Let me take just a moment to vent on a recent experience I had ordering my fuselage kit from Van's.  On my confirmation, they wrote "VERIFY 7 OR 7A".  I reviewed the order and it looked fine so I put it in my file and didn't think anything of it.  The fuselage kit was supposed to be delivered around the time Airventure was going on.  Well, Airventure came and went without hearing a thing from Van's confirming that the kit is on its way.  Well, last week, I still hadn't heard anything so I called Van's to check the status.  The polite gal on the other end of the line said "ooh, we are waiting for you to confirm whether or not your order was correct".  WHAT!??!?  If there was a discrepancy, why didn't you send me an e-mail, call, or put "call to confirm 7 or 7A.  I am not ready for the fuselage so it is no big deal and that is one reason why I order early.  However, I was kind of miffed at the vague, cryptic note provided by Van's that I was supposed to extrapolate the need to call them before they will ship my kit. 

Okay, enough venting.  This weekend, Tami headed up to Minnesota to go to a friends wedding.  I am still working on the left fuel tank, but didn't want to tackle any sealing without her help so I started working on the ailerons.  Working with fuel tank sealant is great aversion therapy on this dang plane project.

After studying the drawings in the aileron bracket sub-kit, I marked which holes had to be countersunk.  I no more than got started and my first countersink bit "bit the dust" so to speak.  The pilot twisted right off of the bit.  I was able to take a spring loaded center punch and push the pilot out.  I had two of these #30 countersink bits so this was just a small setback. 

I primed all the components on Friday and let the primer cure overnight.  The AKZO epoxy primer dries to the touch in a few minutes, but is seems to stay "soft" for several hours.  Anyway, I clecoed these suckers together and started riveting.  Assembling those were pretty straight forward once you figure out which way the factory rivet heads go.

Just a series of side pictures showing the rivet factory head orientations on the various brackets.

After getting all of the aileron brackets put together, I checked the hinge bearings for free movement.  They all work great with the exception of one bearing.  I can't move it by hand.  I am going to have to take that bracket back apart and probably order a new bearing from Van's.  I can't see anything abnormal with the bearing so I am not sure what is going on.

UPDATE:  The aileron bracket that had a difficult bearing to turn was the W-414 aileron hinge bracket assembly.  I didn't have any trouble rotating the bearing while the aileron bracket was clecoed together, but after riveting, the bearing became very difficult to turn by hand.

I had gotten some feedback from another builder that Van's had shipped some of these brackets and the bearing recess's was milled to shallow.  In the picture below, my original brackets are the ones with the primer in the bearing recess.  In order to rectify this situation, I just ordered new brackets and a new bearing (in case the other one got damaged/deformed).  When I primed the new brackets, I just put some light grease in the bearing recess.  I was then able to spray the primer and after the primer dried, I just cleaned out the bearing recess of grease leaving it nice and clean.

After priming was complete, I re-assembled and riveted the aileron bracket.  This time the bearing spun freely and everything looked great.  I don't know if the primer in the bearing recess contributed to the tight bearing or not, but if I was to do it over again, I would make sure that I could remove any and all primer from the recess before riveting them together.

Setting my aileron bracket issue aside for a while, I started cutting the aileron stiffeners.  There are 32 stiffeners for the two ailerons.  Pretty straight forward here too.  Van's has them punched just like the stiffeners in the empennage kit.  Now if I can just remember how I did that....  It has been a while.

After getting crazy with the tin snips, the stiffeners are cut.

After cutting them to size, I spent what felt like an eternity over at the band saw cutting the tapers on the stiffeners.  Then of course, there was the time spent at the scotchbrite wheel deburring everything.

The band saw does a nice job when cutting the taper on the stiffeners.  These scraps and SHARP...  Don't ask me how I know that.

Between the aileron brackets and stiffeners, this took most of the day.  I have been having a difficult time staying motivated lately.  It feels like this wing stuff is never going to end.  I was looking at my log entries and I have been working on the wings since January.  I had to take two months off for finishing up college, but other than that, I have been pretty regular.  At this rate, I am looking at 3+ years to get this thing done.  YIKES!!!