Disassembled Rudder to Start Deburring

March 1, 2010

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I liked having the rudder assembled on the workbench over the last day or so. I got to walk by it going in and out of the house admiring how much it looked like an airplane part. I found myself saying, “that’s a rudder” every time I walked by.

Nevertheless, the next step in the construction manual has you disassemble the parts and start the long process of prep for priming and riveting.

Some of the rudder parts, disassembled.

I got everything taken apart yesterday, and then second-guessed myself. I am planning on attaching most, if not all, of the fiberglass fairings with screws and nutplates, which will require the usual dimpling/countersinking of the components. Here’s the catch. Take the rudder bottom fairing attach strips. If I disassemble, deburr, scuff, clean, prime, and rivet them back to the skin/bottom rib, I’ll be drilling through primed parts when I go to install the bottom fairing (and nutplates). Do people re-prime these parts (mainly the holes) after they are riveted to the almost complete rudder?

I’m thinking that maybe I should re-assemble everything, layout the spacing for the fastener attach points now, then go ahead and do the normal disassemble, debur, scuff, clean, prime, and rivet dance. I’m going to pose this question on VAF.

Anyway, with everything disassembled, I started to mark and deburr parts. In preparation for edge finishing, I removed all of the safety covers for the scotchbrite wheel side of my 6″ grinder.

Removed the scotchbrite wheel.

Removed all safety covers.

Reattached scotchbrite wheel.

Ready for some edge-finishing.

Then, I got back to deburring some of the smaller parts. When I finished deburring the holes in a part, I usually take a scotchbrite pad and “mark” the part with a few scuffs. That way, I know all the holes are deburred, and it is time to move on to edge finishing.

I only spent an hour outside today. Had to let the food digest before working out, then it was off to bed.

[yawn] I’m still tired, though.

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Posted by Andrew

Initial Rudder Assembly, Fabrication, and Drilling

February 28, 2010

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With the girlfriend out running errands, and the house to myself, I got to make as many loud noises as I wanted this morning.

First, I jumped back to the part in the directions where they have you enlarge the hole on the flange of the rudder bottom rib to 3/8″. I started with a #30, then #21, #12, 3/16″, 7/32″ and finally, 3/8″. (I may have also used a 5/32″ in there, too, I can’t remember. You can see it turned out pretty well. I didn’t take a picture every step, just a few so you get the idea.

Here's the #21.

#12

I think this might be the 7/32."

Finally, with the 3/8" bit. Looks good to me.

Then I disassembled to check the hole clearance on the flange.

Think I have 2 times diameter? Nope. Apparently, this is okay, since it is not a structural hole. This is as designed.

Next, time to fabricate R-917 (shim) per the plans. From other builders websites, I’ve gathered you are supposed to use the Trim Bundle, Emp.

Here's the trim bundle, fished out from one of my workbench shelves.

To give you an idea of what is included, there are 4 pieces of .032″ on the left, 3 pieces of .016″ in the middle, and 3 pieces of .025″ on the right.

0.032", 0.016", and 0.025", respectively.

The plans call out .032″.

Here's my piece.

Of course, it’s 2024. You can see the callout on the plans in the lower right corner.

I drew some lines on the piece...

I transfered the dimensions…

Dimensions!

Then, I made a rough pass with snips, and finished up on the scotchbrite wheel.

Scotchbrite wheel, compressor, and the newly fabricated R-917 shim.

I centerpunched the two outer hole markings, and drilled one hole to #30 per the plans, and one to #40. My plan is to matchrill the #30 hole (top one in the following picture), cleco it down, and then enlarge (matchdrill) the #40 hole to a #30 once I have everything fitted correctly. Here, you can see the lower hole in the shim doesn’t line up perfectly.

Lower hole doesn't line up perfectly. I used a file and the scotchbrite pad to clean up the right edge before enlarging to #30.

Next, they have you lay in the Rudder horn (R-405PD), cleco, and matchdrill the 4  upper #30 holes (right side of the picture).

The clecos on the right are holding R-606PP (spar reinforcement) on the forward side of the spar.

Next, they want you to round out the edge of R-405PD horn so it lays in nicely with the R-904 bottom rib. You can see here, it won’t work as is.

No good. Must round.

The scotchbrite wheel made quick work of this.

Much better.

