423 hours - Pounding rivets on the left elevator (Finally!)

I honestly started wondering if I was ever going to see this day arrive or not. Last night I brought my tubes of blue RTV sealant inside the house to keep them warm so they would flow easier into the syringe that I use to apply it to the trailing edges where the stiffeners come together. I unclecoed everything, applied the sealant to the elevator at the designated points, and then attached the E713 counterbalance skin by quickly setting the 4 rivets with the squeezer that cannot be reached once the frame is clecoed into place.

I little trick I found for "helping" the tip rib slide into place is to take an allan wrench and stick the short end into the forming hole on the aft side of the rib, rotate it 90 degress so that the short end is sitting against the inside of the rib web, with the long end sticking out. Now you have sort of a handle to grasp to pull the rib into its final position. It needs a little help to slide up and over the dimples due to the angle that it is inserted because of the pre-attached E713 counter balance skin.

SO here is the bottom side almost completely riveted:

I will finish up the top side tomorrow:

Here are the shop heads of the forward spar rivets (bottom side)

 and a shot of the bottom side rivets for the tip rib:

We'll see how far I get with the trim tab over the weekend. Sure feels good to be pounding quality rivets again. Wouldn't it be nice if I could finish it by being able to activate my installed trim tab servo and watch the trim tab move up and down on its own. We'll see.....