Rudder is completed

 

Finally, the rudder is complete. It only took me 6 months or so. Next thing to do is to show it to our EAA tech counselor to make sure he approves it. On to horizontal stabilizer!

Rudder is nearing completion

 

I have done the trailing edge of the rudder. I was obsessing about it for several months, then I did it in afternoon.

I followed the plans, except for using mushroom set to finish off all the rivets. I was doing gradual backriveting on them and things looked well. When I tried to use mushroom set, the edge started deforming almost immediately. I stopped and continued with backriveting. 

I think it turned out well, except the small part where I used mushroom set, which is still OK.

Rudder is getting along

Dasha, mama,  grandma and me, we all took part in making progress on our rudder, which now is getting ready for trailing edge riveting.

Rudder work continues

In the past week and a half, somehow a state of normalcy is feeling stronger and stronger. Dasha is getting used to school, so things calming down.
After visiting Triple Tree Fly in, I've started working of rudder again.
I've primed all parts, riveted stiffeners to the skins, riveted bottom rib and horn, plate nuts. Almost every day I did a little bit, so that today I'm ready to start mixing Proseal to attach rudder edge and rivet it inside.
I managed to break my pop rivet puller today. Although I think I have fixed it, I've lost a retaining spring ring which holds the mechanism in the housing. Tomorrow will need to visit Lowes to get that ring.
When riveting bottom rib to right skin, I could not put a flush rivet in the aft hole. I mean, I could put the rivet in, but there was no way to squeeze it even using thin nose yoke... so I used pop rivet which is called on the left skin. I guess my rudder will have these pop rivets on both sides. 

Rudder skins are dimpled

I dimpled rudder skins tonight. DRDT-2 works very well.
My mom dimpled a few holes too. This is getting to be a truly family airplane. 

1 hour 15 minutes today.

More rudder work today

Today I have made a lot of progress.
I have match drilled all holes in the rudder, but then I ran out of cleco's again. Page 7/6 calls for drilling and clecoing every hole both in spar and in the trailing edge. I started with spar (after I match drilled all stiffeners and ribs). By the end I had maybe 15 clecos left. So I decided to keep clecos in every other hole in the spar. That had freed up quite a few of them.
Then I drilled and clecoed every hole in the trailing edge.
After that I have disassembled the rudder and deburred holes and everything else that was not. There was quite a lot of deburring, but it is done.
I then proceeded to dimple ribs and stiffeners.
Interesting, plans call for dimpling of bottom rib (R-1004A/B) and spar (R-1002). I used my pneumatic squeezer to dimple stiffeners with #40 (3/32) dies. Dimples look very nice. However, when I dimpled bottom rib, dimples did not look very pronounced. A rivet does not set flush in there. I decided to ask Vans - should the bottom rib and spar flanges be countersunk instead of dimpled? Let's see what they say.
Aside from skins and spar everything is now dimpled.
Not much to show, but here is the rudder after match drilling during disassembly.

Hours today 7:45.
Total hours on rudder 12:45
Total hours on build 82:45.

Rudder is assembled, well, almost.

Run out of clecoes!

Today I made a good progress on the rudder. I spent evening putting together all parts of the skeleton. Deburred everything I needed and could - stiffeners, skins. Then put everything together.
Interesting note - I did not pay attention to where bend is displayed in the drawings. There are two sets of parts - shear clips and stiffeners which are bend, but, of course, they are drawn flat. So when I marked and cut stiffeners, I marked "L" on my my left and "R" on my right.
When I was putting skeleton together, "L" should went on top of "R", but not in my case. I have the opposite - "R" goes on top of "L". This is not a big deal because parts are the same and I still did what the plans call for - the part on the left goes on top of the part on the right. Still, need to pay close attention to where the bend is. I'm suspect there are a few places in the build where this is very important.
Finally, I've run out of clecoes and had to stop. The rest of the clecoes are on the vertical stabilizer which I hope to start riveting skin on tomorrow.

Rudder build continues

 

In the past couple of days I spent a few minutes here and there preparing and cutting stiffeners. 

Today I have deburred stiffeners, prepared bottom rip, rudder horn, match drilled and assembled what is seen in the picture.

Maybe spent an hour and a half.
Barney and Eva are visible through the lightening holes. :-)

Rudder begins

Tonight I started cutting first rudder parts.
I have separated and deburred top rib, bottom rib, and shear clips.
This is easy part when one remembers how tools work.