After clecoing everything back to the spar, I flipped it over and matchdrilled all of the remaining #30 holes through the reinforcement plate, spar, shim, and rudder horn.

Matchrilling glory.

Then, I loaded up the #40 bit and matdrilled all of the holes in the counterbalance skin. Pictures of matchrilling aren’t interesting, so I just took one once I was done.

Boring matchdrilling.

THEN YOU GET TO CLECO ON THE SKIN! Wuhoo! Left side first…

Wuhoo! (Saggy trailing edge wuhoo, but wuhoo nonetheless.)

Then flip the bad boy over…

Ready to cleco on the right side.

And cleco on the right skin.

It's starting to look like a rudder.

Then, slide in the trailing edge wedge.

Trailing edge wedge...

Crap, I started clecoing it in backwards. This v shape is supposed to go forward, and the pointy end back.

It would be kind of a cool looking trailing edge, but...no.

Once I got it in the right direction, I took a step back to admire how much my rudder looks like a rudder. Then, I matchdrilled the remaining holes in the skin. There were a hole bunch, but I only took one picture at the end. Here you go.

The two skins completely matchdrilled.

Once that was done, I grabbed the rudder brace, and heeding some great advice from other builders, drew my cut line north of the guide holes.

Here's the left side.

And here’s the right side after the cut.

The right side guide hole is underneath the sticker. Sorry.

And the right side after cutting. You can see I stayed away from the line when using my snips. I’ll approach it carefully with the scotchbrite wheel.

asdf

After getting the brace close, I went through a couple fit and trim iterations before finally getting a good fit and getting the holes matchrilled.

Good fit, and matchrilled successfully.

With the brace complete, it was time to move on to the fairing attach strips. Here’s the piece they want you to use.

Rudder attach strip stock. Say that three times fast.

After trimming to 18 inches.

Two attach strips and a pieces of scrap.

Then, I transferred the dimensions on the drawing to the two strips

Ready to snip.

Then, I used the snips, clamped the two pieces together, and took them over to the scotchbrite wheel for some cleanup.

Here they are, ready to be drilled to the rudder.

To drill them on the rudder (without a lot of guidance from the manual), I clamped them in place (once I figured out where I wanted them, which appears to be up to you). I left about 1/16″ between the diagonal cutout on the strips and the back of the rudder brace.

Clamped, and ready to start drilling.

Because I generally don’t like drilling into my own fingers, I use two clamps around two holes, drill those two, and put a cleco in the second hole.

Clamp and drill, drill, cleco. Clamp and drill, drill, cleco. Down the line.

Here’s the after shot for the right attach strip.

Right attach strip complete.

I repeated the process for the left side. You don’t need any pictures, do you? Fine. Here’s an after shot.

Both attach strips done.

Finally, I found one rivet on the left skin that I wanted to drill out.

Sitting a little proud, eh?

#40 dril, right down the middle.

Centerpunched and drilled.

Then, I flip the bit around (or grab the back of a spare bit), stick it in the hole and…

Ready to remove the rivet.

BEND THAT MOFO OUT!

The rivet head pulling out.

After that, you are usually left with the shaft and shop head of the rivet stuck in the hole.

Part of the rivet remains.

You can use a punch or drill bit to push it out the backside.

Here's the hole, ready for a new rivet. Looks like I may need to clean up the hole a little on the right side. I'll take a closer look once I pull the skins off the skeleton.

Great day today. No rivets set, and one drilled out, but a ton of productive loud noise time while the girlfriend was out doing errands.

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Posted by Andrew

Finished Backriveting Stiffeners

February 27, 2010

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I didn’t get to spend very much time in the shop today, but the half hour I did spend on the project was a good half hour.

I grabbed the stiffeners that I had primed on Friday night and laid (layed?) them on the left rudder skin.

Primed stiffeners, ready to be backriveted.

Then, I backriveted them.

All done.

Sorry about the lack of pictures.

116 backriveted flush rivets set.

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Posted by Andrew

More Stiffeners, Some Skeleton

February 26, 2010

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Yes, Friday night! That means instead of being social, I get to stay home and work on the airplane. Wuhoo!

Anyway, after a good workout, I spent a couple hours in the airplane factory. First thing, I grabbed the two primed stiffeners from last night, and got them backriveted in.

#5 and #6 of 8 on the right rudder skin.

