J

jcoloccia

Well Known Member
Here's a question for the group. I know some people have had to cut off flanges and modify things to get their counterbalance skin holes to line up with the tip rib holes. Question is has anyone gotten them to fit without major surgery? All the flanges are 90, and everything's fluted as straight as it's going to get. Oh sure, I could just jam the clecoes in there and call it good, but somehow that seems like the WRONG thing to do :D
 
Counterbalance ribs

I didn't do any surgery and got mine to fit. It was tight, not unlike getting the ribs into the skins at the LE. I agree with Roberta. There are plenty of rivets holding those parts together. After you drill and dimple, it will go together fine for final assembly.

Dennis Glaeser
7A Fuselage
 
I never did really get a response from Vans on this one. I started looking closer at these things and a couple of the ribs are so malformed that the flanges are about 1/8" different in length. Just plain 'ole bent wrong. I ended up with an elevator skin like that too. Fortunately, I happen to have a few spares lying around (long story). By mixing and matching I was finally able to find 2 pairs that actually almost sorta' kinda fit. The clecoes look like bad dental work but I think it'll work OK.

Pre-punched is a PITA sometimes.

Thanks for the help :)
 
jcoloccia said:
Pre-punched is a PITA sometimes.
Click to expand...
I feel your pain... This area was the biggest PITA of my construction so far.

My suggestion... don't follow the instructions. They have you rivet the to ribs together, then rivet them to the elevator spar. It is much easier to rivet the inboard rib to the spar first, then rivet the outboard rib to the inboard and spar. As usual YMMV.
 
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