Elevator Balancing

[Daniel S.]

Hey all-
Quick question when it comes to balancing the elevator, do I want it to balance perfectly at this point or should I let it be a little off to compensate for paint later on down the road?

Thanks

[jmjula]

I didn't remove anything and installed them as is. Van's said that leaving them full weight is fine, even before paint. Many people that trim before paint wish they didn't because you need more weight with paint. After paint if they are heavier than needed, you can drill some lead out and fill and touch up if desired.

[Bavafa]

If you are planning on painting, I would leave them as is and untrimmed. I would also add a couple of nut plate to the tooling hole of the elevator near the location of the weight. This way if you need to add weight, it is simple and can be bolted on.

I trimmed mine based on instruction which made right side leading edge heavy and the left side just near perfect balance. By the time I painted the elevator, I had to add 5.5 oz. of weight to the left side and the right was just right.

[schristo@mac.com]

The lead is sized for the heaver side (left with trim tab)... you only cut the right down for balance on the other side. The added paint should not introduce a big imbalance but will add more weight to the trailing end since there is more surface area aft of the balance point so you want them a bit leading edge heavy for now. The whole paint job should only be around 25 pounds... Work out the total surface area for a weight per square inch, and the difference in area in front to behind the balance point on the elevator to calculate the expected imbalance from paint for fun

Note that some tails get a lot of paint though...

[JurgenRoeland]

Don't do any balancing until it is painted and all is installed.

Paint = weight

Balancing is all about weight.
So don't start cutting away lead until all is in place.