Flaperon Nightmare, Part 2

Today I have decided that I am not impressed with the engineering and the manufacturing of the flaperon parts of the kit - AT ALL. There is just too much weird stuff going on and some things just don't fit right. The previous story about the stupid way how the actuator bracket gets riveted to the spar is just one example. Later in the afternoon when I got over my frustration and back to the shop the story continued and didn't get better.

So I continued to add interior parts to the spar. Pivot hinges, nose ribs, main ribs and the dreaded stainless tube (oh, another example of what's weird about the flaperons - what were they thinking telling you to use a pilot hole in thin soft aluminum to drill into a hard and thick piece of stainless steel?).


The main skins got clecoed on after thorough deburring (their edge will be underneath the nose skins, so the outside should be smooth).


Then they got riveted onto the ribs (not on the spar as the nose skins have to overlap before we can do this) and the inboard nose skin gets clecoed and riveted on. So far so good!


While riveting the skin onto the outboard nose rib it happened! An ugly dent caused by the rivet!!! What happened?!


A closer look reveals that all three rivets on the nose rib pushed the skin downward where there was obviously not enough support as the nose rib appears to be too low in profile to match the shape of the skin. What the &*^%!#@ ??? How could that happen? All nose ribs are alike and it seems to be ok on the inboard side (which didn't get riveted yet indeed). Well, it's too late now to support the skin with a washer of some kind to prevent this from happening but this sure looks like crap!
Did I grow to accustomed to the Van's precision manufacturing that I didn't even check the fit before riveting? I guess so!

And this is not the only misfit!

Look at the light around the rivet lines on this shot of the nose skin overlapping the main skin on the bottom of the flaperon:



You can see that the nose skin is obviously not completely flat where the rivet line is. A look from the side shows the profile of the flaperon on the outboard section looks it's a bit hollow behind the leading edge. I wonder if this is how it should look like?



Whew, I'm really devastated how this left flaperon is coming out. The outboard edge is not even the worst as these dimples can get filled and sanded smooth but I am surprised that for the first time I can't rely on the superior kit quality of Van's and have to check every little detail before riveting. If there's more going wrong with the right one or with the rest of the left one I feel like I want to trash them and order a full set of flaperon replacement parts and start from scratch!

At least the rest of the surfaces look good in the reflections.




I hope this all looks a bit better in the morning!

Merry Christmas, guys!