Other Stuff-NEW!
September 2005 Rudder
9/2/2005
And I'm off and runnin' for September! I deburred the stiffeners to start the session, then used the soldering iron to remove the blue from the rivet lines on the skins. Then I took a break to have dinner with my parents, and got back to work when we got home. I deburred the skins, and dimpled the stiffeners with the pneumatic squeezer. That thing is sooo slick!
1.75 hours
9/3/2005
Not a whole lot of work done on the airplane today. I just dimpled the skins (901), and set everything out to prep for priming.
0.75 hours
9/4/2005
I started today off by prepping the stiffeners and skins for priming. Then I primed the stiffeners, followed by the skins. With the primer dry, I installed the rivets in to the right skin 901R, and taped over them with rivet tape. After a quick break for lunch, I came back out and backriveted the right skin and stiffeners. I then repeated the process for the left side.
I am so happy with these rivets. Backriveting is such an easy process, and it works out nice and clean. I did miss the backrivet plate on one rivet, but no damage was done.
I did get a quick chance to work on the next step tonite, the rudder skeleton. I started by clecoing the bottom rib 904 to the spar 902. Then drilled the center hole in the forward flange to 3/8. I then fabricated the shim 917 with the strip of alum 2023 T3 supplied. Then drilled 405PD to 902, but only the upper holes. 405PD had to be radius'd on the upper edge to fit inside the forward flange of 904.
3.5 hours
9/5/2005
More work on the skeleton tonight. I cleco'd the bottom rib 904, shim 917, horn 405PD, and reinforcement plates 606/607/608 to the spar 902. Drilled the holes to final size. Then I cleco'd and drilled the counterbalance ribs and skin into place and drilled those holes to final size. Took a break for dinner, came back out and drilled reinforcement plates to the spar, 'cuz I forgot to do that earlier, and then cleco'd the skins to the skeleton. This seems to be coming together pretty quickly, but I know there is still a lot of rudder work ahead of me. I need to be thinking about ordering the wings soon!
I will drill the skins sometime this week, but this week looks busy, so we'll see.
1.25 hours
9/6/2005
Tonight I drilled the rudder skins 901R&L final size to the skeleton. After that I trimmed R-710 as shown on the plans, and did a prelim fit. Also drilled the holes in 710 to final size. Pretty boring night.
1.0 hour
9/8/2005
I started tonight by fabricating the rudder bottom strips R-918 from the strip of alclad provided. Measured, rough cut with the snips, and smoothed with the wheel. I cleco clamped them in to place one at a time, and match drilled them to the skin/rib. Then cleco'd them in place.
Once this is done, it's time to take it all apart, yet again...
...and I'm back to a bunch of parts. Tomorrow is deburring day, if I get to work on it.
1.0 hour
9/9/2005
Tonight was pretty boring. First, I removed the blue from the parts in use. Then I deburred holes and edges with my Burraways and the scotchbrite wheel. Moving on, I scuffed the surfaces in preparation for priming. Sometime over the weekend, I'll dimple the holes. I don't know if I'll get to prime this weekend, as I need to order some more primer from NAPA, which I plan to do tomorrow.
...scuffy...
1.5 hours
9/11/2005
No real exciting news tonight. I spent the evening dimpling the skeleton and skins. All was going well until I barely missed one hole on the trailing edge of the skin, and tore it. I flattened the tear back down, and dimpled it anyway. It turned out looking ok, but I need to call Van's in the morning to get their opinion. I finished the dimpling, and set it down for the night.
I also made a bench female dimple die for really thin areas.
This can be flipped over to use a #30 die on the other side. I'm not thrilled with the results this provides, but it will be refined a little. I ended up using a dimple/countersink combination for the trailing edges on the ribs.
1.75 hours
9/12/2005
I called Van's this morning, and Scott told me just what I figured he would say-don't worry about it. With the wedge and pro seal, it's plenty strong, and will not need to be replaced. In fact, he told me to just use the rivet callout and move on.
Tonight I was planning on several hours of work, but instead I put in a whole fifteen minutes. I drilled the top row of holes in the skins to #30 and dimpled 'em.
0.25 hours
9/15/2005
I knew this week was gonna be busy, so I wasn't planning on getting a whole lot of time in the shop. As you can see from my last entry or two I've been pretty limited. I'll make up for it this weekend, as Brit will be gone. Tonite, I drilled and countersunk the rudder counterweight for the #10 screw that goes in there. I also drilled, deburred, and dimpled the counterweight rib. I also started to look in to how I am going to countersink the R-916 AEX wedge.
0.5 hours
9/16/2005
I plan on working most of the day tomorrow on the rudder, so tonight I just spent a little time finishing up the last few things before priming tomorrow. I set up the R-916 AEX rudder wedge on the table by clamping a 2x4 to the table, and drilling into that so I didn't ruin my work surface. Drilled and cleco'd, I started the machine countersinking. After both sides were done, I looked it over, and thought that the holes were too big. Well, they are larger than the rivet shank, but the dimple on the skins will fill the space, and it will be prosealed. Oh, I had to chase a possum out of my garage tonight after Wiley found it. I hate those things!
0.75 hours
9/17/2005
After getting some house work out of the way this morning, I got started in the skeleton priming. I etched the parts with Alumiprep, washed with water, and primed. It turned out very well.
I let the primer dry for about three hours, and got started on the riveting. First, I riveted the reinforcement plates and platenuts to the spar 902. Then the 904 rib, 917 shim, and 405PD rudder horn were riveted in to place. Then the counterbalance rib 912 was riveted to the spar 902, and I cleco'd the counterbalance skin 913 to 912 and 902. I need my dad to come over to rivet the c-balance skin to the rib. Here's my results from tonight.
