Fitting control rods & prepping side skin
TLDR
- (Work in progress) tweaking control rods to rotate freely
- Prepared side skin
Details
Fitting the control rods
I started to fit the control rods (joystick assemlby, aileron torque tube, elevator torque tubes, flap tube) to the fuselage. I seriously did not expect this step to take so much time.
I’ve spent upwards of 20 hours so far to get them to rotate freely. They finally rotate with a tiny bit of force on my finger, but they don’t “fall by gravity” as Evan demonstrated on his video. I have already shaved off so much material on the locking channel to get them to this state. I do not think I will keep shaving any more material. I think the amount of force required so far to rotate them is small enough, I can take it as a success as long as they don’t become worse when I put in rivets.
Side skin
Before riveting the rods, I wanted to first put on the side skin. This way I will know for certain the skins and ribs are in their final position and I can check the control rods rotation one more time.
So I cleaned the side skin and dimpled as necessary. It’s a lot of hours, but definitely easier compared to fitting th control rods.
I have not riveted the side skin on yet. I will probably do that soon.
Video
The control rod adjustment is so painful, I have to make a video!