Got a bit off task today. While tidying up I saw the elevator trim servo and remembered I needed to make a couple of shims to mount between it and the bracket to stop it interferring witht he rivets that hold the bracket in place.

I knocked these out in about 15 minutes.

It’s good to be back working on the plane after a long break.

I riveted the left elevator closed and bent the tabs that close off where the trim tab cutout is. As per the instructions I made a couple of wooden bending blocks, clamped it all together then made the bend. It was finished off with a few passes of the flat set in the rivet gun to make it nice and flat.

Then I finished the riveting off on the left elevator and riveted the tabs closed.

This was the first of several rolled leading edges in this airplane. The trick is to make sure you hold the pipe your using to roll the edge with down hard against the bench. If it lifts off the bench you’ll get a crease in the skin where the spar ends. (don’t ask me how I know)

With the new baby in the house it’s hard to find a second pair of hands so I really needed a solution that meant I could get this done by myself. After a quick search on VAF I have to thanks Dan Horton for this excellent idea.

 

I did the rolling in sections which I found easier to manage and meant I didn’t need as much force to turn the wrench. As you wind the leading edge rolls up and the control surface (rudder) slides forward across the bench. this worked really well.

 

After a lot of work tweaking things i finally got the trailing edges of the rudder skins to nest acceptably into the countersinks on the trailing edge wedge.

I mixed up some pro-seal and glued it in place. The whole assemble was cleco’d to a piece of pre-drilled aluminium angle to keep it straight while the pro-seal set. I also put a blob (technical term) of pro-seal between the left and right stiffeners where they meet at the trailing edge. This should support things and help resist the skin cracking in that area - a fairly common problem.

Attached the rudder skins to the skeleton. There are a few rivets that I can’t get easily. I’ll think about the various options for setting them and come back to them later.

 

 

Started to assembly the rudder today.  Attached the nutplates and reinforcement plates to the rudder spar.

And riveted the rudder horn to the spar.

 

 The tip rib was attached and the counterbalance skin fitted. I had to remove a small amount of lead to allow the rudder counterbalance weight to clear the rivet shop heads.

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