So I've mounted the first flap, and it came out better than I expected. Trailing edge with the aileron is dead on, and the gap between the flap and aileron is an even .2" all the way down. That said...
I used a pnuematic squeezer to rivet the hinge on (dimpled the skin, counter sunk the flap brace, only drilled the hinge). About every third rivet when I set them the aluminum in the flap hinge would get little white "blotches" around the rivet. Kind of like when you take a piece of plastic or metal and bend it, all the little microscopic cracks turn white? Did I explain that well enough? Should I be worried about the structural integrity? I tried hand squeezing some but got the same thing. Other than that, it looks great.
Second question, I went with the "hole in the aileron hinge" method, as I didn't want to cut loops for inserting the wire. I also left one last loop on the outboard side that I drilled a small hole in, and used safety wire to keep in place. On the inboard I'll make a small bend, but how do you bend it back perfectly straight again if you need to remove the flap? Is it easier just to install a new wire every time?
I used a pnuematic squeezer to rivet the hinge on (dimpled the skin, counter sunk the flap brace, only drilled the hinge). About every third rivet when I set them the aluminum in the flap hinge would get little white "blotches" around the rivet. Kind of like when you take a piece of plastic or metal and bend it, all the little microscopic cracks turn white? Did I explain that well enough? Should I be worried about the structural integrity? I tried hand squeezing some but got the same thing. Other than that, it looks great.
Second question, I went with the "hole in the aileron hinge" method, as I didn't want to cut loops for inserting the wire. I also left one last loop on the outboard side that I drilled a small hole in, and used safety wire to keep in place. On the inboard I'll make a small bend, but how do you bend it back perfectly straight again if you need to remove the flap? Is it easier just to install a new wire every time?