Riveting the Rudder

Been a while since I've made any progress on the project. The new job has kept me busy. I managed to find a couple hours tonight to work on the rudder.

I finished riveting the counterbalance skin to the rib. I attached the counterweight. Then I clecoed the skins to the structure. Could not do any more riveting because Josh was sleeping.

Time spent: 2 hours (115 Total)

Riveting Rudder Skeleton

Riveted together some of the rudder understructure. Began riveting the counterbalance skin to the counterbalance rib.

Time Spent: 4 hours (113 Total)

Finished Priming Rudder and Elevators

Long day. Prep, layed out parts, alumiprep, alodine, AZKO, packed up and cleaned up. Parts are back in the basement and cars are back in the garage. There were nearly 100 parts primed today. I don't think I'd want to do more than that in a single batch. Other than letting them dry before AZKO, it kept me pretty busy all day. Good news is this is the last time I have to prime until I get to the wings. On to riveting the rudder and elevators!

Time spent: 6 hours (109 Total)

Priming

It's my last day of freedom before I start a new job. If I don't prime the rest of my tail feathers now it will not get done before the weather turns frigid. Time for an all day primer fest!

Deburred and dimpled rudder skins, started right elevator

Deburred the other rudder skin and dimpled both skins. Edge deburred both skins.

Began work on the right elevator. Clecoed the stiffeners A-G.

Attached and drilled the reinforcement plates to the spar. Drilled the outboard rib to the counterweight rib, attached the counterweight and counterweight skin, and clecoed in place. I pilot drilled the two attach holes in the counterweight. I wish I had read the instructions more carefully and used a drill lubricant when drilling through the lead. I burned through two drill bits, and I think I may have burned out my drill chuck. Oh well, at least I didn't screw up the part.

Time spent: 8 hours (59.5 total)

Rudder work, edge finished last evelator stiffener

I finished deburring the holes of the rudder understructure, including all of the stiffeners. I deburred all of the edges, and then dimpled as much of the understructure as I could. I'm going to need a special tool to dimple the really tight places on two of the ribs.

While I was at it, I deburred and edge finished the last bundle of elevator stiffeners.

Later Stacey came down and helped me remove the plastic from the rudder skins. I deburred all of the holes of one of the rudder skins.

Time spent: 4.5 hours (51.5 total)

Rudder disassembly

Finished drilling the rudder skins and skeleton. Disassembled the rudder. Deburred most of the holes in the skeleton.

Time spent: 1.5 hours (47 total)

New rudder skin arrives, continued rudder

The new left rudder skin arrived from Van's. This one was free of the defect I found in the skin that came with the kit.

I match drilled all of the stiffeners to the skin and clecoed the skin in place. I then built the two lower fairing attach strips, clamped them in place and drilled them.

Time spent: 2 hours (45.5 total)

Rudder skeleton

Assembled the rudder skeleton. Clecoed the counterbalance skin in place, clecoed the right rudder stiffeners back on the right skin, and clecoed the right skin in place.

Final drilled all of the holes I could. Trimmed and attached the angular brace at the bottom forward corner of the rudder. Final drilled the brace to the structure.

Joe from Van's read my email regarding the defect in the left rudder skin, and he also saw my post on VAF. He is sending me a new skin. I will put the rudder assembly aside as is (soon I should have enough clecoes to spare these) and pick this up when the new skin comes.

Time spent: 2 hours (27 total)

Rudder skin defect

Called Van's today and spoke with a tech counselor. He was surprised to hear that I have just one hole out of alignment - usually it's an entire pattern. He suggested that I abandon this hole and drill two new holes on either side of the bad hole. Later I can use proseal to fill in the bad hole. I'm not sure if I want to go that route or see if Van's will ship me a new skin. I posted a thread on VAF to get some feedback on the situation. No work on the plane tonight.

Rudder stiffeners, found a defect

I finished fabricating the rudder stiffeners. Each stiffener had to be trimmed to length. As you go from bottom to top, each stiffener is shorter than the next. I used the tin snips to trim, and used the scotch brite wheel to round the edges and debur. Here are the stiffeners laid out on the left rudder skin:

I match drilled the stiffeners to the right skin and put everything aside, making sure to bundle and mark the right stiffeners so they do not get mixed up with the left ones.

I started match drilling the left skin to the stiffeners when I encountered the following prepunched hole pattern:

You can see clearly that the hole near the 7" mark on the ruler is out of alignment. Here is a shot from the other side:

Unfortunately this is a blocking issue. The hole in the skin does not line up with the hole in the stiffener. I sent an email to Van's with a detailed description of the problem. I am hoping they will send me a new skin with the correct hole pattern. It looks like I'll have to put the left rudder skin aside for now pending what I hear from Van's.

I can try to move on to the rudder skeleton, and my replacement rib for the HS should arrive this week, so I should be able to get back to that.

Time spent: 2 hours (25 total)

Finished tapering rudder stiffeners

Finished tapering the rudder stiffeners. Placed the stiffeners on the rudder skins. The forward side of the stiffeners need to be trimmed to length.

Time spent: 30 min (23 hours total)

Match drilled VS, cut rudder stiffeners

I match drilled the VS, disassembled it, and put it aside. I will debur, dimple, and countersink the parts along with everything else.

Began cutting the rudder stiffeners. There are 16 in all (8 pieces cut in half) and the ends closest to the rudder's trailing edge need to be tapered.

Time spent: 2 hours (22.5 total)