Back to working on the trim tab this afternoon. Cut a new length from the 6' section that I got from Spruce, dummy me also cut the hinge pin the same length as the hinge itself. DON'T DO THIS! Should have left the pin a wee bit longer as it needs to be secured so that it doesn't slide out. Oh well I have 4.5 more feet of hinge pin I can utilize. I just hate wasting material when I don't need to. With the new hinge ready, it was time to get back to the fitting and drilling. Started by drawing a centerline down the middle of each hinge section. Used 3/64th of an inch instead of the 1/4" that the plans call for. Many builders report the 1/4" just isn't enough margin and not down the center and I agree, 3/64th's which no one is that good (I used 6/32's on my ruler) is just right. With that line drawn, I sorted out which direction the hinge was going to lay and measured the 3/8" from the outboard side of the lower/rear hinge section, the side that attaches to the trim tab via the trim tab spar. Made a little cross mark at this 3/8" spot right on the centerline that I had just drawn. Next I positioned the hinge underneath the trim tab spar and lined up the cross mark I had just made with the outboard most pre-drilled hole in the skin/spar. Then using the centerline down the middle of the hinge, I positioned the hinge so that the centerline showed through all of the pre-drilled holes in the spar/skin. It took a bit of back and forth to get it clamped at both ends to make sure the fit was good. I then removed the hinge from the trim tab and took it to the bench to drill that first hole. Since I had test fit the hinge first, I knew that first hole, the most outboard hole was in the correct position. From there I drilled the hole right on the mark. With that first hole complete, I put the hinge back in position on the trim tab/trim tab spar and once again clamped the opposite end down so that the reference centerline was visible through all the pre-drilled holes that are on the top of the trim tab and spar. REMEMBER, the hinge goes underneath the trim tab spar and underneath the elevator cutout spar with the loops pointing downwards on the opposite side of where the airstream will be. With all the positioning completed and the hinge cleco'd at one end and clamped at the other, it was just a matter of match drilling each subsequent hole and clecoing each hole as I went. I alternated one end to the other so as not to bend anything. I also made sure to drill the hinge with it completely assembled again so as not to bend or warp it. Once that was complete, I finished match drilling the holes on the opposite side of the trim tab, deburred everything and dimpled the skin holes and the bottom holes of the trim tab spar. It was here I realized that two of the holes for the control horns were too close to the folded edge to allow them to be dimpled. There is so little leeway for that fold to be made that I'm not going to worry about it. Those two holes will get universal head structural rivets instead, although one has a side that is right on the fold so maybe a pop rivet, we'll see. The top holes of the trim tab spar get countersunk so that they can accept the dimples from the skin above and leave a flat surface for the hinge to attach to below. The opposite side of the trim tab spar, the little Z shaped spar, just gets dimpled to accept the skin dimples from the sheet above. It gets a little confusing so you have to be careful here not to dimple or countersink the wrong side. Not a huge fan of countersinking very thin material as the trim tab spar is. You can easily push too hard and remove too much material as I already did once on this elevator. Lessons learned from that failed endeavor are to first use some scrap to drill a few test holes to get the depth of the CS bit just right. Other tip is to drill pilot holes in a piece of wood or scrap so that the pilot of the countersink bit has something to fit into to keep it from wobbling back and forth and elongating the hole. This is what happened a few weeks back on the other spar that needed to be countersunk. So this time around I made the dimple just deep enough to accept the dimple without also enlarging the hole. This is a very fine line between too little and too much. After countersinking all the holes the first test fit revealed that a couple of the holes were not quite deep enough and I needed just a little more pressure on the drill to remove just a tiny bit more material. With that all done, final task for the night was to prime the area on the bottom of the trim tab that the control horns will get riveted to. Since those two little pieces will cover up that part of the skin, I felt like it would be beneficial to prime that area so there are no problems down the road. So I masked off the basic outline of those parts and a quick spray outdoors finished that off. I also primed the holes that I had just countersunk on the trim tab spar as well. Only thing left to do is to prime the hinge itself since it is aluminum. I will get that done tomorrow and then I can begin assembling the trim tab for the final time and get it attached to the rest of the elevator. There is light at the end of the tunnel finally. Still have to go back and finish the leading edge rolling for both elevators as well as rig and attach them together, plus fiberglass work so still quite a bit to be done.