3.0 hours
9/18/2005
Today, I had to give my dad a call to run over here to help me rivet the counterbalance skin to the associated rib. I have a 3" yoke on my pneumatic squeezer, and it didn't reach, so I had to buck 'em. Didn't take long at all, they look great. Then came the installation of the weight. This requires some modification to the weight itself 'cuz it just don't fit as is. With some filing, and wheeling, I got it to fit. I installed the weight with the hardware, and took a break 'cuz Brit came home from here weekend horseshow.
Tonight, I had a few minutes to run out to the shop and cleco the skins in place. I also hadn't yet removed the blue from the rivet holes on the skins, so I did that as well.
1.5 hours
9/19/2005
No pics tonight, pretty boring. I deburred the edges of the skins, and set a few rivets on the counterbalance skin/skin/spar. There are a couple that I couldn't reach with the 3" yoke, so I'll have to draft my fathers help again tomorrow.
0.5 hours
9/20/2005
Tonight was a good night. My dad came over to set the six rivets that I had to set with the rivet gun. He is a great help, and excellent bucker!! He left after that, I inserted the 903 tip rib, cleco'd, and riveted with the squeezer. I started riveting the skin to the spar on the left side, and got interrupted by the Big Brother 6 finale. Can't resist it...it drew me in from the beginning. Anyway, I got right back at it at 9pm and finished the left side skin to spar rivet line. I had to buck three of them that I couldn't reach with the squeezer, but I did it myself as there is plenty of space for me to see each side. Looks great, and I'll do the other side later this week. I did use pop rivets for the last few rivets on the tip rib. I didn't even want to try it. They look fine, and it will get painted anyway. I do need to order some more of those MK-319-BS pop rivets though.
1.75 hours
9/22/2005
Tonight I finished riveting the skin to the spar. I also riveted the bottom of the rudder doing the 710 rudder horn with the optional CS4-4 and LP4-3 pop rivets. I need to order more LP4-3's to finish that. Also riveted the 918 strips to the rib/skin. This weekend will be the beginning of the major part of this rudder, the whole emp kit, in fact-the trailing edge. Here's the rudder to this point.
1.25 hours
9/25/2005
Well, I haven't had the time that I wanted to work on this, this weekend, but I did get started on the trailing edge. I started by putting the aluminum angle in place on the edge of the table. I attached it with five 1 1/2" screws, and made it flush with the table, which is level. Then I match drilled the trailing edge to the angle and cleco'd the rudder to the angle.
Then I took it all apart to clean. Before mixing the sealant, I put a dab of silicone in between the stiffeners to prevent them from rubbing from any vibration. With that done, I mixed the sealant, spread it thinly and evenly over the inside skins, and the AEX wedge, and cleco'd it all together. I cleaned up the excess mess, and now it will sit for a couple of days. I think I'll use these couple of days to sort of clean up and straighten my shop a little.
And that's how she sits.
1.5 hours
9/26/2005
Tonite was a quick night, but I took several pics. I uncleco'd the rudder from the angle to clean off excess PR (sealant) that seeped from the holes. The MK-319-BS blind rivets came today, so I finished riveting the top and bottom skin to ribs. Still waiting for more LP-4's to finish the rudder horn brace, should be here Wednesday. I then cleco'd the rudder back to the angle, but only the ends. The PR is pretty well cured, so I just cleco'd it enough to prevent the whole thing from moving.
Here's the bottom of the rudder where I used the blind rivets on the last two holes.
And the top, with the last four holes riveted with blind. The rib is much narrower than the bottom here.
And here's a couple of the trailing edge looking down the edge as best I could get an angle at it. It looks really great so far...but I still have to rivet it together!
.75 hours
9/27/2005
Brit was over in Champaign tonite for her study group, so I worked on my trailing edge. Let me say, I am a happy builder! This turned out just fine. Quite nerve wracking while doing it, but it worked out. I bought some steel angle to use as a back rivet plate so I could rivet the entire trailing edge without moving it. The clamps to hold it in place were a problem, but I worked around it. I started the evening by installing the rivets along the edge, and then taped them in place. I numbered the rivets 1-5 all the way down to set a rivet sequence. Then it all got clamped together. Time to get the gun...With the backrivet set, I set each rivet about half way, per the plans, to hold everything in place. Then I flipped it over and switched to the swivel flush set to run down the machined heads. Then flipped over again to run the sequence with the swivel set on the shop heads. I went back and forth, top to bottom, and meeting in the middle for each sequence 1-5. This is all done to make sure that the trailing edge stays straight. Van's allows 0.10 of an inch top to bottom difference, and I'm well below that.
Here's the steel angle I used as a backrivet plate, and the numbered rivets for the sequence.
Here's a couple of pics of the finished trailing edge. Nice and straight.
...and the whole rudder. Still have a few steps to go...
1.5 hours
9/28/2005
I just about finished up the rudder tonight. I started by finishing the rudder horn brace as my order from Van's came today with the LP-4-3's and BSPQ's came from FedEx. Then I started the leading edge by rolling the skins to match each other. With the rolling done, I cleco'd the pilot holes with #40 clecos and one by one, final drilled them to #30 holes, deburred with the burraway tool (I love that thing!), and recleco'd. I should be able to finish tomorrow evening.
1.0 hour
9/29/2005
Finished the rudder this evening. I started off by pulling the last rivets on the rudder, the leading edge, with AD-41-ABS, per the plans. The edge roller from Cleveland tools worked great on the edge of the skin to prevent the skin from lifting when riveted. Then I touched up the areas where I scuffed off primer while moving this thing around over the last couple of weeks.
Here's the end results on the rudder.
Rudder finished.
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