Rudder Skeleton

Tonight we spent another 2 hours working on the rudder.  We assembled the skeleton,manufactured the necessary shims and match drilled the spars, ribs and plates.  We also match drilled the counter-balance skin.  Finally we clecoed the skins to the rudder and installed the wedge for the leading edge.  At this point we called it a night.

Some of the pieces and tools laid out at the start of the evening. 

Darren deburring one of the pieces. 

Scott fluting one of the ribs. 

The basic skeleton cleco'd together waiting for the attachment of the skin.

 One side of the skin cleco'd to the skeleton.

 The other side of the skin cleco'd into place. 

There is still a lot of work to do on this component, but is always nice to pause for a picture or two when you end up with a piece of aluminum that looks like a piece of airplane.

Scott holding up the rudder.

Darren posing for a picture with the rudder.

Starting work on the Rudder

Today we started work on the rudder.  We first manufactured the rudder stiffners and then match drilled them to the rudder skins.  The edges of all skins and stiffners were deburred as were all the holes.  Next we dimpled the stiffners and skins.  We then primed all the parts, let them dry and then riveted the stiffners to the rudder skins.  We basically compressed all the building steps into a single day.

One side of the rudder skin. 

The other side of the rudder skin. 

We had to create two rudder stiffeners out of every piece of metal you see sitting on the table.  Scott is marking each piece for future cutting/trimming.

Darren cutting out one of the stiffeners. 

Darren cutting out another of the stiffeners.

Scott using the grinder to clean up the edges on the siffeners. 

 The stiffeners have been attached to the rudder skins and Darren has begun drilling out the pre-punched holes.

Scott taking a turn at drilling.

Darren performing a little pre-priming prep work. 

Scott shaking up the rattle can. 

Scott starting on the priming. 

 Another priming shot.

 Scott back riveting one of the stiffeners onto the rudder skin.

Where we finished for the day. both the rudder skins are primed and the stiffeners are riveted into place.  

A close up of one of the completed rudder skins. 

We had a pretty good run today, and only a few left over pieces......

Finished Vertical Stabilizer

Tonight we finished the assembly of the vertical stabilizer.  It went quickly since we finished all the preparation and assembled the skeleton in February while we were waiting for the missing parts from the horizontal stabilizer.  It's nice to have two major parts of the empennage finished.  Next up is the rudder.

The first thing we needed to do is take care of some riveting on the rear spar we put off due to a rivet shortage.

Next we set the rear spar aside, and focused on attaching the skin to the front spar and ribs.

This is a shot of the skin attached to the front spar and ribs ready to be riveted. 

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Same as the picture above different angle. 

Now we take a pretty big jump ahead.  The skin has been attached to the front spar and ribs.  Scott is now using the rivet squeezer to attach the skin to the rear spar. 

Almost done.  Darren is using the blind rivet squeezer to rivet the rear spar to the middle rib of the VS.

Scott standing next to the completed VS and HS.

Darren standing next to the completed VS and HS.

A wide angle shot of the completed VS and HS.

Finished Horizontal Stabilizer

Today we finished assembling the horizontal stabilizer.  We riveted the right side of the stabilizer, installed the rear spar and finished riveting the skin.  The horizontal stabilizer is finished for now.  

Scott riveting one of the mid-ribs to the spar. 

All the mid-ribs are in place. 

Time to attach the rear spar. 

Have we mentioned a lot of time is spent with cleco pliers in hand?

A little team work on the riveting.

Scott standing next to the finished HS.

Darren standing next to the finished HS.

Horizontal Stabilizer Assembly Progress

Today we spent another 6.5 hours working on assembling the horizontal stabilizer.  We used our new pneumatic rivet squeezer (as an aside, it's the greatest tool!) to assemble the spars.  We also riveted the nose ribs on both stabilizer halves and finished assembling the left side of the HS.  We started work on the right side and decided to call it a day.  

Scott showing off our new pneumatic rivet squeezer.

The pneumatic rivet squeezer in action.

The rear spar doubler riveted to the spar.

A shot of the clock, just because with the pneumatic rivet squeezer we managed to accomplish in 20 minutes what previously took us much much longer.

Scott setting up to do a little riveting.

 Scott setting up to do a little more riveting.

Scott still riveting.

All of the nose ribs have been riveted into place, and a couple of the mid-ribs have been cleco'd into place.

Same idea, but a different angle.

Attaching the mid-ribs to the spar is our first use of a blind rivet.

The state we left things in for the day.

Scott writing up the day's entry into our log book.