Elevator skin (E00901B), small crack when bending trim tab closing tab down.

Hey everyone,

I bent the closeout tab down on the E00901B elevator skin, and it bent down fine and I was able to get it to bend 90 degrees, but it didn't bend right on the relief cutout in the corner and cracked slightly in the corner of the bend. I'm emailing Van's but will this require a new skin? It's a little difficult to see in the photos, but it's a hairline crack right in the corner.

I think I'd replace it. The other option might be stop-drilling but at this stage my bias would be replace. If you do replace, I'd carefully deburr the skin edge at the corner before bending - that may be the source of the crack. Replacing parts is part of the build process (at least it was for me, more times than I care to mention!)

Other possible options

Of course Vans is the authority but how about a couple other options to ask them.
1. Stop drill and file out the crack
2. Cut off the tab and install a riblet
Mine is a 7a so I may be way off base.

Vans suggested that I could radius out the area of the crack and it should be ok. I thought about it for a while and decided that I would just replace the skin since no work (except the bend) had been done with it yet. I'll try the bend again a little more carefully this time and hopefully avoid the cracking. The other skin ended up fine after the bend.

Just an update to this everyone for future reference. Even without the crack in the skin, I would have had to replace the skin. Turns out I didn't make my bend line in line with the end of the trailing edge of the skin anyway. Rather than bending the tab down at the leading edge of the relief holes and straight across to the end of the trailing edge, I bent it at the rear of the relief holes, which is most likely why it cracked anyway.

Not sure why I didn't notice this when I was making the bend, but guess I'll chalk it up to carelessness. The other elevator skin was also bent this way, so I had to end up replacing that one too.