Right elevator trailing and leading edges

Today I flush riveted the trailing edge of the right elevator, and then rolled and riveted the leading edge.

I used a new tool, the safety-pin angled squeezer dies from Cleveland tools, and squeezed all the right elevator trailing edge rivets. These were partially set previously, and I was really happy with the way the edge came out. It looks perfectly straight, and there is less surface scratching than I was getting with back riveting. I should have bought these earlier, and would recommend them. It’s a shame this is the only place I can use them on the aircraft.

Then I set the aft 3 rivets along each edge of the elevator, too and bottom. The last two on each side are pop riveted because of the lack of clearance.

Then I rolled and riveted the leading edge. Having done the rudder and left elevator, this seemed to be much easier. I used my highly specialized tools from earlier (popsicle stick on a piece of tube) and was able to get good rivets into each hole.

I did make a mistake unfortunately, and placed the bottom skin over the top skin on the very outboard section. This is a bummer, because fixing it will be very hard without making a real mess. I guess this will be a distinguishing feature on my plane. It won’t be very visible to the casual observer.