before I find the time to get back to doing anything on the plane.

The extra hole came from when I folded the hinge over to drill the holes in the hinges such that they lined up between the elevator and trim tab sides.  This worked with the exception of the hole to the inside (or right side) of the elevator hinge.  The edge of the elevator is angled therefore the rivet line is not straight forward to aft, but angled to line up with the edge of the elevator.

Now I have to wait for a new hinge.

If you look closely at the picture below, you can see where the trim tab is not straight from top to bottom especially at the top of the photograph (top is forward on elevator).

Just a different angle.  Like I say, I believe this to be cosmetic only.

Part of my mediocre results was due to the fact that the wood blocks moved approximately 1/8" which was 4x more movement than I expected from Van's instructions.  Additionally, with the two individual blocks, they would tend to buckle when they were hit with the rivet hammer.

In the picture below, I am using to Quik-Grip clamps with 1" x 3" blocks.  Don't do this!!!  Read on and I will tell you why.

Just another picture showing all the Quik-Grip clamps I am using.  If you look closely, you will also see some vise grip clamps in there too.  I used all of these Quik-Grip clamps because the elevator would move when hit with the rivet hammer.  Again, don't do this....  Read on...

The picture below is of the trim tab.  These bends look great.  I changed my method here and it worked ALOT BETTER. 

Notice that on the trim tab, I am using a 2" x 4" which is one piece of wood and a SINGLE C-Clamp.  This resulted in excellent bends.

Okay, here is what I learned from this evolution:

• Start bending with the trim tab.  It is a smaller piece and if you screw it up, it is cheaper to replace.  It will take at least one bend to see how all this is going to work.
• DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT use Quik-Clamps to clamp the elevator and wood blocks.  You physically cannot get enough clamping force to hold the piece when hitting it with the rivet hammer.  If you don't already have some, go and get some C-Clamps.  Use at least two to hold the wood blocks.  I got by with 1 C-Clamp from the picture above, but I was lucky.  Besides, all I had was one C-Clamp.
• DO use double sided sticky tape.  When clamped, that really helps hold the blocks to the aluminum.  You will see what I mean when you go to remove the wood block from the trim tab after it has been clamped.
• DO NOT use any block of wood smaller (narrower) than a 2"x4".  The wider the block is, the better.  When you hit the tabs with the rivet hammer, it wants to buckle the blocks.  If you have a wider block in the trim tab or elevator, the less this tendency will be.
• DO use one block of wood if possible.  If you look at the trim tab photo above, I am using one block of a 2" x 4".  I mathematically guesstimated the angle of the trim tab and ran a band saw blade through the block at that angle.  The band saw blade removed just enough wood that the trim tab skin could be inserted in that slit.  I then used the C-Clamp to clamp down on it.  I put double sided tape on the outside of the 2" x 4" (bottom side and inside of the trim tab, obviously, double sided tape could not be put into the "slit" created by the band saw).  This arrangement did not even budge when struck with the rivet hammer.  Additionally, with the block not cut into two pieces, it eliminated the tendency of the blocks to "buckle" when hit with the rivet hammer.

I soaked the fluid needle in Acetone and later MEK with NO JOY in removing the cured epoxy primer on the fluid needle.  I ended up having to take some 220 grit wet/dry sandpaper and carefully remove the primer from the fluid needle.  In the picture below, you can see where the sand paper roughed up the fluid needle where the epoxy primer had built up.

I re-assembled the sprayer and Viola, the dang thing worked like a charm.

This cost me about 3 hours of back tracking effort to get to a point of priming again.  Because all the primer ran out of the front of the gun, I ended up being short on primer and had to mix a second batch...  I see why other builders use "rattle can" primers.  This two part epoxy primer is time consuming to apply.
LESSON LEARNED:  Remove and clean the fluid needle after each priming session!!!!

The one thing that did go right today was that this was the first time I used the box fan I mounted to the side of my paint booth.  I was really happy how this worked.  Even with the fan on medium or slow, it still pulled a large amount of the over spray through the filters.  I had noticeably less over spray in the garage.  Look at the picture of the filter....  IT WORKED!!!!

