Posted for "F. Barry Knotts" <bknotts@buckeye-express.com>:

Boy! I'm glad I'm not the only one with this problem.

Here's a bit of my tale.  The horizontal stab and the elevators were
closed out at Lancair on their jigs during the builder's assist.  Got it
home.  Reassembled it.  The leading edge of the elevator was not
centered with the trailing skins of the hs.  I straightened the skins by
first heating and clamping until cool, then adding a 4 bid "strip" to
the inside of each trailing edge and clamping it.  They are STRAIGHT
now.  Then checked the alignment of the hs hinges with a laser.  They
were up to 3/16" out of alignment with each other.  Straightened them
temporarily by "cocking" them with thin washers between the hinge plate
and the spar on only some of the hold-down screws.  The holes lined up
and were reasonably centered between the skins.  Added the elevator and
to my misery, found that the mating hinges on the elevator were now very
out of line with the hinges on the hs.  The elevator tended to bind.
More than that, the hinge on the elevator is too far away from the now
closed leading edge of the elevator, and the change seemed to make that
worse.  Breaking into the leading edge of the elevator to reposition the
hinges in the elevator didn't seem too appealing, so.....

I took everything apart.  Replaced the hinges where the factory set
them, and I've tried to smooth things out with micro.  Lots of fitting
and sanding.  Looks like it will work.  No binding now and the gaps are
OK.  It just hasn't been a very satisfying experience.  And I worry some
about the non-linearity of the hinge pairs, even though they seem to
work quite freely.

The lesson to me is...you can't move one hinge plate (on the hs) without
moving its mate (on the elevator) as well.

Although labor intensive, my solution seems to have worked out. Any thoughts?