Earlier in section 9 the plans had you bend the close out tabs on both the top and bottom skins.  Although dimensions were provided in the plans I must have mis-marked my measurement on the actual skins.  I didn't find this out until I clecoed the shear clip in place that is supposed to rivet to the close out tabs and the spar.

This snafu had me calling Van's on Monday morning to see what the alternatives were.  My proposal was to fabricate another shear clip that would reach the close out tab.  Van's agreed that would work but would end up leaving a 1/4" gap (rather than 1/8") between the closeout tab and the trim tab.  The extra space in the gap would be purely cosmetic and create no performance issues.  I'm ok with that since I'm not building a  show plane.

A rare mid week work session came to a quick halt when I became confused as to how the tip rib assemble fits together with the spar assemble on the elevator.  I posted my question on VAF.  

If all days in the "factory" could seem as satisfying as today I'd build 20 airplanes.  Today was a marathon session that seemed to fly by with quite a bit to show for it in the end.

The picture below shows where the trim servo will be mounted.  Although the motor/mount skid is removable, the servo itself is pop riveted to the mounts.  I don't like the idea of have such a permanent mount so I'll probably end up adding some sort of removeble mounting system.

The amount of work accomplished vs the time spent today didn't seem right.  After ~3-4 hours this is all I had to show for.

After consulting with Van's an IA buddy came over to help implement the fix.  Van's solution was to cut the fractured tab off file it smooth and fabricate an angle tab out of .025.  After an hour and a half or so, the fix was complete, the remaining rivets set, and the HS was done.

I had a few hours this evening to get started on the elevator since I am at a standstill with the HS.  Man there are a ton of parts in the elevator!!  One part at time, one part at a time....

....There I was, 8 rivets left to set and the HS would finally be complete, when all of a sudden things took a turn for the worse...  I managed to crack one of the single hole flanges on one of the inboard ribs with the bucking bar.  Needless to say I was done for the day.  Although I know it wasn't the end of the world it was disappointing.

I'm getting down to the nitty gritty of the HS.  By nitty gritty I mean the 10,000 rivets that will soon be set.  I ended the day with the nose ribs set and the forward spar riveted to the nose ribs.  It doesn't seem like it should have taken ~5 hours to complete this task but it did.