Then, I edge finished, scuffed, cleaned, and primed the last two stiffeners on the right skin. Once they were dry, I got those installed permanently, too.

#7 and #8 (two on the far left) of 8 on the right rudder skin.

I couldn’t help myself. I flipped the skin over, and removed the tape to reveal a very smooth skin. I like backriveting. The backriveting plate left some very very very small marks within about a dime sized area around the rivet heads, but I know those will polish out.

A finished right rudder skin. Those wrinkles in the vinyl in the middle where there when the skin was delivered. It didn't look like there was any damage underneath.

After spending some time admiring the right skin, I decided to finish the edges for the left skin’s stiffeners. After that, they got scuffed, cleaned, and set up on my fancy priming bench. Here they are ready for primer.

8 left skin stiffeners, ready for primer.

While those dried on one side, I decided to dive on in to the rudder skeleton. First, they have you cleco the R-904 root rib to the R-902 Spar. Tough step, but I managed.

Started on the rudder skeleton.

Then, because it was late, I had to skip the steps with the drilling and the fabricating the “shim” etc. I moved on to clecoing the spar reinforcement plates in. Here are the top two.

Fancy pants, huh?

Then, they have you grab the R-909? (tip rib) and R-912 counterbalance rib and cleco those to the spar after fluting, if necessary. It was necessary.

R-912 Counterbalance rib on the left, R-909 tip rib on the right. You can see I fluted the tip rib too much toward the aft end (top of the picture). I'll straighten it out tomorrow.

After that, they have you cleco the dreaded counterbalance skin to those two ribs. I’ve heard bad things about this step (mostly difficulty due to bad fit). Well, it was slightly difficult, but mainly due to perfect fit. If you start from the front (bottom right of the picture), everything will work out, but the fit is pretty precise. There is no slop in these prepunched kits.

The right side of the counterbalance skin clecoed on.

Then, I flipped the assembly over and clecoed on the left side of the counterbalance skin.

Left side clecoed on. (Hey, you can see my fancy fluting pliers back there.)

By then, the remaining stiffeners were dry on one side, so I shot the other side with primer and headed in for bed. (For blogging, and then bed.)

asdf

66 rivets today, all backriveted. Also, I passed 1000 rivets set today. A little bit of a milestone, although I think there are something like 20,000 rivets in the whole kit. So, I guess I’m 5% there.

Good night.

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Posted by Andrew

Stiffener Prep, Priming, and some Backriveting

February 25, 2010

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Tonight, I decided I wanted to get started on backriveting the stiffeners. First, I had to finish edge prepping them, and get them primed. Here are my edge prepping tools for these stiffeners.

Permagrit, scotchbrite, an edge deburring tool, and one of the stiffeners. Sorry about the dirty table, that's from me waxing my skis. See the big spot near the top of the picture. That's from me getting wax on the iron, and trying to scrape it off using the table. Maybe I'll turn my benchtop over tonight so I look like a clean builder again.

After getting a few of them prepped, I went ahead and started priming.

Stiffeners drying.

Here’s the right skin, ready to accept the stiffeners.

Right skin, with rivets ready to go.

At first, I tried this backriveting extra long double offset rivet set I got from Avery. I don’t really like this thing. With the pressure turned all the way up to 50 psig, the rivets weren’t really setting well, and the plastic sheath was marring the stiffeners.

Here's what I tried the for the first stiffener.

Although the results are good, I ended up switching to another set.

Very pretty. I'm sure some of that marring will come out during polish. Very nice surface, though.

Then I switched sets to a large7/16″ cupped set, which worked well to keep the set (with no plastic sheath) on the rivet as it was being driven, but left some of them with a little bit of a rounded edge. I’m sure this is okay, but need to have someone come look at it.

Still, they look pretty good.

Here’s a better shot. They are okay, but not perfect.

See the slight rounded edge to them? I'm sure that is okay.

I managed to get through 4 stiffeners before I started getting tired and went to bed.

4 of 8 stiffeners done on the right skin.

I pulled the tape off of the exterior side…these look really good. I am excited to maybe polish the rudder so you can all admire my work.

1 hour today, 50 rivets. Wuhoo!

