I have been doing pretty well about finally getting back out into the garage on a regular basis.  I haven't, however, been so good about updating my builders log...

I finally decided to tackle riveting of the flaps.  In Van's instructions it states that the flaps are the easiest control surface to assemble (I call bull_hit) on that but, I will elaborate below.  It mentions that no elaborate jigging is required, however, to assemble carefully because you can build in an unacceptable amount of twist.  The manual further stated that a stand may be helpful to hold the flaps while riveting.  After giving this some thought while sitting in my new Lazyboy airplane rocking chair, watching satellite TV, and surfing high speed internet, I decided that I pretty much had to build the "V" stand that Van's was referencing.  I was actively working while in the chair HONEST.  Sometimes you just have to stop and think of how you are going to proceed on the next task...

I needed this new chair for the plane project because I have already worn out one chair that just couldn't hold up to all the stresses associated with airplane building.  Either that or it was my big butt.

The trick I found here is to fabricate a "V" stand that will prevent introduction of twist into the flap.  Here's what I did:

1. I cut to pieces of fiberboard to the approximate size I needed.
2. Clamped the two boards together and clamped them to the bench overhanging it so that I could run a circular saw down them to cut out the "V".
3. Traced out the "V" using one of the flap ribs as a template.
4. Cut out the "V" with a circular saw and trimmed the notch up with a jig saw.  I clamps straight edges to the board so that I had a straight edge to run the circular saw guide against.  I wanted everything as straight as possible.
5. Took the side of the stand that would be mounted against the bench top and squared it off with a circular saw.  Now when the "V" stands were mounted to the bench top, they should both sit straight with respect to each other.
6. Mounted some 2x4's to the bench top and screwed the "V" stands to the 2x4's resting on top of the bench top surface.

This is what it ended up looking like.

After I completed the flaps, the decision to make the "V" stands was a necessity.  It would just be to hard to rivet the flaps without a good way to hold them in place.

I took Checkoway's route and mounted the "V" stands 40" apart.  That worked pretty well, although I don't think that it would be all that critical.

How am I going to get into the trailing edge and set those rivets????

Yep, it looks even smaller from the inside.

This was a bucking bar that I purchased a while back in anticipation of the flaps.  As it turned out, this bucking bar worked very well for the aft most rivet.  It was still hard to get into hold it.

Okay, if you look below, you can see two minor "bumps" in the skin. What had happened here is that I was setting the rivet on the opposite side (bottom skin) and left the clecos in the top skin. When the rivet hammer hit the rivet and the bucking bar, it banged against the skin.  What I had done previously and on all the other ribs was to take out several of the clecos so that the skin would move if it got hit by the bucking bar.  I was able to minimize the visibility of the two bumps by rubbing it with the rivet hammer (disconnected from the air line) and a mushroom set.  You have to be in just the right light to see this now.  It is nothing that a good paint job won't cover up...

I am a big fan of the Cherrymax rivets.  Man are they tough.  I used them to attach the rib to the front spar.  The trick here is that the top skin of the flap curls over the front spar.  I was not able to get my ground down blind rivet puller under the skin lip without lifting the lip slightly by hand.  Word of advice for anyone reading this>>> try to space out the force you apply to the skin.  If you just use the tip of your finger, you can put a bend in the skin.  To prevent this, I tried to roll the skin back using the side of my thumb so that the force was spread over a couple of inches.  And, you need to hold the skin while using your other hand to pull the blind rivet gun.

I didn't cut out any eyelets of the hinge to insert the hinge pins from the center.  However, I am seriously thinking of going back to do that.  I am going to think about that for a while before I change anything since the hinge is already riveted to the flaps.

About 8 hours of riveting and viola, I have a flap.  It is doable, however, it is not the simplest structure to put together.