Jun 12, 2021     7-10: Striker plates - (0.5 hour)       Category: 7: Rudder

Received back ordered striker plates. Deburred, countersunk, and riveted in place.

Rudder is completely done.

  Mar 29, 2021     7-12: Rudder complete - (0.5 hour)       Category: 7: Rudder

Got the missing screw from aircraft spruce today. There was a little pillowing between the screws, so I installed the blind rivet suggested by the plans. Final rivets in the counterweight set and the rudder is done! Finally a completed part.

  Mar 25, 2021     7-11 & 7-12: Rudder finish up - (3.5 hours)       Category: 7: Rudder

I felt a little better about my trailing edge after sleeping on it and reading the forums. Today's big task was rolling the leading edge. I was just about to head to Lowe's to procure a 1 1/4” pipe when I noticed one of my pool cleaning poles laying around. I measured it and sure enough it is exactly 1.25” OD. Perfect. With pipe in hand I proceeded with the leading edge roll. This gave me a lot of trouble on the practice kits so I was a bit anxious. It went great. Top and bottom sections are perfect and the middle has just small amount of pillowing between the rivets. Very acceptable though.

Leading edge done and proceeded to the counter balance. This is a lot of work for the amount of area you're working in. Got the skins bent around the weight. It was a little tight at first so I shaved just a little off the corners of the weight with a utility knife. Pulled the skins tight around the nose of the counterbalance and marked them from the back side per plans. Then pilot drilled and final drilled for the #8 screws. All came out well, but somewhere along the way I lost one of the two screws. I guess I'll have to stop just short of rudder completion but it is 99% there.

Laid the rudder and VS on the bench together for the first time. Looking good.

Purchases: ACS misc nuts & bolts, AN bolt gauge

  Mar 24, 2021     7-10 & 7-11: Closing up the rudder and trailing edge rivets - (2.5 hours)       Category: 7: Rudder

Proseal should be all set up so I removed clecos and started on the additional blind rivets which hold the rudder spar to the clip angles. Also got all of the skin to spar rivets done. It didn't seem that the squeezer would get to them all so I just decided it would be easier to buck them all. May have been a little overconfident in my bucking skills. After getting through the first twenty or so, I could see under the tape that they were sitting a little proud. I stopped to figure out what was going before I bucked them all. The several layers of masking tape I had put on the flush rivet set to protect the skins had worn through in the middle so the extra tape was causing the set to not sit flush against the skin. Lesson learned. Didn't even need tape on the rivet set since I had already taped all of the rivets in the row. Fixed that issue and set the remaining rivets with no problem. Then proceeded to drill out almost all twenty rivets that were not flush. I also then realized that every one of the rivets I drilled out could have been accessed by the squeezer. I squeezed most of redo.

On to the double flush rivets. I felt everything looked pretty straight still when I removed the clecos and was confident going in to it. I cleaned up all the holes and taped rivets on one side. Since there is really no good side of a rudder, some people alternate sides for the shop head. I just put them all on the same side. The riveting went fine. Used the back rivet set against the plate. I supported the rudder on either side of the plate with carpet that leveled everything up pretty well. Once the shop heads were set, I flipped the rudder over and used the flush set to do a final set of all the rivets.

Honestly I'm not happy with how it came out. The overall straightness of the trailing edge is good but there are places where the skin is pulling away from the wedge. The proseal is not adhered. Not sure where I went wrong. Maybe the proseal was too thin. Maybe it didn't cure all the way. Maybe I should have used the clothespins between every rivet to hold it tighter. We'll see if I can do better on the elevators and then we may revisit the rudder.

  Mar 21, 2021     7-9: Rudder trailing edge - (1.5 hours)       Category: 7: Rudder

On vacation last week but when I got home my proseal finally arrived. I had everything prepped last night in anticipation of my father in law visiting today. The perfect helper to get me through the rudder trailing edge.

I ordered the 3oz proseal from Vans but was surprised to see they shipped the 6oz tube for the caulking gun. I was tempted to wait until I had more to seal, but thought trying to do the elevators and rudder in one session would be too much and I'm also eager to have some completed parts. Proceeding with rudder. I was only charged for the 3oz tube anyways.

In preparation for the proseal I realized that I had primed the wedge and the skin in the area to receive proseal. Some quick consultation of the forums seemed to say not to prime those surfaces. I did a quick scuff with 220 grit to remove a reasonable amount of primer and give the skin some bite.