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Posted by Andrew

Skin Dimpling and Priming

February 22, 2010

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I snuck home over lunch today to get a couple things done, one of which was work on the airplane loudly. First, I set up my c-frame and spent some time verifying, re-verifying, and trip verifying that I was going to dimple in the correct direction. These rudder skins are thin, and I didn’t want to make any mistakes here. I set the skins on the table with the exterior side up, and the c-frame with the male die above, pointing down, and then dimpled all the holes in the skin. Jack and Ginger (who were inside), clearly don’t like me dimpling with the c-frame and told me so with a pair of barks, each. We did get into a nice rhythm, though. [whack]  Bark, bark…bark, bark.  [whack] Bark, bark…bark, bark. It helped pass the time, but I hope I didn’t cause them too much stress.

My dimpling setup for the rudder skins.

After that, I flipped them over and cleaned the scuffed lines.

Skins cleaned and drying.

After drying, I shot them with some self-etching primer. I was at the end of one of the cans, and some of the stuff came out kind of splotchy, but I think it will look good after it dries. I can always lay down another coat.

The left skin after priming.

Another thing. I’ve been putting blue tape on the exterior side, then laying the skins down flat and shooting them with primer. When I do this, some primer gets into the dimple (from the underside I am priming), and kind of bounces off the sticky side of the blue tape and settles in the dimple on the finish side. Today, I made sure none of the holes were obscured; hopefully that will prevent any primer from getting on the exterior surface. I thought about taping the final rivets in the dimples, since that is the next step with the skins anyway, but I am not sure about using self-etching primer on unset rivets, then setting them. I have never seen that done before, and I don’t want to be the first guy to try. I’m sure I would have been okay, but the other way seemed to work fine.

And the right skin after priming.

After work, I put rivets in all of the dimples, taped them up, and flipped the skins over to lay the stiffeners in. One note, since I am using the tank dies, the rivet sizes must be lengthened in some places. All of the stiffener rivets were too short before setting, so I am going to substitute AN426AD3-3.5 rivets for the AN426AD3-3s called out in the plans. Except for the aft-most rivet in each row. The construction manual tells you to make sure you set this rivet fully, so I’m going to leave the shorter one in there.

See these rivets? They look okay, until you put the stiffener in

Once you get the stiffener in, you can see they aren’t the recommended 1.5 times diameter. I’m also a little concerned that the dimpled holes are a little big for the rivets. I didn’t notice this on the other components using the tank dies. Hmm. I’m going to look around and see if anyone else has encountered this.

Not long enough. (TWSS)

I was moving along merrily until I got to this hole. Doh!

Forgot to dimple this hole. I had to break out the c-frame just for this one lonely hole.

After I got all the rivets in and taped, I flipped the skin over.

These rivets will be long enough.

Then, one by one, I final trimmed the stiffeners (snipped the 90° corners off with the snips) and laid them in to see what it would look like.

asdf

A solid hour and a half. After edge prepping and priming the stiffeners, I should be ready to install the stiffeners permanently.

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Posted by Andrew

Skin Devinyling, Stiffener Dimpling

February 21, 2010

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We got a ton of work done on the house this weekend (paint, patio furniture), and a little work done on the airplane.

Yesterday morning over coffee, I brought the right rudder skin into the kitchen and started devinyling. After giving it a lot of thought, I am only going to remove the vinyl (and then scuff and prime) the rudder stiffener locations right now. Later, after matchrilling the skins to the skeletons, I’ll devinyl, scuff, and prime those mating surfaces.

A couple strips done.

After finishing up the exterior side of the skin, I flipped that bad boy over and started on the interior side. I was more careful about tracing lines here, because this is where the primer will go. (Although no one will ever see the inside of the rudder skin once I have it assembled.)

Here's my wooden stick I use to devinyl in a straight line.

After finishing the right skin, I brought in the left.

Here we go. Hmm. Dog bowls are empty, I think the pups must be hungry.

Here is the interior side of the left rudder skin.

Pretty devinyled strips. I think the exterior of the skin is done, too.

Then it was off to do some errands, one of which was a stop by Harbor Freight. I got a mailing the other day, and they had some fantastic deals on some things I wanted.

7-Piece Body Repair Kit. First, the “body repair kit” was $19.99. Look at the 4 bucking bars in there! I don’t really care about the hammers, but my small bucking bar was not really cutting it for some of the rivets I needed to buck. The best improvement with these new bars…hand holds. They have little cutouts in the side for your fingers so you can get a great hold on the bar. I’m happy.

