Archive for category Rudder
More Rudder Prep (11/29/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 29, 2009
1.5 Hours -
More rudder prep today. I’ve finished just about everything I can until my order from onlinemetals.com arrives.
First, I had to match drill the rudder counterweight to the counterweight rib. Then, I countersunk the weight using my deburr tool. The weight is lead, a very soft metal, so removing material was simple. The rib, however, had to be dimpled and I don’t have a #10 dimple set.
There are not many places where you have to use a #10 dimple die, so buying one would be a bit of a waste of money. Many other builders have made there own, so I followed suit. The female die was made by countersinking a piece of wood. I then dimpled the rib using my #8 dimple die and finished off the dimple by placing a screw through the rib and wood block and tightening a nut until the screw adequately pulled the metal into place around it. The resulting dimple wasn’t perfect, but it will suffice.
A wood block was used to make a #10 dimple die.
Using my homemade #10 dimple die on the counterweight rib.
The counterweight rib is dimpled while the counterweight is countersunk.
Finally, I prepped and primed all of the rudder pieces except for the trailing edge wedge. I still need to countersink both sides of all the holes on the wedge, so priming it will have to wait for another day.
More priming...
Deburring and Dimpling The Rudder (11/28/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 28, 2009
4.5 Hours -
Four and a half hours of dimpling and deburring today and I’m still not done with the rudder final prep. The skins are done, but there are a few holes on the ribs that I can’t dimple yet. When my order from onlinemetals.com arrives, I’ll make a thin bucking bar that will also have #30 and #40 female dimple dies drilled into it. Using these female dies, I’ll be able to dimple the aft few holes on the tip and bottom ribs.
Initial Rudder Assembly Finished (11/25/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 25, 2009
1.7 Hours -
Last night, I left the rudder assembled, but not final drilled. Drilling the remaining holes took about 30 minutes.
Next, I returned to the rudder brace and trimmed away a portion of the flange per the plans. To do this, I did a rough cut with snips (I hate snips) and then did a final cut with the Dremel. I went ahead and finished the edges on this piece as well since I want to smooth out the cuts before I attempted assembly.
The rudder brace after trimming per plans.
The rudder brace slipped into position on the rudder horn/bottom rib easily. All the horn and rib attachment holes were final drilled to #30. The brace did not have pre-punched holes for attachment to the skin, so I match drilled those using the skin as a guide.
The rudder brace attached to the rudder.
Finally, I fabricated two bottom attachment strips (R-918) out of 0.032” thick alclad. These were pretty simple to make, and, as usual, Van’s gives you a very clear drawing. The strips needed to be 18” long by 1-1/8” wide with one end have a slight taper to accommodate the rudder brace.
Reinforcement strips are fabricated and attached to the bottom of the rudder. The bottom tip will eventually attach to these.
Attaching the strips was also simple. the non-tapered end is aligned with the end of the bottom rib and the entire strip is clamped into place against the rib flange. The strips are then match drilled using the skin as a guide for the hole locations.
Bottom tip attachment strips match drilled to the rudder.
Initial rudder assembly is complete. Now, the fun part starts. With all the parts in the rudder, it will probably take me 2 or 3 days to disassemble, deburr and dimple everything. I won’t be able to completely finish the rudder until I get a piece of aluminum angle I have on order from onlinemetals.com. I also need to order some pro-seal from Van’s for gluing the trailing edge.
Initial Rudder Assembly (11/24/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 25, 2009
1.5 Hours -
There seems to be many more parts for the rudder than for either the horizontal or vertical stabilizers. I’m trying my best not to confuse myself by remembering to read ahead in the plans. While the first step may seem confusing, the next six steps usually clear it up!
First, I revisited the rudder horn/lower rib assembly. The rudder horn was not fitting flush inside the flange of the lower rib.
The rudder horn would not fit inside the flange of the lower rib.
I took everything apart and rounded the upper edge of the rudder horn using a vixen file and Scotch-Brite wheel. Once the radius was in place, the rudder horn fit nicely into the rib flange and everything could be easily clamped together. Because the rudder horn is still touching the rib webbing, I will probably remove a little more material during final finishing before assembly. This way, they won’t be rubbing together and wearing each other down over time.
After putting a radius on the top edge of the rudder horn, it fit nicely in the radius of the lower rib flange.
The rudder horn assembly as seen from the top.
Next, I clecoed on the three spar reinforcement plates (R-606PP, 607PP and 608PP) and final drilled everything to size.
The tip rib (R-903) and the counterbalance rib (R-912) were next to go on. Each of these attach with only two holes. Once they were fluted, they were simple to situate and final drill. However, I made a small mistake by not finishing the edges on these two ribs prior to fluting. It won’t be an issue, just a bit of a pain to work around the flutes.
The tip rib and counterweight rib clecoed to the rudder spar.
The rudder has a third skin called the counterbalance skin (R-913). This skin is U-shaped and wraps around the tip and counterbalance ribs. It also overlaps slightly with the main skins. While small, this skin was the hardest piece yet to cleco into place. Because of its shape, it was a challenge to get all the holes to line up. Eventually, I removed the counterweight rib, clecoed the skin to the tip rib, replace the counterweight rib, and finessed all the pieces until I could place the clecoes. With the skin finally on, all the holes were final drilled to #40. After all this work, I realized it is easier to cleco on the forward end of the skin to the ribs and then move to the sides. What can I say…It’s a learning process!
The counterbalance skin was a pain to fit!
With the skeleton assembled, I clecoed on the main rudder skins and fit/clecoed the rudder trailing edge wedge (R-916). Hey, this thing looks like a rudder and the trailing edge is nice and straight so far!
The left rudder skin clecoed on.
The rudder clecoed together. The trailing edge looks nice and straight for now!
The obligatory picture down the trailing edge.
Finally, I dug out the R-710 rudder brace from the box-o-parts. This piece needs to be trimmed down, and, as usual, Van’s notched the part and gave me a detailed drawing to show where the cuts should be made. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do this one with the band saw, so my Dremel will be the second choice (I don’t like metal snips since they seem to bend the metal). I didn’t feel like doing this tonight, so I simply marked part with Sharpie to indicate where the cuts will be made and called it a night.
Sections of the rudder brace must be removed. I'll probably use my Dremel for this.
Back-Riveted Rudder Skins (11/22/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 22, 2009
2.6 Hours -
Time constraints only left me with a couple hours to work on the plane today, but my Dad stopped by and helped things move along a little faster than if I was by myself.
We started by placing rivets in the rudder skins and taping them down with rivet tape. Once all the super-small rivets were taped in place, we flipped the skins over and started to back-rivet the stiffeners on. After a few rivets, we both had the hang of this. My Dad would rivet a couple stiffeners, then I would, and so on until all 16 stiffeners were attached. The back-riveting process was simple, quick, and left a skin with no scratches, dents or other blemishes.
With the stiffeners attached to the skins, we moved on to the rudder skeleton. The first step was to cleco the R-904 bottom rib to the R-902 spar. