Finishing the Rudder Start the Horizontal Stab January 16th

January 16th

Rudder
Finished rolling the leading edges and pop riveting the rudder today!! It is done!

Horizontal Stabilizer

I started on the HS today. I started with the rear spar and rear spar doubler deburring. I knew I wanted to prime smaller batches of parts this time around to see if I get a better finished product, so instead of drilling and mocking up the entire HS then disassembling, deburring, prep for primer, and priming. I am going to prime parts as I go in batches that make sense for sub assembly. To this end I jumped ahead in the plans and machine counter sunk the holes for the HS skin in the spar. Vans says that counter sink holes for dimpled skins should be 7 clicks on a micrometer countersink tool with .001" increments more than you would set it for just counter sinking a rivet. Since I knew I would be priming I set it to 10 clicks, this is just a wag on how think I think the primer is. Now that Im writing this I should set the rivet in the primed holes to see how it looks compared to a test piece counter sunk to the correct 7 click depth.

Same Deburring as before. Scotch-brite wheel for the long edges, Dremel tool for the lightening holes, and finish everything with Maroon Scotch-brite pads.

Paint

Since I knew I was going to pain in a few days. I didn't want to have the same problem with clumpy primer as before so I set the primer in the drill press with a paint stirrer and let it run. Initially this backfired because the whole can spun and primer went everywhere. Duck tape to the rescue. In reality this time the primer color chunks seemed to mix themselves back into suspension and a stir stick would have worked, but dam it I bought the stirrer and wanted to see how it worked! In the end the primer was ready when I needed it.

Rudder 1.5 Hours, Horizontal Stabilizer 3.0 Hours

Finishing the Rudder January 15th

January 15th

Rudder
Back to riveting the ridder together. I started with the rudder horn and leading edge, then moved onto the common holes for the skins and the spar.

The Root end of the rudder had a bit more skin to the point where the squeezer just barely reached and caused a few miss squeezes on my part. So more drilling rivet practice!

Next I installed the counter weight, no pictures sadly, the counter weight needed a bit of trimming to clear the shop heads of the rivets. Also, the plans call for the leading edge to be riveted together after you install the counter weight. This is impossible, you can't get a bucking bar between the leading edge of the rudder horn and the weight once its installed so I had to unistall the weight and set the rivets first. Then I installed the top rib, which covers the counter weight and caps the rudder. But since I had riveted the rudder horn trailing edge already I had to drill out the 2 top rivets because they are common with the rib.

Some how in the assembly process I missed installing a rivet in the lower row of the rudder??? Since it was 1 away from trailing edge everything was really tight and I couldn't get a bucking bar behind it....so more rivet drilling and a piece of wood to wedge between the piece solved that problem.

Next I moved onto the dreaded trailing edge. Vans recommends that you half shoot every 10th rivets starting in the middle and working your way outward. Then half shooting the middle of every 10th and the middle of those and again until they are all half set. Then go back and fully set them all using the same patter. On one of the forums I saw a guy put tape down and numbered the rivets pattern and I thought this was a good idea so I copied it, and used the back riveting technique to set the rivets.

I really couldn't be more happy with how the trailing edge turned out. Im not sure I could make it any straighter.

I then moved on to rolling the leading edge. The plans have to tape a broom handle to the metal and roll it to introduce the bend before you rivet so the sheets are not preloaded and likely to crack in the future. This turned out to be really easy, but I had to make things hard by rolling the bottom one first which made it difficult to work the upper ones since the rudder horn made using the broom handle only possible from below.

Rudder 6.0 Hours

Finishing the Rudder January 5th

January 5th

Rudder

Today I installed the spar assembly I riveted together on December 24th. Just 3 pop rivets connecting the spar to the stiffener clips.

Everything was going smooth until I reached the rudder horn. The distance from the rivet hole and the horn was tight to get the rivet squeezer into and on the top one the rivet popped out a bit while I was setting it, similar to the rivet in the stiffener that I skipped on accident above.

This time I decided to drill it out and reset it. This was surprisingly easy and made me regret not doing this to the other rivet.

