1.0 Hours -
Although many builders complain about bending the trim tab ends, I was feeling confident after my success on the elevator tabs. However, when I went into the garage to tackle the trim tab, I quickly lost some confidence when I realized my newly constructed bending blocks were too small.
The blocks were not long enough…I didn’t even get the wedge to be as wide as the trim tab itself. I’m not sure how I could have managed to do this unless I used the outboard end of the trim tab as my guide. The outboard end is significantly shorter than the inboard side.
Fortunately, I seem to have a lot of extra wood around the garage now. So, I made a new set of bending blocks. This time, I made sure they were long enough and they turned out better than my first set.
Before bending the trim tab ends, I had to finish the edges of the trim tab. This would be almost impossible if I bent the ends first. As usual, this was a simple matter of using the Scotch-Brite wheel and some emery cloth.
Once the skin was prepped, I carefully aligned the bending blocks with the inboard trim tab end and clamped it all to the edge of the table. Using a wood block, I first bent the bottom tab down. Then, flattened it with my rivet gun and flat set. The whole procedure was repeated by bending the top tab up and flattening it.
To bend the tabs, a bending block is used to bend the bottom tab down. Then, the bottom tab is bend up. The bends are made crisp with a rivet gun and flat set.
The inboard bends are complete. The final result will be known when the blocks are removed.
The inboard bends look good!
The inboard end looked good, so i moved on to the outboard end. Both ends have small dings in them from the rivet gun, but I’m probably the only one that will notice these…especially if it is painted. Otherwise, the bends are nice and crisp with no waviness.
The entire process is repeated on the outboard end. Looks good, no complaints from me.
The final bends are nice and crisp. I'm happy with it.
Finally, I wrapped up the day by finishing the edges of the trim tab spar. I hope that trim kit gets here soon so I can move forward.
