Aileron and Flaps Final Construction

Hardware was installed on the covered and painted flaps and ailerons.  Shown here is a flap and aileron with attached horns.

Next up is assembly of the aileron spade assembly.  This feature is used to reduce stick forces and create something similar to "power steering".

The aileron must be balanced in the static position, so a counterweight is fastened to the aileron spade.  I'm told the weight also dampens out oscillations in the aileron.  Two aileron hinge points are placed on the sharp edge of two pieces of horizontal angle iron.   Weight is added or subtracted until the aileron is parallel with the angle.

I obtained lead shot from a local gunsmith and used it as raw stock for forming the counterweight.  I wanted to over-cast material rather than the alternative.

This pic shows one of the balance points.

I melted down the shot and used Altoid cans as a form.  This was much more cost-effective then obtaining lead sheet or plate, which Rans suggested.

Here is my smelting setup in my paint booth.  Lead fumes were exhausted by fan and I wore a supplied-air mask.  Lead fumes are extremely toxic. 

Here are the two resulting lead ingots.  I spooned off a lot of impurities resulting in these 100% beauties.

Here is the first balance trial, which was way too heavy.

Realized after the fact that I casted them way too thick so used a block plane to mill off material.  After many iterations here is a perfectly balanced aileron.  When I got close to balancing, I filed and sanded each ingot with successively finer grits.  I then dimpled the bottom side with large drill bits to remove material and nail the balance point.

Final counterweight attached to spade.