Here you can see the rivet tape holding the rivets in place for back riveting. You can also see the steel back riveting plate underneath the aileron skin.
Here's a skin halfway through the stiffener riveting process.
After all 32 stiffeners were riveted, I used the good old empennage bending brake to bend the trailing edges of the aileron skins.
At first I thought I was missing the A-408 reinforcement plates, since I couldn't find them for the life of me. Then I figured I'd have to fabricate them (they're just 2 ½ x 2 ¾" 0.040" Alclad after all. But after scouring my hardware bins I found the ones that came with the kit. Here's how I back-drilled them, using cleco clamps of various types to hold them in place while the first hole or two got drilled and clecoed.
Here's the end rib getting drilled.
The inboard end rib is supposed to have a large hole cut out of it so that you can get access to put a nut on the center bolt that attaches the hinge bracket here. Hard to describe, but if you're building you know what I mean. The spar came pre-punched for a nutplate, however, so I'm wondering if it would be easier to cut a tiny hole and just use the nutplate here. The tiny hole would still be necessary for the nutplate to sit closer to the rib to center over the hole. I need to ask Van's and some other builders about this.
Here's the skin and spar getting initially drilled...
...and here's the end rib clamped into place while being drilled.
Van's instructions have you elevate the aileron so you can flip it over and drill the other side. I used some 2x4s and a flat board from a shelf.
I back-drilled the nose ribs into place.
Next I clecoed the leading edge, counterweight, etc. in place and drilled everything full size.
We have an aileron...
The counterweight pipe needs to get drilled out to 1/8". I started out with 3/32" (#40) and then drilled out to #30 afterward. I used dedicated drill bits for this process, not to confuse them with the sharp aluminum-only bits.
Somehow I missed a step here...you're supposed to drill two holes in the little flanges coming off the nose ribs for pop rivets going into the counterweight. If you plan on doing this, you should do it before you drill the counterweight through the leading edge. Otherwise there's no good drill access after the fact. I'm probably going to skip those 2 rivets. I don't really see what they contribute structurally anyway. Yes, they contribute to preventing the pipe from rotating, but a dozen or so rivets on the leading edge plus the contoured restraints in the nose ribs should be plenty to keep that sucker stabilized.
I disassembled everything and deburred most of the components. I'll probably assemble the right aileron as well before doing any prep and prime. May as well do it all at once.