Got the proseal all mixed up and confirmed the tube does fit in a normal caulk gun, at least it fit in mine. Applied a very thin coat to the trailing edge wedge and got it set in place. Had father in law hold back the top skin and set clecos per the plans as I did the blind rivets in the skeleton. All went really very easy. Didn't get too much extra proseal on anything and honestly I didn't find the smell to be a problem. It's all cleco'd up now and sitting for a few days. Proseal seems the way to go for me. Very happy with straightness of trailing edge so far. I used a long piece of aluminum angle from the tail cone to take out any irregularities in my workbench.

The other job for the proseal was going around the top of the VOR antenna conduit in the VS. Tough to get around the front side, but I think it is good enough to hold it in place.

Thanks Pappa Joe!

  Mar 14, 2021     7-7 & 7-8: Backrivet skins - (1.5 hours)       Category: 7: Rudder

Well I did get back out to the shop after dinner and got the skin stiffeners backriveted and top and bottom ribs riveted.

Everyone says backriveting is easy, but I actually struggled with this a bit on the practice kit. Today it was dialed in and very easy. 1/2 second blurt on the gun and had a perfect rivet every time. Very fast and enjoyable.

Now I really am on hold until I get my proseal. I have to call Van's tomorrow and see what the status is. It's been over a week.

  Mar 14, 2021     7-6 & 7-7: Prime Rudder, dimple and assembly - (6.5 hours)       Category: 7: Rudder

Spent the rainy morning cleaning and etching parts in anticipation of a nice afternoon. Weather forecast held and had good painting weather in the afternoon. Actually used up all of my green primer. The coverage is a little thin on some parts but I got good coverage on all the mating surfaces and all exterior surfaces. Besides running low in paint, priming went really well with light coats - no fisheyes or other defects I had when I did heavier coats. Primed the rudder horn with left over gray since it will be exposed.

Got everything dimpled and assembled a few parts. Made the mistake of assembling the bottom rib prior to dimpling; that made it thought to dimple some of the holes but was able to get them with the dimpling bar I made for the practice kit. I did mangle one hole with the squeezer while dimpling a tight hole on the bottom rib. Drilled it out to a #30 and used a -4 “oops rivet”.

Ready to back rivet the skin stiffeners.

  Mar 13, 2021     7-6: Rudder trailing edge countersink - (1.5 hours)       Category: 7: Rudder

I was just about to disassemble one of my airfoil practice kits to harvest a trailing edge wedge to use as a support for the rudder trailing edge wedge so that the countersink in the drill press would hit it square. I was thinking of how I would attach it to a block of wood to make a jig and then realized I could just sand a wedge into the block on the belt sander. It took a couple tries but I got the angle right and the wedge sits perfectly in it presenting a flat level surface to the countersink. Once that was set, I made pretty quick work of the countersinking. Having the right tools makes all the difference.

  Mar 12, 2021     7-6: Rudder Skins and VOR antenna - (2.5 hours)       Category: 7: Rudder

Finished match drilling the trailing edge and field rivets on the rudder. That was a lot of clecos! My forearms are quite sore. Got everything deburred and the trailing edge bend in the skins done. The rudder is ready to prep and prime.

My VOR antenna nutplates came in today so I was able to finish match drilling and dimpling the top of the VS rib and stiffeners. Will leave it cleco'd until tech counselor visit so he can at least see what I did.

Still no word on proseal or conduit that I ordered from Van's last weekend. I'm going to be held up on the VS and rudder until I get them.

  Mar 11, 2021     7-4 to 7-6: rudder skeleton and skins - (3.5 hours)       Category: 7: Rudder

Took the afternoon off work to work on the plane. I've realized that I have a critical piece of the rudder that is back ordered. I can't close up the rudder without the rudder stop blocks so I'll take it as far as I can and just leave the clecos in place. I should still get all the way through the trailing edge and proseal work. Then I'll have to set it aside too and start on the HS. I emailed Van's to see if they can give an ETA on the parts; no response yet.

Skeleton went together with no problems. Even deburring the big skins was easy. My deburr process for skins: hit the CNC marks with a small flat needle file, then run the edges with the pencil deburr tool, the a large fine flat file, finish with Scott right pad by hand. Coming out pretty good and not too time consuming.

I stopped tonight just before match drilling the trailing edge. The instructions say to put a check in every hole on the spar and trailing edge. With some clecos still in the VS, I'm running out of 3/32” clecos!

  Mar 10, 2021     7-2 & 7-3: Rudder parts - (2.0 hours)       Category: 7: Rudder

With the VS set aside it's time to start the rudder. Got all of the ribs, clips and stiffeners fabricated. The sheet metal fabrication is actually one of the more enjoyable tasks of the build so far. Van's does just enough of the prep work to make it quite fun if you have right tools. The stiffeners were a bit tedious but they came out real nice. Started with snips to separate, then band saw to cut to length, belt sander to clean up, then the 3M wheel to deburr and finish. Had a nice little production line going.