temporary closures

So, a lot has been happening in the world in the last week or so.

The Novel Corona virus, better known now as COVID-19 has seen exponential spread across international borders from it's origins in China.  Unless you have been living under a rock or are reading this blog in some distant, future archive (thanks by the way!), news and anxiousness is rampant about what is now officially declared a pandemic.  People are scared, some more than they realistically need to be and world financial markets are feeling the squeeze. 

​Mandatory closures of schools, businesses and government facilities are becoming commonplace as we work to "social distance" ourselves from others.  Large groups, social gatherings, events and meetings are highly discouraged if not outright banned  Efforts are underway by people everywhere to prevent the spread of the virus and protect those who may not have the benefit of good health and the ability to fight off this particularly nasty bug - it can and has been shown to be fatal.  Unfortunately there are those ignoring common sense which is leading to more anxiousness and unease.  This has even lead to a very strange phenomenon of the panic buying bulk toilet paper! 

I've said before how much my shop time is my happy time.  It's my place to decompress from my emergency services job.  While a good portion of society has been told to stay home from work, my colleagues and I continue to work shifts in a busy 9-1-1 communications centre and although the calls for service have yet to peak as I think they will,  we are an essential service and will continue to come to work and answer the calls.  It's scary but I think we'll come out the other side of this craziness better off as a society from the lessons learned.

So, what better way to practice "social distancing" and "flatten the infection rate curve" of COVID-19 ng than to get to the shop and work on my build!  Here's what's happened since my last blog post.

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled south to visit Dad and made a side trip to Princess Auto and Aircraft Spruce for tools and hardware.  I needed an inch/pound calibrated torque wrench and was happy to find a good quality one on sale - score!

I stopped at Aircraft Spruce and picked up my online order of the remaining aircraft hardware I need for the build, other than some back-ordered nut plates and stainless machine screws.  Obviously this isn't everything I'll need (the interior will require some fabric fasteners etc), but what you see in the picture below is the lion's share of bolts, nuts, washers and cotter pins called for in the plans.

I've primed and final riveted the elevator outer hinge pins

With the elevator all closed up I started fitting the trim control rod and servo arm

Here is a good look at the servo arm and trim control rod.  I'm not happy with how they fit together as there is too much slop or play between the pin and the arm, so I'll likely put some JBWeld metal epoxy in the arm hole and drill it out to match size the rod arm pin. 

The rod as it comes from the hobby store is plenty stiff enough to work in this arrangement, but comes much too long.  I attached the trailing rod end to the trim tab actuator bracket.  With the elevator trim in the neutral position, I held the road alongside the rod end, trimmed the rod to length on the bandsaw and ground it smooth on the bench grinder.

I specifically left the rod long enough so that I can trim is shorter if needed.  The plans call for the elevator to deflect 20 degrees up and 40 degrees down from neutral.  Before I can set the system up, I'll have to thread the this end of the rod for the safety nut.  I may change the "neutral" position of the servo arm to favour the 40 degree pull - it will take some playing around to get it just right.  The servo programming is the easy part!!

Some final clean up of the stabilizer was completed and I temporarily closed it up with rivets, just like the elevator.  The insides will have to be inspected by Tansport Canada before all the final rivets are done.  Stabilizer fences are just temporarily attached for storage purposes and may need to come off to open it back up for inspection, but I may get lucky and they can stay on for final riveting.

The following pictures show the completed tail assembly with outer and centre hinge pins installed.  It lined up perfectly and shows no signs of binding - very pleased!  (it's sitting on the bench upside down compared to how it will be mounted on the plane - it just sits better that way).

So!  The tail is now complete.  I currently have roughly 150 hours of work into it.  Once wrapped in heavy plastic it will join the rudder up in the storage barn.  There's about another full day's work once it's cleared for final close up to complete, with a lot of that having to wait for fitting to the fuselage.

​I feel so productive and safe from the world's dangers in the shop right now.  With all the temporary closures, I couldn't think of a better place to stay safe from COVID-19 -  working on the some temporary closures or my own :)

Thanks for following along.  Next up flaps and slats!