I didn't think the plans were real clear on the positioning of the flap, other than the 1/4" gap and inline trailing edge, so I asked Van's.  Turns out the flap is set after the aileron is set to it's final position.  See "Tips" page for some notes on the aileron hinge.   

Two days later I set up the pressure test and it passed all seams - no leaks!  Yahoo!! 

I drew a line from the point on the leading edge where the skins overlap to a point about 5" back.  I took the "fine" side of my Vixen file and taped a thin (1/16") nylon skim on the end.  Since I still had the protective 'blue' plastic on most of the skin, rubbing the nylon skim/tape across it did not seem to do it any harm, and that seemed to give me a good angle to create the scarf.  I was lucky with the inboard, or 'overlapped' skin, with this technique.  I filed across the scarf area until I started removing material next to the line.  This ended up giving me a progressively thinner edge up to the front, but not paper thin. There was still substance there.  I got lucky on the first pass.  when I tried the same thing on the outboard (overlapping, and therefore visible) skin, I lock my focus into filing up to that drawn line and not monitoring the thickness of the edge.  That was mistake #3.  Mistake #2 I had already made, but it did not manifest itself until in concert with #3.  That is, I was filing (cutting) into the edge of the sheet, a sheet that was getting thinner and with less strength.  Proper technique here would be to file/cut out toward the edge of the sheet.  Anyway, I cringed when the file grabbed the edge of the sheet and I heard the snap of thin metal breaking off.  But it was too late then.  I sanded the skin rounded and got rid of the sharp edge as shown in the 2nd picture and moved on. 

Now the mistake.  I found that both bell cranks needed to have the inside of their barrel polished, either because of excess powder coat or slag from the welding process.  I took a piece of 5/16" wood dowel and cut a 1" slot in the end like the string set on an arrow.  Take a 1" strip of 400 grit sand paper, put a 1/2" into the slot and wrap the rest around the dowel.  Make the length of the strip sufficient to form a snug fit when the dowel is spun into the barrel.  Put the other end of the dowel in a hand held drill chuck and you're ready to polish the inside of that barrel.  The mistake I made was simply 'blowing' the sanding debris out of the barrel without cleaning it with a paper towel.  When I bolted the assembly onto the spar it was initially a little 'stiff' and I thought working it back and forth would loosen it up, but there must have been a piece of debris between the barrel and the bushing and it apparently worked it's way to a point where there was very little clearance and progressively jammed the bell crank.  I hesitate to say that I could not move it, but it was damned tight.  I think it is unlikely that a builder could assemble the bell crank and not have this condition manifest itself before his or her first flight.  That said, unlikely things are what gets us killed!  Polish that barrel, clean it well and sight it to a good light source like the bore of a gun to make sure it is CLEAN! 

To maintain the shape of the VA-111 and get an even polish job, I screwed it onto a bolt that I had cut off the head and chucked into a battery powered hand drill that runs at a slow speed and then took it to the scotch-bright wheel.

Aileron Push-Pull Tubes - W-716, 9/24/02.  Do NOT cut these to length with a tubing cutter!!!   The one end that I cut with the tubing cutter would simply not go in and I didn't want the scratch the hell out of it, so I slid it in from the other end.  It went OK.  I drilled and deburred everything and then I etched and alodined it all, inside and out.  The next day when I wanted to rivet the VA-111s onto the W-716s.  I tried once again to get that one VA-111 to fit from the outside.  It would not go, but I knew I had it in from the other end and I figured alodine didn't build up, but I was wrong.  Once part way in from the other more open end, it didn't slide as well as yesterday.  I used a broom stick handle to help 'tap' it through, but that only jammed it in.  Finally after beating he living hell out of it with the boom stick, it was jammed about half way.  I was really torqued and angry with myself.  I knew the tube and fitting were undoubtedly scratched to hell and back, and any further effort to move the VA-111 to it's proper station was a waste of time.  But I had also (not one of my better evenings in the shop) left a rod end bearing on the VA-111 when I sent it on it's little journey, so I got out the tubing cutter one more time to retrieve the rod end bearing.  The VA-111s fit the other tube fine and I riveted them (with MEK washed rivets and latex gloves - no oils) and hung them in the paint booth for tomorrow.

Here's what's worked better since: Keep my eyes on the gun.  Keep it centered on the rivet and 90 degrees to the surface.  Start out with the bucking bar set at 90 degrees; do a short burst, stop and check alignment, etc.  I was scanning the Avery catalog ordering some extra tools, when I happened by an old riveting trick: (I'll be doing this from now on.) Put one or two pieces of masking tape on the end of the set (sticky side into the cupping) and this will usually help cushion and protect the rivet head.  

A-409 (aircraft grade galvanized water pipe)  & A-802PP, 7/18/02.  Here's my mistake - I blindly followed directions without considering how doing so could screw me up.  The construction manual says to drill and cleco the aileron ribs to the spar and the A-409 counterbalance to the ribs.  #1 - Don't drill the leading edge aileron rib tabs to the A-409 until you're sure that the gap between the A-409 and the leading edge skin is nil!   #2 - Having made that mistake, you surely wouldn't want to compound it like I did by drilling the skin to the ribs as well!

Here's why: As you can clearly see in the larger picture, I have almost a 1/16” gap between the skin and the pipe.  Left uncorrected, the blind rivets applying the leading edge skin to the A-409 would surely look like hell!  There are apparently two ways to correct it.  Gus at Van's says to bend the tabs on the ribs forward to push the pipe next to the skin, and while I'm sure that would work if the tabs weren't already drilled, I'm also pretty sure the same problem arises with that method as with my chosen method - shimming.  In either case, if the holes are already drilled in the tabs, moving them out away from the pipe by shimming will put them on the circumference of a slightly larger circle, and as you can easily prove to yourself with a slightly exaggerated sketch, as positions (holes) move out on the radials from the center of a circle, the distance between them increases.  Bottom line here is once the holes are drilled, they will not line up when a shim is placed between them!  So, do not drill them until you are sure that the A-409 will be placed next to the leading edge skin.  What I'd suggest is drill/cleco the ribs to the spar, and then cleco the skin to the spar.  Then take those little cleco clamps that came with your Avery tool kit and clamp the skin to the rib flange, which is ninety degrees to the web, right?  Now, slide in the A-409 enough to check the spacing.  I found that a 0.032" shim worked very well.  Drill the ribs to the pipe with the appropriate shims in place.  You're going to need to temporarily rivet the A-409 to the ribs with some soft aluminum hardware store pop rivets to hold it's orientation while you drill the skin to the ribs and the A-409.