11″ Locking C-clamp. These come in handy for clamping things around flanges. I needed one of these, and ended up walking away from Harbor Freight for about $6.

3-piece locking pliers. I have a small set of needle-nose locking pliers and love them, I figured for $4.99 for 3, I couldn’t go wrong. The quality isn’t the best (the screw mechanism is a little sticky), but they should work.

6-piece presicion pliers. I have a couple of these from various places and I love them. 4 pliers, and 2 cutters. I’m most looking forward to the extra long pliers second from the top. Those will help me overcome my huge sausage fingers.

Hooray shopping.

Also, I grabbed this $19.99 air filter/regulator. I wanted a better regulator/filter/oiler, and this one looks like it will fit the bill. I hope the quality is high enough to not disappoint me.

Air filer/regulator. Should work well, and will relieve me from having to oil my tools every day.

Next, I spent a ton of time deburring the skins. I think it is something like 119 holes per skin, times two sides, times two skins. Yes, my fingers hurt. Here I am scuffing the inside of the skins after deburring.

Deburring and scuffing.

I was getting fancy with the camera, so here’s a closeup of one of the strips after deburring and scuffing.

Deburred and scuffed strip on the interior side of the skin.

And another picture of a strip before scuffing. This hole has been deburred, though. i should have taken a picture of an un-deburred hole for you. Sorry.

Deburred, but not scuffed.

While Mike Bullock has his Natty Boh, I have my Blue Moon (well, Rising Moon, their seasonal).

The moon!

Scuffing the left skin.

More scuffing.

All done!Finally, I finished scuffing the interior of the skins. After I get these all cleaned up (it will be harder to clean after dimpling) , I can get these dimpled and primed.

All done!

Here’s a nice closeup of me deburring the stiffeners.

Deburring the stiffeners.

After finishing deburring all of the stiffeners (which is two more deburr operations for each of the holes from the skins), I pulled out the squeezer and tank dies (for the skeletons, which I’m considering understructure).

I like playing with these.

I decided to go ahead and scuff and dimple the stiffeners now, while I can’t make any loud noises (post 10pm). I should have edge finished the stiffeners first, but I’ll still be able to use the scotchbrite wheel on them after they are dimpled. To save time, I’ll edge finish these while I am priming the interior of the skins later this week. Anyway, here are some dimpling shots.

Getting ready to dimple.

Squeezing.

The end result.

A few minutes of this, and the right stiffeners are done (still not edge finished, though).

Right side stiffeners done.

Wash, rinse, repeat for the left side.

Both sets of stiffeners done. Time for bed.

2.5 hours today. Boring, tedious work, but still the most fun a man can have with his clothes on.

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Posted by Andrew

More Rudder Stiffeners

February 20, 2010

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After a very busy end of the work week, I managed to squeeze a couple hours of airplane time in the shop today. I started by mocking up the R-902 front spar, and drawing a black line on the left rudder skin (this is the forward bottom edge of the left skin). I’m going to draw out all of the mating surfaces on these skins, since they will have to be primed at different times (more on this later).

Forward bottom corner of the left skin. You can see the front end of the only full size stiffener.

Next, I dove into match-drilling the stiffeners and skin. Here are the first size holes drilled. I don’t want any waviness in the rudder, so I am clecoing every hole as I drill. (You can see that like everyone else, I am drilling straight into the MDF that’s on top of my workbench. This works well, and is basically per the plans.

First six holes of the stiffener to skin match-drilling process.

After I finished the first (lower) stiffener, the next one needed to be cut down to size. I made another mark on that stiffener, this time in line with the front spar line I drew earlier. Now, when I trim the stiffeners on the aft side of that line, there will be no interference with the front spar.

Getting ready to trim the second stiffener.

Then, I got in the groove, so the next picture was after a few of the stiffeners. I used my cordless for this. Not as noisy.

Lower 4 stiffeners done on the left skin.

All done with the left side. Oh yeah, it was 60° today, so I worked with the garage door open. So nice…

There's something really rewarding about getting to this point. OH MY GOD!, WHAT IS THAT MARK BETWEEN THE FIRST TWO STIFFENERS!?

A closer look…

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I turns out I dropped my cleco pliers from about 8 inches right after I completed the first stiffener. Instead of immediately pulling up the stiffener to inspect the exterior skin, I guessed that it was going to be salvageable and pressed on.

To put it into context, it is just above the first "L" in "ALCLAD."

It’s not that bad, but it would be very noticeable If I polish. (Even if I paint, it is still a pretty big mark.

From the other (exterior) side. Bummer.

Anyway, I’ve heard people talking about using the back of a spoon to gently massage stuff like this out. I spent about 15 minutes gently massaging, and I ended up with this. It looks worse than the original picture, but it is pretty flush now, and I think with a little more work may even go away.

After massaging. It's good, but not great.

Anyway, after that fiasco, I laid out the right skin, marked the front spar and trailing edge wedge on the skin, and started match-drilling stiffeners. I was in such a groove that I forgot to take a picture when I had all of the stiffeners drilled and clecoed. (I didn’t forget to take a moment to admire it, I just forgot to share it with you.)

After removing most of the clecos post match-drilling.

Also, while all the stiffeners were in place, I drew lines on each side of the stiffeners so I would have a guide for devinyling.

I call it match-drawing.

After pondering my next few steps (debur, dimple, scuff, clean, prime, backrivet the stiffeners on), I decided I need to get the vinyl off for deburring.

Here's the wooden stick I use as a guide for the soldering iron.

I don’t think I’ve shown you guys my round-tipped soldering iron yet. Here you go.

Soldering iron, heating up.

After running the soldering iron down the pre-drawn lines, I get to devinyl. I say “get to” because I like this part.

Whose fingers are those?

All done with the stiffener devinyling. You can see I didn’t do all of the outlined parts, because I want to prep and prime those later. (Have to assemble the skeleton, cleco on the skin, and match drill before you can debur, dimple, prep, etc. the rest of the stuff. Also, I need to find out if people are priming the trailing edge area before using Pro-seal. I have a feeling people are just scuffing, but I’ll ask the forums to make sure.

Ready to deburr, dimple, scuff, and prime.

Next up, devinyling the left skin.

2.0 hours today. Gotta go get cleaned up for festivities tonight.

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Posted by Andrew

Started Rudder – Stiffeners

February 16, 2010

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Well, with the vertical stabilizer safely in the airplane storage room, it’s time to get started on another part. Next up, the (infamous) rudder. There are a lot of steps on the rudder that give a lot of builders a lot of trouble. I am confident, but will continue to use other sites on a daily basis before doing any work that evening. That’s worked out well for me so far, so I’m going to keep at it.

First thing’s first, the ceremonial plans change. I still keep the plans on my second workbench. Maybe someday I’ll find a place to actually hang them up.

Drawing 7. The Rudder. (Cue dramatic music.)

I spent a little time trying to figure out whether I will do the stiffener-to-skin dance on both sides at once, or just one side. You can see below that if I had another longer piece of MDF and maybe took my vise off the bench, I could set the skins on opposite corners and maybe do them at once, but I think I’ll just do one at a time, making sure I can reuse the holes I plan to drill into the table. (Drilling, and then clecoing, the stiffeners to the skins all the way into the table will allow me to keep everything very steady. Sounds like a good plan to me, and is pretty much standard given that Van’s suggests doing so in the construction manual.)

I'll have to do one skin at a time. I don't want to get too crowded, and I am not overly concerned with building efficiency.

First step in the manual is to start on the stiffeners. I fished out the bundle of stiffeners (there are two bundles, one set for the rudder, and one set for the elevator) and studied the plans.  For the back side of the stiffeners (with the shallow angle on the right side of the picture below), these are the final cuts, so I need to be careful. For the front side (you can see a little of the front of a stiffener on the left in this picture), only 2 of the 16 stiffeners will be to full length, so the other 14 can be rough cut until I can mark them to final size per the note at the tot of this picture.

Stiffener Trim detail, drawing 7.

Next, I headed inside to sit myself down at the table so I could watch the UNC vs. GT game. I know some of you are panicking right now, but please calm yourselves. While it appears that my winerack is empty (OH MY GOD, NOOOOO!), that is really our third winerack. Rest assured that our two primary wineracks are stocked satisfactorily.

Is that an empty winerack? Don't worry, the hooch is stored in another rack.

Anyway, here’s the stiffener bundle I’m about to break open.

R-915. (I can't think of a funny caption this morning, so all you get is the part number.)

I broke open the bundle and started snipping from center hole to center hole. After a few stiffeners, I started biasing the cuts to the sides of the holes, but only where I was sure that I was going to have to remove more metal later.  Here you can see that on the top part of the cut, I’m lined up with the left side of the slot.

