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Quandary with elevator tips--what would you do?

Recently purchased a nearly complete RV-10 tail kit and started work on Section 11. Started with bolting the h-stab to the work bench, setting rod end bearings and attaching the elevators. Both elevator tips interfered with the outboard ribs/skin of the h-stab. Prior builder never got this far so likely never noticed. After much head scratching and inspection it appears they are not straight but progressively "toe in" towards the stab (see attachments). Tried adjusting the rod end bearings but didn't provide enough relief. Asked Van's but they seemed perplexed. Have an EAA Tech Counselor coming this weekend but wanted to get some more opinions.

There's not enough edge distance to simply trim the elevators so I *think* the best solution is to drill out all the rivets in the counterweight skins, try to straighten the ribs while still riveted to the rest of the elevator and attach a new skin (assuming the holes will no longer align). How would you folks address this? :confused:
 

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Adjust the flutes.

If the skin is drilled off, you may be able to squeeze the inboard rib flutes a bit flatter and flute the outboard rib more, slowly and methodically. I haven't built a -10, but my -4 elevator counterbalances are similar. A new skin would be required, but that's easy.
 
This happened to me on my 9 and is easy to do if you don't know what to look for before riveting it up. Easy fix that Ken Scott at Van's pointed out right away when I showed it to him while I was there picking up my wing kit...

Remove 3 or 4 skin-to-rib rivets top and bottom right where the counterbalance arm meets the main part of the elevator. You'll then be able to pull the fwd part of the counterbalance arm outboard a bit to get it on the same plane as the outboard edge of the elevator. The re-rivet. (You might choose to go up one rivet size diameter there if you are concerned about getting a well set 3/32 rivet in what will probably be slightly enlarged holes after the drill outs.) There's a surprising amount of flexibility there until things are riveted.

Hope this helps.
 
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This happened to me on my 9 and is easy to do if you don't know what to look for before riveting it up. Easy fix that Ken Scott at Van's pointed out right away when I showed it to him while I was there picking up my wing kit...

Remove 3 or 4 skin-to-rib rivets top and bottom right where the counterbalance arm meets the main part of the elevator. You'll then be able to pull the fwd part of the counterbalance arm outboard a bit to get it on the same plane as the outboard edge of the elevator. The re-rivet. (You might choose to go up one rivet size diameter there if you are concerned about getting a well set 3/32 rivet in what will probably be slightly enlarged holes after the drill outs.) There's a surprising amount of flexibility there until things are riveted.

Hope this helps.

This is exactly what I was thinking. If this is the same as elevator as a 14, there are 4 rivets on each side that are common to the elevator tip and the spar/skin. Removing those may give you enough tweaking room to readjust and rivet. Of course two of those will not be able to buck but using pull rivets are acceptable, at least in a 14 model which shares much of the same parts as a 10.
 
This is exactly what I was thinking. If this is the same as elevator as a 14, there are 4 rivets on each side that are common to the elevator tip and the spar/skin. Removing those may give you enough tweaking room to readjust and rivet. Of course two of those will not be able to buck but using pull rivets are acceptable, at least in a 14 model which shares much of the same parts as a 10.

Yes. Now that I think about it, I have two pulled rivets top and bottom where I could not buck the new rivets on that inside rib. However, the outboard rib-skin rivets are easy to get with a squeezer. I think having to use two pulled rivets there bugged me initially but, seriously, I've never thought about it in the 15 or so years since. And, again, this was all done with the guidance and approval of Vans.
 
If the skin is drilled off, you may be able to squeeze the inboard rib flutes a bit flatter and flute the outboard rib more, slowly and methodically. I haven't built a -10, but my -4 elevator counterbalances are similar. A new skin would be required, but that's easy.

That's what I was thinking. The outer rib doesn't seem to have been flanged at all so perhaps plenty of room to realign.
 
This happened to me on my 9 and is easy to do if you don't know what to look for before riveting it up. Easy fix that Ken Scott at Van's pointed out right away when I showed it to him while I was there picking up my wing kit...

Remove 3 or 4 skin-to-rib rivets top and bottom right where the counterbalance arm meets the main part of the elevator. You'll then be able to pull the fwd part of the counterbalance arm outboard a bit to get it on the same plane as the outboard edge of the elevator. The re-rivet. (You might choose to go up one rivet size diameter there if you are concerned about getting a well set 3/32 rivet in what will probably be slightly enlarged holes after the drill outs.) There's a surprising amount of flexibility there until things are riveted.

Hope this helps.

Thanks. I'm a little wary of "yanking" too much but I'm just getting started in this building thing!
 
One of my two were off quite a bit but I was able to adjust it out with the mounts. Glad to know this is a potential trial fix if it flies funny when I finally get it in the air in a few years.
 
I had exactly the same thing on my left hand elevator just a few days ago. I simply braced against the outside of it and put a pry bar between the counter weight and the horizontal stab. Kept adding a little more pressure, making sure nothing was getting twisted. Soon I had the perfect gap between the two. It worked great. It is perfect now and only took a few minutes.
 
I had exactly the same thing on my left hand elevator just a few days ago. I simply braced against the outside of it and put a pry bar between the counter weight and the horizontal stab. Kept adding a little more pressure, making sure nothing was getting twisted. Soon I had the perfect gap between the two. It worked great. It is perfect now and only took a few minutes.

Thanks. In the end I did remove the skin, flute and re-rivet. Turned out pretty good but did take a long time.
 

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I noticed in my -14 emp kit that these counterbalance ribs were already fluted when they shipped from the factory. I wonder if an occurrence such as this is why they decided to make sure they were done.

Looks like you did a great job getting it straightened out.
 
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