Chapter 4: Work Finally Begins--Pat's Project and my Sub-text

Work finally starts.

The first thing to do is put the FB (Fast Build) HS (Horizontal Stabilizer) into the lovingly crafted cradle (one can see that this husband of mine is in electronics-all those accursed acronyms!). IT DOESN’T FIT! (The fetus proves too big, that’s no surprise to a woman!) After resurrecting our hearts from our shoes, we immediately blame ourselves and re-measure everything (I’m not quite sure who this "we" is. But it doesn’t involve me. Perhaps, it’s the royal "we." Or perhaps Pat is referring to one of his usual band of helpers--primarily Larry Linik).

Shock Number 1: It turns out that the blueprints are wrong!! This smacks of things to come!! I spent way too much time breaking loose the Bondo and destroying the particle board spars. The outboard cradles (BL73) are to size and correctly mounted. Then I used the FB HS to fit the rest of the cradles. The alignment looked good. I replaced the particle board spars with 1" angle iron. A call to Lancair yielded the observation "Oh! The drawings must have stretched while being copied." I’ve been in engineering for more years than I care to remember and this is a first. Later, via email, I discover that others have had the same problem and they got acknowledgment that there IS a problem with the drawings. (It is about now that I have serious doubts about the kit. However, I am grateful for several things a. Pat is ingenious [He has more than his fair share of "boer-maak-‘n-plan mentality]; b. he has been an engineer for ages and a good one; and c. Lancair do help when called upon. What does irk me is the stoic attitude Pat has--I’m boiling about the injustice, incompetence, blah, blah and he simply says, "That’s life. No job is ever as easy as one wants." I’m thinking, "Hell, at that price the pixies, which build during the night, should have been supplied." But there is nothing more annoying than a stoic, and there’s no response one can make to one either).

The first real work is to mount the Elevator hinges. This went relatively smoothly and the results are shown below. (Thank heavens something goes smoothly! The pixies have finally woken up and do their duty).

Now the really big task is to "close out" the HS. This required sanding all the mating surfaces, the spar, the rib caps, and the top skin. Next, clean these surfaces with acetone. Apply a thin film of Hysol (a very expensive, slow-curing, structural adhesive) to the surfaces, and then apply a bead of Hysol "flox" mix (which is like stirring cotton wool into glue and is quite strenuous-well I’ve found it to be so, but then I abhor any form of exercise) onto the caps to fill the voids. Here is the result of the above process with Larry striking a pose in the background.

Polaroid gives way to Digital technology!

This step is followed by placing the top skin on the caps, inserting screws along the leading edge every inch, or so, to ensure a proper bond. The screws are removed after curing. Then place several hundred pounds of sandbags and stuff on the skin over the caps to again ensure a good bond.

Shock number 2: In playing with the Elevator skins and having a look at how they fitted into the HS, it was clear something was wrong. The picture below shows that elevator is wider than the trailing edge HS gap in which it is supposed to fit.

The error is that the outboard-most ribs were incorrectly formed and the error exists on both ends. A desperate (I sense that even stoicism has its limits. At last!) phone call to Lancair and got sympathy after sending photos to prove that there was really a problem. The fix was quite a saga, and was done after building the elevators but I’m covering it here, as it is an HS problem. What I decided was to cut back the trailing edge of the HS to allow the elevator to be placed in position. I then applied about a half dozen layers of duct tape onto the elevator where it mates with the HS trailing edge skin to form a gap. I, then, applied 2 BID on the trailing edge and overlapped it onto the duct tape on the elevator. Then built out the area with foam-- (about a 1/4") sanded it to shape and covered it with 2 BID and filled--voids with micro. The result worked out very well.

This shows how the "fix" (see, what I told you about his ingenuity and "b-m-‘n-p" mentality. I can also use those accursed acronyms!) filled the gap, compare it to the photo above...

This shows the profile of the fix...

Now onto the elevators...