(7-11 step 2):
This morning before work I snuck out in the garage for 30 min or
so to get a little 'hands on'. I cleaned up the gum left by the
duct tape from Wednesday, and rolled one of the middle leading edge
skin flaps. This was about all I had time for before we headed
off to work. A very short day today at work. Once back
home, I continued on the leading edge. This was one of those
tedious processes. It wasn't extremely difficult, just more of a
pain than anything! There are no set rules on how to do it.
You just simply try something, see if it works, and try something else
if it doesn't. I found that the 1-1/4" pipe wasn't rolling the
edge quite enough. It was easier to roll, but I couldn't get the
edge rolled enough. I pulled the two edges together and clecoed
them but since they were trying to pull apart, they would bulge between
the clecoes. Rolling the edges tighter seemed to solve this so I
found a smaller diameter pipe. The only thing I had (I didn't
want to go buy something else until I knew it was what I wanted) was a
piece of 3/4" pvc. This proved to be a better diameter, however
it would tend to bend under the forces. This resulted in the edge
having a slightly tighter radius at the ends than in the middle.
Not much, but enough to produce slight bulges in the center section
after the edges were clecoed together. I was able to massage them
out (mostly), so it wasn't that big of a deal. I think I like the
tighter diameter pipe better.
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After
cleaning the leading edges up I closed them up with clecos to see how
they fit. There were some bulges between clecos in a couple of
places so I'd pull the leading edges back apart, massage them a little
by hand, and cleco again. This took a while but I was eventually
happy with the results. After that it was time to final drill the
holes for the AD-41-ABS pop rivets that would eventually hold it
shut. Original thought was to simply drill the holes while the
rudder was laying on the table, but in order to keep as much of the
aluminum shavings out of the internal part of the rudder I decided to
stand it up and tilt it towards me while I drilled. This would
allow the shavings to slide down the leading edge as opposed to fall
back through the lightening holes in the rudder spar.
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(8-5 step 8):
While I was having a blast ;-) with the rudder, Angela was out
taking advantage of the beautiful weather. Here she's deburring
the horizontal stabilizer front spar caps.
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(7-11 step 2):
Since priming, as most builders will tell you, is mainly for
peace of mind, we decided early on that every part of this plane will
be primed. Well, since the rudder leading edge skins overlap each
other, one of them wouldn't be exposed for painting later, so we
decided to put a coat of primer on it before closing it up. I
roughed up the surface with a scotchbrite pad, mixed up some of our
AKZO primer & brushed it on before clecoing the leading edges in
preparation for riveting.
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Since the final drilling left
the holes exposed I also dipped the rivets prior to popping them in...
may not take the time to do this step in the future, but I wanted to
try it & I was in the mood. Since I already had the primer
mixed up, this added negligible time to the process. Here's a
shot of the leading edge after it was complete. Now all that's
left is the counter balance!
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(8-6 step 4):
Still waiting on me to finish the rudder ;-) Angela moved on to
other things on the horizontal stabilizer. Here she's deburring
one of the HS-1004 inspar ribs that she cut part of the flange off.
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Angela took this shot to show
some of the tools she used on the inspar rib. One of the tools we
received from her friend has three sides, all razor sharp. She
says this is her new favorite debur tool for lightening holes.
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(8-7 step 1): Here
Angela is putting those tools to work! You know, by the time we
get the vertical stabilizer & rudder finished, we'll be a good
portion through our horizontal stabilizer also... kewl!
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