January 30th, 2005
Shannon and I got to work on the rudder stiffners. Here Shannon is breaking the edges on one.
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I spent a couple hours this week marking all the stiffners out before I cut them. Van's packages the rudder and elevator stiffners together. Each piece actually has 3 stiffners in it, all different lenghts. Van's drills some holes so you know where to cut them and then taper them down. Here is one of the tapered edges I have marked out.
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Using aviation metal snips and pair of hand-nibblers, I've tapered the edge that will go towards the trailing edge of the rudder. A band saw would make this job a LOT easier, though they are a bit of money. However, when you consider the time savings and the fact we still have a lot more fabricating in front of us (wings and fuselage), then it may be worth the money. I am going to see if I can find a used one or if my dad has one laying around (the man has EVERY tool known to mankind).
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Here's the rudder skin. We've started attaching the stiffners we've completed.
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Here I am with the hand-nibblers trying to get as close as possible to the line, leaving just a little room to then go over it with a hand file to get the nibblers shear marks out, and finally hit it with the scotchbrite wheel.
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Here's the outside view of the rudder with more stiffners attached. Once we get them drilled, deburred, primed, and riveted, we'll be bending the forward (open side) of the rudder inward and attaching a verticle spar where the hinges will attach off the rear of the verticle stabilizer.
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