I did this on the HS tips, VS tip, and the bottom of both elevator tips (not the tops yet...want to experiment with the bottom first). I also filled in various pop rivets on the elevators.
I squeegeed a layer on to even out the inlet ducts on the top cowl.
Next I worked on the spinner a bit. Actually I pretty much finished it. I started by torquing and safetying the front spinner bulkhead.
Then I pilot drilled all of the screw holes using a #40 bit. I won't give away my secret for perfectly evenly spacing the holes on a compound surface. It's trivial, but I'll let you figure it out. By the way, I decided that for weight distribution I wanted screws in the front bulkhead to center on the blades. The reason for that is because with the cutouts taking away a bit of weight, I figure it wouldn't hurt to try to throw some extra weight at those stations to compensate. So the front bulkhead screws align with the blades. And by the way...Van's calls out "14x" with respect to the aft screws. But it's extremely unclear as to whether that refers to 6 screws on each side of the blades plus the gap filler plate screw, or whether it just means 7 screws along the bulkhead. Whatever, I went with 7 screws on the bulkhead on each side of the blades. Can't hurt to have a little extra fastening help when this puppy is doing 2700 and hurtling through the air at 210mph.
I enlarged all of the holes to #19 for #8 screws.
Then I spent what felt like way too much time with the #8 nutplate jig, drilling all of the nutplate rivet holes. Deburring these things is not fun, but whatever. Eventually I riveted on all of the nutplates. All I have left to do on the spinner is finish sanding it and fabricate the little gap cover plates.
Next I focussed on installing and rigging the wing control surfaces. The ailerons went on in about five minutes each. I've had those suckers on and off enough times to have the technique down to a science. Rigging them, on the other hand, is something I take very seriously and take my time with. I had already rigged the ailerons when I mated the wings, but after double checking them I found a very minor inconsistency. The aileron pushrod on the right wing (stick to bellcrank) needed the pushrod tightened a half turn. Totally minor, but hey, it's drag!
The flaps are easy to install...just put the hinge pins in place. I spent some time rigging the flaps. Since I had removed the pushrods way back when I had to re-rig 'em. It's no big deal. Get the ailerons in trail, and then adjust the flap pushrod length so that the flap is in trail when retracted. Pretty straightforward. I removed the rear window to simplify this process, which I did standing outside the fuselage and reaching in through, um, the rear window.
Does it look like a plane?
Here's a shot of the right side flap pushrod. Simple mechanism.
Here's the left side. I realized only after I had torqued the top pushrod bolts that I have to undo all of this to safety wire the flap hinge pins. No big deal, at least the pushrods won't have to be readjusted...just removed at the weldment and then reinstalled. I'll do that first thing tomorrow, I'm beat.
Here's a posterity shot with the flaps down. Yippekaye.
