Rudder Part II
For the past week, I’ve been slightly slowed down due to covid, but was able to get the rudder finished up today. Here is the progress from the past week.
I did the final bend of the trailing edge, which took a couple hours to get how I wanted it. The bend of the trailing edge is a very critical aspect of control feel and stability and even small changes can have big impacts on flying qualities. The bend should leave a perfectly straight edge (as shown in the pictures) and it took a lot of trial and error to get the bend perfect up and down the rudder.
Once the bend was good, I disassembled everything and prepped it for priming. I primed all of the internal parts on this one. Then, I adapted the top rib to house the counterbalance weight and got that assembly all ready to install once everything was riveted. I riveted the spar together will little problems, however the bottom area when the horn is was pretty tricky. There are some pretty tight areas in the rudder brace area where the squeezer wouldn’t fit. The instructions say using blind rivets are acceptable here, although I was trying to avoid them if I could. I was able to set 2 of the 4 rivets by sliding my bucking bar inside the rudder brace hole and holding it with a couple fingers while I bucked the top of the rivet. This worked, although I learned to make sure the bucking bar doesn’t hit a rivet you’ve already set next to the one you’re trying to set. Otherwise you’ll squeeze an already nice rivet. Lot’s of practice drilling rivets out… The other area where I had to use blind rivets were the last two holes, closest to the trailing edge on the ribs. Looking back, I probably could have used indirect back riveting to get those ones, but completely forgot about that technique that I learned up at Synergy. Next time…
After everything was riveted, I just had to roll the leading edge. I got a 3/4″ x 5 foot steel pipe at home depot and duct taped it to the edge and rolled it with the help of one of my roommates. We were able to get a nice bend and then hand bend it into final place pretty easily.
