Continued work on the rudder skeleton. Plans have you fabricate a couple of parts from .032 scrap which there is plenty of in the kit. Took far longer and far more tries to make the two R-716 rudder attachment parts than I would have liked. The aluminum sheet is so thin it actually slid underneath the rail guide on my band saw. So after multiple attempts finally got two straight parts. Study the construction drawing carefully to make these three parts. Then on to the rudder skeleton assembly. Gathered all of the parts, pulled the blueing off and started to cleco things together. The three rudder spar reinforcement plates are actually in a separate bag of parts and only one of them, the biggest one, actually had a part number on it. Not having my kit inventory handy made it a bit longer to make sure these were the correct pieces.

With those found and everything gathered, the next big step is to trim R-710, the rudder horn brace. THIS IS A GOTCHA!!!! Make sure you research this part online, VAF if you can BEFORE you cut this piece. Thankfully I have done my homework and knew NOT to trim this piece as the plans call for. Long story short you need to cut is undersized as to what the plans call for, otherwise you're out $10 and some time while you order another one from the mother ship.

Armed with that knowledge, I left plenty of edge distance, always better to trim too little first and then make fine adjustments. I used masking tape to protect the other side of the part that is trimmed. With R-710 trimmed I began to test fit all of the rudder skeleton parts together. This is where there is some trial and error to get all of these separate parts, including the rudder horn, to fit together and get all of the holes to line up properly so that you can eventually match drill everything.

Last few pics show the rudder skeleton all cleco'd together. Still need to take about 1/32 off the top of the rudder horn top edge so that the bottom rib leading edge flange wraps around the top of the rudder horn. So after an afternoon of work, still a bit of fitting to do before moving on to prepping the parts for paint.