Next I installed the rudder horn brace. I really don't know how you would get this installed without a rivet squeezer to set these rivets.

I am still having issues getting the rivet squeezer to set the larger rivets. I playing with the settings still and have worked the rivets to a level on happy with, but it shouldn't be this hard. I think Im still not doing something right.

Rudder 6.0 Hours

Rudder

Rudder
I made it to the shop on Sunday for a few hours. I was hoping t finish the rudder in 2018, but spending the rest of my time off with friends and family seemed more important, so this was the final working session of the year.

I started off by finishing up riveting the stringers onto the rudder skin. My back riveting has really improved as I have been moving forward. I realized that the back rivet set  diameter was a little to big for the placement of the rivet in the stringer. I needed to tilt the rivet gun into the stringer flange when starting the rivets to set them straight.

I checked all the rivets with my rivet guage and did have to drill out several that I didn’t like and redo them.

Next I installed the R-00914 Shear Clips.

These are installed with pop rivets, which I thought were going to be easy but my rivet squeezer needed up scratching off some of the primer on the rivet skins.  Once I realize this I’ve put down a strip of painters tape to protect the skin and that seem to work really well.

The plans call for using pop rivets and all four of the rivet holes in that sheer clips and one of the holes in the stringers closest to the sheer clips to join the 2 skins together.

While I was installing the two skins together and riveting the stringers I was also Clecoing the trailing edge and removing the backing on the tape from the other side of the trailing edge to secure it to the left rudder skin. I had already removed the adhesive tape and secure that to the right rudder skin clecoed it down and used finger pressure to secure it. I read it a few other blogs of people match drilling a piece of angle iron and clecoing it to the rudder skin with the trailing edge to make sure it bonds well and keeps the rudder trailing edge straight. I decided to just follows Vans section 5.7 and not try this, mostly I was worried a out enlarging the holes in the really thin skins, .016”, or in the trailing edge piece when match drilling into angle iron. It seems that using the angle iron was a left over from when Vans had you use fuel tank sealant to bond the trailing edge to the skins and the variation in thickness of application could cause the end result to be wavy, which isn’t an issue when using the now recommended tape since it’s uniformed in thickness. Now any wavyness will be from my poor riveting techniques if anything.

This would  have been a time that it was nice to have a second helper. I use a box to hold the left right or skin up while I was trying to work between the two skins and rivet the stringers together. Somehow I manage to  skip one of the singers and a rivet this next one, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal at the time. But it turns out the distance between the stringers is smaller than the pop rivet squeezer handle needs to open to properly squeeze pop rivets, so went right to work back and put a rivet in the stringers I missed it didn’t sit flush and the Riverhead is sitting offer the stringer a little bit. I’ve decided to leave it for now, since I may rebuild the rudder at the end of the airplane anyway.

After I got all the pop rivets installed I put a bunch of heavy crap on the trailing edge in mind that the trailing edge with the edge of my workbench, hoping that it will help the tape adhere to both rudder skins and keep the trailing edge as straight as possible before riveting.

Rudder 5.0 Hours

Rudder

Rudder

The plans say to final drill the rudder trailing edges perpendicular to the chord line of the trailing edge, but countersink them parallel to the angle on the trailing edge. I used the Trailing Edge JIG  from Cleveland tool and the drill press to drill perpendicular to the chord. This picture shows the scrap piece of the trailing edge in the Jig so I could practice and see how everything worked.

I then clekoed together the rudder so I could final drill the rudder skins using the trailing edge piece as a template.

After drilling a few of the holes I looked at the reverse side skins and noticed the holes where getting slightly enlarged. After thinking about it I decided to disassemble everything and use the #40 Reamer to final drill the skins and then deburr them. 

I bought a speed deburring tool to make the deburring go faster, it works great on all the big pieces. Since the rudder skins are so thin I decided to deburr them by spinning the bit in my hand so not over do it.

After I finished deburring all the pieces I set to work prepping for paint. This was the same process that I used on the VS. Clean, acid etch and scuff, clean, let dry. Bill stopped by to help out with this.

