Here's another shot.
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The kids came to hang-out with us in the garage for a while today. We weren't driving rivets or running the air compressor, so they enjoy hanging with us so long as there aren't any scary noises. Thought this was a cute shot of the two of them nestled up together. No - this is not staged. These two love each other.
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Scary rolling part begins. As Van's recommends, we used a pipe (although it is a PVC pipe), and duct taped it to the edge of the skin. This shot is after the first shot at "rolling" it. This is not an easy job. You have to push down and pull the pipe at the same time you're trying to roll it. It takes a few times, and it's not pretty the first time around. Biggest thing is not to bend the inner-most part (where the two will overlap) too much. Otherwise you'll have a "V" at the intersection where the two pieces meet. Best to have them remain flatter so when you squeeze the two sides together to cleco, they will actually lay flat against each other. If the inner-most edges are bent to meet horizontally before you squeeze the two together... you've bent too much.
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Here we temporarity rolled the pipe out of the way for this picture. Notice how the inner-most edge is still pointed outwards somewhat? This is good. We need to roll a little more here, but more towards the spar line. Again - there is no pretty way to attack this process.
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See... not the straightest looking bend you've ever seen, eh? Not to worry. Once you have a good bend angle, take your hand-seamers and straighten them out a bit. Time for side two!
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Voila! The completed bend. We didn't get this the first time around. It takes some real work to manipulate the aluminum the way you want it. Here we are all cleco'd and ready for Drilling. Done for tonight, but as you can see, not too much more to complete the rudder, then we'll hop back to the elevators. Time is ticking! Wings are due to arrive mid-June.
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