*sigh*  I goofed.

No easy way to say this, but I goofed. And I thought BIG TIME

We drilled the elevator horns on the tail by aligning the counter weights to the horizontal stabilizer. Straight tail, straight elevators, right?

Nope. Wrong

RV-9 Elevator

Somehow, I managed to get the two halves out of alignment. Only a degree but my hanger partner (who built a 7) told me that will never fly right.  Now what the heck am I going to do? I drilled the hole!  Move the hole? Hmmmm…. not enough room.  Replace the horn?  OUCH! I’ll have to re-skin the tail!

Turns out there is a simple solution.  Take the entire tail over to Walter the Welder (Yes, his name really is Walter) and have the hole filled. Grind it smooth, repaint and I’ll have a second chance.

Elevator horn hole filled.

Lost a little powder coating but Walter did a GREAT job of filling.  I filed it smooth, then took a scotchbright wheel to it, and cleaned with MEK.

finished repair

My guess is that I’m not going to be able to do that more than once, so I better be CAREFUL this time.