Feb 5 -- Finish Rudder, Work on Elevator

The rudder had to sit for a week, in order for ProSeal to finish curing. That was OK, because it was a rough week at work, and there was no opportunity to work on the project anyways.

Today I pulled the rudder off the angle iron (straight as an arrow!) and installed the trailing-edge rivets. That angle iron made a really nice surface to rivet against. Also discovered that in one place where I needed to install an "oops" rivet (hole was enlarged for some reason) that the result was almost a perfect flush surface on the shop head side. Wonder if this is a best practice!

Next up was the elevator. After the first debacle with a screwed-up wedge, I made a jig for countersinking holes this time. See the photos below, but laid the bad wedge in the jig first and then inserted the new wedge. Result was that everything is level and stable for drilling.

Next came dimpling on both skins, using a vise-grip dimpler. Finally I used marine epoxy from Home Depot to glue the wedge between the skins, with everything clecoed down to an angle iron. Should be dry enough to rivet tomorrow night.

Total Time: 6 hours

Jan 30 -- Glue Rudder Trailing Edge

Today was a short session on the plane per-se (the rest of the day included cleaning more junque out of the garage in preparation for the wings).

In a previous post I mentioned that fellow EAA chapter member Rob Kochman gave me a piece of angle iron from his RV-10 project. The angle iron was laid on top of the work table, over a piece of 3/4" plywood. The ply was about 4" wide x as long as the table, and served two purposes:

First, it raised the trailing edge of the rudder off the table a bit, because the rudder trailing edge holes are not perpendicular to whichever side happens to be laying against the table top.

Second, the ply is sacrificial wood when holes are drilled in the angle iron. All the pundits say that an advantage of the table top as spec'd in EAA Chapter 1000 drawings is that you can replace it when too many holes are drilled. But here we are not even half way thru the empennage and the table top already looks like some poor slob in New Jersey who owed the mob money.

Masking tape covered the angle iron, so that errant ProSeal wouldn't goober it up.

Next I drilled holed in the angle iron using every third hole in the rudder as a template. Was afraid that I'd mess up the other side of the rudder, which didn't turn out to be the case. Note to others: drill holes in every hole, and do it the first time that you drill the rudder rather than later, which avoids this concern.

Next I suited up an broke out Pro Seal to glue everything together. Used the smallest size that Van's sells, and still only used up 75% of the batch. You can see in the close-up photo below that a bit of ProSeal squeezed out. A couple of very small 3/4" blocks of wood inserted into the trailing edge kept it open to enable application of the ProSeal. Using a small mixing stick, I spread it between rivet holes -- which were bare aluminum. My theory is that primer will lift off the surface, making the entire exercise pointless. Will trim that once this stuff dries -- touching it only serves to spread goo on everything.

Once finished I had to drill mot of the holes that were skipped, in order to make everything cleco down perfectly flat. Used some decrepit clecos, because ProSeal might ruin them.

Everything needs to set up for a few days, so that's it for now on progress.

Total Time: 1.5 hours

Jan 24 -- Install Rib Counterweight

Sometimes things just work out. The replacement screws for the counterweight arrived, so I went to re-install the counterweight in the rudder tip. Realized that it was originally installed in the incorrect place, and I would have had to take the rudder apart to correct the issue. Whew!

So a hint to other builders: double-check the counterweight location against the plans one last time before you cover it up!

Also riveted most, but not all, of the tip rib on. That rib covers the counterweight, so this was a major catch. Still a few rivets to install, including the pain-in-the-ass ones near the trailing edge.

Total time tonight: 1.5 hours

Jan 22 - Finish Rudder Leading Edge

This was a tough weekend to work on the plane, thanks to competing activities (Luscombe, work, and Karin's Prius' battery dying).

Main thing that I completed was the leading edge of the rudder, complete with pop rivets.

Started by rolling the edges some more around a 3/4" pipe. The online blogs seemed in agreement that each of the three separate sections needs to be rolled separately. Sure enough, went a lot better that way. In fact I was too aggressive in one place and had to back things off again.

Wavy edges are better, but not perfect. At least they won't be visible! Overall the rudder has more blemishes that I expected -- but it's still safe and very functional.

Still need to install the trailing edge and also the counterbalance weight and rib.