Snip snip.

I included another picture of the angle cut for the front end of the stiffener. Remember, only two of these cuts are for real, as the next step is to chop off varying lengths of stiffener from the front to match up with the pre-drilled holes in the skin.

Snippity Snip snip.

Here’s a rough cut for the front end. See how I am going to have to remove more metal because of the notches. Might as well get closer on the first cut. That’s why I started biasing the cuts to one side after the first few.

The front end of the first stiffener.

First 8 front ends done.

Yikes, those are going to need some edge finishing.

All 16 stiffeners’ front ends done.

That's a spicy stiffener.

Next, I used an admittedly fat sharpie to draw the required cut lines on the aft ends of each of the stiffeners.

Lines drawn, back to snipping.

And here I am using the snips to cut that longer line. Snips aren’t perfect for this task, since they bend the metal, but if you work them correctly, they will only bend the piece you are cutting off. There is kind of a rocking motion you have to feel with each cut. You’ll get it when you try.

Snipping the aft end.

Here’s the first one, done.

I'm a little camera happy today, don't you think?

Then, I finished up the other 15, and was left with these scraps. If I had even the slightest hint of an artistic bone in my body, I would make some comment about how these resulting spirals are king of cool. But I don’t, so I won’t.

Scrap from the latest cuts.

All 16, ready to be devinyled.

Done with those cuts.

Starting to devinyl…

This is going to take forever.

I’m glad I did the devinyling inside. When the vinyl is warm, it comes right off.

Holy crap that's a lot of blue v-......WHOSE TOES ARE THOSE AND HOW DID THEY GET IN THE PICTURE!?

Next, I headed outside to put everything away, but couldn’t resist setting the stiffeners out on the skins.

I'll need to trim some of these, don't you think?

For now, I just drew a thick marker line along the front spar holes. If I cut along these lines, they will still be too long, but at least now I can figure out which hole will be the most forward hole and then use the plans-suggested 1/4″ measurement to draw a nicer cut line.

8 of the 16 stiffeners, ready for final cutting.

One hour of camera-happy warm environment work tonight. Sorry about your bandwidth.

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Posted by Andrew

Vertical Stabilizer 99 Percent Complete

February 15, 2010

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Jack and Ginger were a little neglected this weekend while the girlfriend and I painted the master bedroom. I’m sorry, guys.

Anyway, tonight was all about them, so in the middle of playing, napping by the fire, and running in circles around the house, I managed to calm them down enough to help with the airplane a little.

With the few minutes I had, I managed to set the 22 rivets that were hard to reach with the squeezer last Friday night. A few of them, especially near the elevator hinge brackets, were still hard, but I managed to get them all set, even if it was after drilling a few out. I also set the three AN470AD4-6 rivets that hold the rear spar to the root rib and also install the three LP4-3 rivets that hold the rear spar to the middle rib.  Here are the dogs, once I got the vertical up into the ski equipment room, umm, I mean airplane parts storage room, umm, I mean burnt orange room.

The dogs flew again. This time with directional stability!

They aren’t really happy about being in the orange room in general (it is off limits, so they are very good about not crossing the threshold), but especially not when they have to pose in the airplane. I know for a fact, though, that they will love flying in it when it’s done.

Jack's not very happy about posing. He's ready to go.Jack's slightly less uncomfortable the further he is away from the "shiny blue thing that makes loud noises." Seriously, I heard him describe it that way.

Ginger’s okay, though. Especially when there is a bone on which she could be chewing.


Jack's slightly less uncomfortable the further he is away from the "shiny blue thing that makes loud noises." Seriously, I heard him describe it that way.

Finally, one without the dogs.

Tada!!!

All in all, a good night. 1 hour, 28 rivets set, 5 drilled out.

There are still a few more things I would like to do to the vertical, like drill out a couple of rivets and reset them, and clean up some of the skin edges, but for the most part, it can sit inside while I press on. I can’t believe it took me 16.5 hours for the vertical versus 44.5 for the horizontal. I think I would recommend to other newbies to start on the vertical. It seemed to be a lot easier, but I don’t know if that was because I had done everything once already on the horizontal, or because it really was easier. Whatever you do, don’t take my advice, though. You’ll die if you do.

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Posted by Andrew

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