Just another picture showing how much material I removed from the dimple die.  I am still able to use the dimple die in "regular" dimpling applications as the performance of the dimple die was unaffected by removing that edge.

I was able to get all these rivets with the pneumatic rivet squeezer and a 2.5" flange nose yoke.  Everything looks good so far...

Looks good from the inside too.

I also riveted the brackets for the electric trim servo to the trim cover plate.  If you look closely to the print (DWG 4, Electric Trim Assembly), it gives you the dimensions on where to mount these brackets from the edge of the cover plate.  Ensure you dry fit everything first to make sure that the trim cover plate will sit flush against the reinforcement plate.  Additionally, if you look closely to the right servo bracket, it overhung the trim cover plate cutout.  I used a rotary burr bit in the Dremel to radius the bracket to perfectly match the curvature of the trim cover plate.

Everything looks straight with my calibrated eye...

After I completed riveting the trim servo plates, I bent the elevator skin over in the make-shift brake.

Installed the elevator skeleton and final drilled all remaining holes.

Then it was back to deburring, dimpling, blahh-blahh-blahh.  Same old repetitive stuff.

I decided not to prep and prime parts today.  By the time I got this far, it was borderline to late to a priming project.

Well, the reason that this got bent over is that I used the flush rivet set in the rivet hammer instead of the back rivet set.  I should have picked up my first clue I was doing something wrong when I had to drill out one rivet on the bottom side that set "high" and was not flush with the skin.

This rivet set below is what I should have used.  Below, you see a spring loaded sleeve on the end of the rivet set.  This spring and sleeve arrangement holds to the two pieces of aluminum together tightly while the rivet hammer recoils.  Without the two pieces being riveted held tightly together, it can result in a rivet that sets high -OR- in my case, a bent stiffener.

This is what happens when your mind is not on the task at hand!!

I was fortunate to have some blank stiffener stock (from a Van's training kit) and fabricated a new stiffener.  In the training kit, no holes or cutouts are marked.  I used the damaged stiffener to transfer all dimensions to the "blank" stiffener material.

The fabrication of the new stiffener took me less than 1/2 hour.  However, since I prime most internal surfaces with AZKO 2-part epoxy primer, it took me another 3 hours to get the new stiffener (and a couple of additional parts) primed.  DANG!!!

The new stiffener turned out GREAT, but it just made for a frustrating night.

The new stiffener looked so good, you can't tell it from the partially fabricated stiffeners that come with the kit.

After completing the right elevator, it was on to the left elevator.  This is the elevator that Van's warns you about stating that this is where most of the mistakes are made.  I can tell you that this was true for me.  Take everything I learned to this point, flush it, and start over.  Not really, but it sure felt like it.

First thing I attempted to figure out is the mounting configuration of the trim servo.  Van's has a note stating that you may remove as much of the interference as you need from the reinforcement plate.  Aaahaa, I might need to do something here.  I need to run the trim servo all the way out to see how or if it interferes with the trim servo cutouts.  So I dug out the Goldwing battery and started connecting wires with some jumpers with alligator clips I bought from Radio Shack.  The trim servo runs like a champ.  One thing that I found that I don't like about this setup is that it uses 26 AWG wires.  Those are extremely small and difficult to properly splice.  It states that you can crimp or solder and run heat shrink tubing over the splice.  I don't know if you can get butt splices for wire that small and I have never had very good luck when I just solder a splice.  I guess I will figure that out when the time comes.

I was surfing and found this solution to connecting the small trim servo wires.  I like it a lot better than just sliding heat shrink over a soldered splice.  It looks to be a very durable installation.

http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/macservo/macservo.html

If you also go to http://www.aeroelectric.com, Bob Nukolls has a ton of information on aircraft wiring and techniques to do it.

This is the connection drawing figures in the literature that comes with the trim servo.

I feel like I am playing with one of those electrical science project kits you used to be able to buy from Radio Shack.

Below, is the LED display for trim tab position.  It doesn't look very bright in the picture, but it was plenty bright when sitting on the table in a well lit garage.

After I got this far, I decided that this was all the work I was going to get done on Christmas day.