I also made a jig to drill the trailing edges of the elevators. Will save that write-up for later.

Total Time (not including making the jig): 1.5 Hours

Jan 20 -- Rudder Skin

Today the replacement parts showed up for the elevator trailing edge, along with some ProSeal to glue the trailing edge of both the rudder and elevator. Put all that aside to continue working on the rudder skin.

First I noticed that the rivets I squeezed yesterday we about 0.001" too small on the shop head, so I re-squeezed them.

Next I squeezed a couple of rivets in the elevator horn that needed a different yoke on the pneumatic squeezer.

Finally, I used a pipe with Karin's assistance to roll the leading edge of the rudder. I am not happy with the result, so stopped to look at other builder websites and learn how they did this. Great info online -- sooooo much better than the last two planes I tried to build!

While I now have great ideas for tomorrow, I made the mistake of trying an edge-rolling tool on the leading edge. Going to need to unwind the mess I made -- however (fortunately) this edge will all be hidden once the plane is completed.

Still need to install the counterweight and counterweight rib. Expect the screws tomorrow.

Total Time: 1.5 Hours

Jan 19 -- Rivet Rudder Skin

Riveted on both sides of the rudder skin, with the exception of counterbalance rib and one rivet on each side at the bottom. Need to wait for replacement screws to arrive before I reattach the counterbalance weight -- which has to happen before riveting one last rib on. No pics tonight: I think that you know what rivets look like...

Total Time: 1.75 Hours

Jan 18 -- Start Skinning Rudder

Waiting on parts for the elevator, so I switched back to the rudder. Quite a while back I set the rudder aside because someone was promising an anti-tail-wag trim kit. That never materialized, so it was time...

Initial riveting was the area where the counterbalance rib and skin all meet. Note to others: the instructions call for the lead weight to be installed prior to this riveting. But the weight should go in after the first few rivets, because it interferes with bucking. Of course I bunged up a Phillips head screw getting the weight out, so now I need to order a couple of real odd-balls: AN509-10R16.

Dinking around with that weight and a couple of bad rivets ate an hour :(

Total Time: 1.5 hours

Oct 30 -- More Rudder Work

Been over a month since this blog was updated: the result of being in Europe for several weeks, followed by catching up with life. I did actually work on the project last weekend too; however that work consisted of drilling out the rivets that attached the rudder horn. I'd missed a couple of bunged-up rivets.

The last several days consisted of reworking those parts, plus adding a counterweight to the rudder. Had to relieve the edges of the lead weight just a bit to make it slide into place. Note in the photos that I also primed the counterbalance. Not certain that lead and aluminum set up galvanic action; however not interested in finding out the answer...

Time: 3 hours

Sep 26 -- Rudder Horn

Not much building at the moment, because the day job is all consuming. Did get the rudder horn attached after both priming and a final coat of paint.

I was able to set solid rivets by using the longeron yoke in the rivet squeezer. Probably could of turned the bottom rivets around so that the shop head was inside the rudder horn; however this direction made both control and inspection much easier.

Time: 0.5 Hrs

Sep 6 -- More Countersinking and Priming

Not a whole lot to report for Labor Day: primed parts, a tad of riveting (doublers) and finished countersinking the trailing edge insert. Mostly a weekend with Patrick, as he starts his visit from Africa.

Time: 2 Hours

Sep 5 -- Dimple, Prime, Countersink Rudder

The past couple of days represented quite a bit of progress on the rudder, but without major visible results simply because this assembly involves so much effort. I dimpled everything that requires dimpling (hopefully), and then primed a few parts. Need to go back to NAPA for another can of primer, though -- and am also considering whether I should powder coat the rudder horn and rudder horn brace. (More correctly, whether I should farm them out to a shop -- Harbor Freight powdercoat sucks.)

Finally, I clamped a piece of wood to the bench and match drilled it with the trailing edge angle aluminum. Then I started countersinking 3/32" holes in it -- in anticipation of riveting the rudder's trailing edge. The Net is full of various opinions about this particular issue, and I see that others are particularly concerned with making certain that the edge is straight and true. You'll be reading more about this as I continue.

All of the workshop time today was without the neck brace. Karin says that I seem to be hunching forward though, so it's back on again as I post this entry.