Paint

This time I decided to Dimple before priming to see how that worked with the final assembly, I also went with the 2 part primer.

The 2 part primer was different. Part A was REALLY thick and chunky. I spent probably an hour on this day mixing and trying to break up the paint chunks and get everything to a smoother texture. I did add some distilled water, that seemed to help a ton. I wasn't able to get everything mixed to a perfect consistency, but it was close enough where I felt safe especially since I was going to pour it through a paint filter.

The Part A and Part B diluted 3/4 parts with distilled water, When I poured it through the filter into my paint gun I still had lots of chunks of paint. I picked up a paint mixer that I can put in the drill press and just let it mix paint for a few hours next time before I use the paint.

Got back into the paint booth! Before I primed I cleaned all the metal 1 last time with Rubbing Alcohol to remove and water residue or accidental hand marks. I try to not touch the parts after paint prep without gloves on, but my memory slips :) 

The 2 part primer sprayed a little better and didn't have as much overspray it seemed. I definitely need work on my painting skills. My overlaps and speed aren't even and that shows in the final product. i also way overloaded the spraying tray and was getting overspray on pieces I wasn't trying to, also the pieces were so small and light the paint gun would blow them around and they would hit each other and mess up the finish. Lots of lessons learned this time around. 1. Mix the paint a few days before spraying to make sure its ready 2. Prime fewer pieces at a time 3. When spraying small pieces hold them in your hand and spray half, when it drys a bit spray the other half.

Rudder

Started to assemble the Rudder! Started with the front spar and ribs. I really wanted my pneumatic squeezer to set the rivets, but I just can't get it to set the larger 1/8" rivets???! Another call to Cleveland Tools might be needed. Before I started to rivet I countersunk the trailing edge piece, I used the Jig again and it worked great.

Next I started to rivet the rear spar and ribs together. I need more practice still riveting, I had to drill a few out. Finally I realized trying to hold the pieces, rivet gun, and bucking bar at the same time was stupid and started to clamp the pieces in my Vise. I started with the reenforcing brackets then worked on the bottom assembly.

Im very happy I realized I can use the Vise to hold the parts for riveting, BBBUUUUUTTTT I'm not happy that I bought the cheapest vise and on the bottom side it has strange parts of the cast metal that hit my parts and shipped the primer off! Well, yet another learning experience in the books I guess. I used the single part primer to touch up the metal. It looks bad, but its internal and the main purpose it corrosion protection so it works. I read on somewhere "You don't get the airplane you want, You get the airplane you built" this is definitely proving to be true!

The finished rear spar and ribs. I never looks like much for the amount of work it takes, but progress! Am i right?

Today I started to put the stiffeners on the rudder skin....Did not go well, Right from the start I riveted 3 rivets to the skin without the stiffener in place???! I was in way to big of a hurry and my mind was not with me I guess. This should have been a sign to pack it in for the day and head home, because it was not the last of my mistakes. this is what I should have did.

I even prepped those pictures for the blog before I did this instead. Notice these 3 rivets that are done, but the lack of stiffener :( I drilled these out and the holes were a little deformed, but I re-dimpled and Im gonna go with it. I might rebuild the Rudder in the future if I keep making mistakes.

 This is what it should look like to back rivet. Put the plate on the table with the flush rivets into the skin and put a piece of tape on them to hold them in place. Flip the skin over and hit rivets with rivet gun.

This is where my second and third mistake happened. My back riveting plate is only so big, I got to one of the rivet that wasn't backed by the plate and hit it with the rivet gun. The EXTREMELY thin sheet metal of the rudder doesn't take kindly to that. Not only that, but I did it twice...Slow learner here. The edge of the back plate made a seam in the skin in both places. I gonna leave it for now, I think its something I work with high build primer in the future, or rebuild the rudder once my skills are better at the end of the project.

Finally got past all my struggles and finished one rudder skin.

I wanted to keep working, but it's Christmas Eve and I need to get ready for Church! Hopefully I can finish the Rudder this year.

Rudder 19.75 Hours