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Today it came time to bend the little tabs down in the trim tab cutout. These get folded down over the gap and riveted together to create a pseudo rib. I have heard that this is a difficult task but if you use the right equipment it turns out quite nice. Well step one was to create a wooden form to bend the tabs around so I did that. Then I put the form in the elevator and commenced bending the tabs. The first tab I bent turned out mediocre at best and the other tab turned out absolutely atrocious. In fact, it didn't even turn out as I quit before it was totally bent and gave up on it because it looked horrible. From reading on the internet, this is a fairly common occurrence and I took the solution from Mike Bullock's site. What he did was just cut the tabs off and fabricate a little "riblet" to go in the gap so I decided that's what I would do! Here is the elevator with one tab cut off and the other one about to go. I used my Dremel tool with the little cutoff wheel and it worked amazingly! Cuts through aluminum like butter (and also work table below it...)!  Now both tabs are gone.  The riblet fabricated and just set in place.  The riblet fits and looks great! It took me more time than I'd like to admit to make this little piece but it was my first attempt at making something. If you find yourself having to make one of these riblets, just get the final angle that it needs to be at and fold a riblet with the hand seamers. Then, trim it to size after the bends are made. Don't try to get the final size and the bends all at the same time. This will be how I attack the ends of the trim tab if the bends don't work out there either.
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