Time: 5 hours

Sep 1 -- More Rudder Construction

It's been three weeks since a blog post, with lots of non-building stuff in the middle (surgery, Patrick was ambushed in Namibia, Anna was not having the best of luck in Bolivia, I refinished the deck, etc...)

Nonetheless, I actually worked on the rudder! That includes the day I went in for surgery, the day after I came home, and a lot of other days. Think that the hours worked were much longer than stated below; however I lost track and never got around to blogging. Wearing a neck brace is a pain.

As usual, lots of plastic peeling involved...

I will let the photos speak for themselves. You can see where I had one issue with holes drilled too close to the edge of a trim strip. What you can't see is that I bought another part and promptly repeated the mistake.

Next up is deburring, dimpling, priming, and riveting the silly thing.

Time since last blog post: 8 hours

Aug 1-7 -- Rudder Stiffeners

Have been plugging away at this each evening this week. Well, not quite... The pain from the ruptured discs continues, and between medication, not feeling well, and lots of "real work", time spent on the RV was not a lot. And now I have to go in for back surgery on Wednesday, so there will be close to five weeks of no progress coming up.

You can see in the photos that I primed parts, dimpled everything related to the stiffening ribs, and even riveted them to one skin. The other skin is hopefully tomorrow's project.

There are many reports that cracks appear once the plane is in service. These cracks are always around the end of the stiffener closest to the trailing edge, and common wisdom is that ProSeal will help dampen vibration, and therefore reduce flexing that causes cracks. I almost traced the parts onto 0.020 aluminum, instead of using the standard 0.016 skins, because others have also reported that thicker metal solves the problem.

I decided on the ProSeal approach. Purchased an ounce from Van's and put it under each stiffener -- paying particular attention to the ends. For this part of the assembly I tried to be a neatnik, so I used masking tape to mask off areas where I don't want Proseal to find its way onto the skin. I mixed half the Proseal in the bottom of a yogurt cup, then worked as fast as possible in order that the Proseal would not set up before I finished.

As I assemble the skins to the trailing edge, I plan to add additional generous quantities to the skins in order to dampen vibrations. But for now it's only under the stiffeners.

This was the first run at back riveting, too. In one of the photos you can see the cool tape that holds lines of rivets in place. Sure beats picking off the remains of masking tape! I used a flat steel plate underneath the skin, but first I wrapped the edges in tape to prevent scratches. Still managed to rivet one spot with out the plate under it. Fortunately the damage was easy to repair.

I also continued priming everything with NAPA MS 7220 grey. Others pooh-pooh primer; however as the owner of a Luscombe that was built in 1947 without internal primer paint, I am convinced that (a) you need primer for a long-lasting plane, and (b) airplanes stay in service much longer than anyone expects. So I want mine preserved for the first Klingons that visit Earth.

Total time this week: 8 hours.

July 30-31 -- Started Rudder

Fortunately the rudder work is do-able while on meds for what is now officially a ruptured disk in my upper back.

The plans are less than obvious, so some points here may help others. I made the stiffener ribs, which starts with cutting 8 pieces of pr-drilled angle in half, then putting a taper in each of the 16 angles that result. The plans are not intuitive...

Each piece has some small half holes that are markers for where to draw a straight line and then trim the angles down. This is not mentioned in the instructions. I trimmed all pieces like this, then cut them to length by matching them up with various locations on the rudder skins. Ignore references to "from the front" in the instructions. I still have absolutely no idea what that reference is to (front of what?).

Also not mentioned is that you don't need to worry about which way is "up" for the stiffeners. They will only fit one way.

Not mentioned is that you need to flute the stiffeners, in order that they will lay flat and not distort the rudder shape.

Others say to use ProSeal when attaching, in order to prevent cracking in the skin later. Guess that it's time to order some -- or maybe I'll just use some RTV, since I already have it.

Have seen all sorts of crazy ways to cut down the stiffeners; however I simply used a pair of straight tin ships -- the old kind, without serrated blades. Don't forget to cut the butt end of the stiffeners at an angle (not square), in order that they won't interfere with the rudder spar when assembled.

It is hard to believe, but what you see in the photos below represents over 4 hours of work. Lot of that is belt sander and debur work on the edges. I went backs over each piece to make certain that the taper has a clean and straight run.

Time: 4 hours