Rudder Finished

The rudder trailing edge was set with proseal and cured for a couple weeks while I fought with a nasty stomach bug.  It was ugly.

To rivet it, I bought a chunk of 2x2x1/8" angle iron, and match drilled every other hole in the trailing edge of the rudder.  My inspiration came from Tim Olson's instructions.  Put a rivet in every other hole, taped them then cleco'd all the open holes to the angle iron.  After it was done I wish I would have left 5-6 holes without rivets because then you could use them to hold down the rudder in a few spots once you flip it and do the rest of the rivets.





To actually drive the rivets, start with the backrivet set and start it, then finish off with the mushroom set.  I don't think mine turned out that great, but don't have anything to compare to.  The trailing edge however is super straight and that's the important part.



I did the last two steps out of order because I didn't have a pipe for rolling the leading edge laying around.  Here I bent the leading ledge and fitted the counterweight.  Its a heavy chunk of metal (maybe lead).  Feels like it nearly doubles the weight of the whole rudder.

First you crease the skins where they fold over the counterweight, then use a couple wood blocks and a soft hammer to actually make the crease.



In the process I found the first use for my super beefy DOTCO angle drill.  Doubt it was 100% necessary but did make it easier.




The leading edge counterweight installed.  The instructions give you an option last step of putting another rivet in the middle to snug down any "pillowed" metal.  Mine exhibited this a bit, so I did it.




Last was rolling the leading edge.  I bought both a 3/4" and 1" PVC Schedule 40 pipe for this, ended up using the 3/4" for all of it.  It was a little bit of a bear because the curve changes over the length of the rudder.



Once you get it rolled somewhat close, cleco it, match drill, and pop rivet.



Done!  This one took 38.3 hours.  I sure love knocking these big pieces out.  Now onto the big honkin Horizontal Stabilizer!

Rudder assembly

Once you get the rudder assembled then there's a whole bunch of match drilling.






Preparing the trailing edge is kind of tricky.  The problem is that you drill it perpendicular to the rudder chord line, but countersink it perpendicular to the rudder skin.  The pilot on the countersink bit wants to follow the hole.  I sweated this a lot until doing some research and finding out you can just hold it in your hand and countersink.  When you hold the wedge in your hand, the existing hole in the wedge will force the countersink bit at the wrong angle for a little bit, but then you can put a little force on the wedge and get the correct countersink angle to remove the rest of the material.  From what I read online, it doesn't have to be perfect.  I think mine came out pretty good, will see once its riveted together.
Oh - and one sneaky thing in the plans.  They call out a part number for the wedge that isn't in the inventory list.  The number you use is listed in the figure. Took me more time than I'll admit to figure that out.



Then you pull it all apart again and commence deburring.  There's probably 500 holes in this thing, and each gets deburred 4 times.





Finally primed the whole works.  I'm getting better at this, but it still takes a while.  The most time consuming part is scotchbrite scrubbing every part.  Results were better this time because I learned to blow-dry every piece before bringing it to the paint booth.





Then it all starts going back together. First is some spar reinforcements and nutplates.




Then back-riveting the stiffeners to the skins.  Back riveting is awesome, it leaves the manufactured head ultra-flush on the skin.




Getting that aft rivet set on the top rib is a little bit tricky.  Here's how I did it, worked great.  Found a air hammer chisel to stick in there, elevated the back end of it with a squeezer yoke I had laying around.  Then hold it steady and hit the chisel with the rivet gun.  Like butta.

Rudder Frame

Making progress on the rudder.

These stiffeners have to be cut out using the band saw then assembled.

Then you cleco them to the rudder spar:



Next goes on 1 skin and the trailing edge wedge.  You can see the wedge in here, at the trailing end of the skin with alternating small and big holes.  I had a freakout in that the plans called for that trailing edge to be part number R-1006, but I could not find that in my inventory sheet.  Finally figured out that lower in the diagram it gives you the real part number VA-140.  Normally the lower part of the spar would have a rib too, thats the one I'm still waiting on Vans for.

First screw up

Match drilled the rudder horn to the lower rib, but the clecos must not have cinched down all the way before I drilled.  Now there's a gap on one side.  Left like this, the rudder will be deflected a couple degrees just on the bottom.  So I've emailed Van's, guessing a need a new R-1004A/B.  Crap.



**UPDATE**
Vans got back to me and said that I could either add a doubler on the other side to "sandwich" the part with elongated holes, or just buy a new one.  I need some Proseal anyway, so I spent the $9.25 for the new R-1004 rib.

I might have a half hour in prep time into it, oh well.  If this is the worst of my screw ups, I'll be a happy camper.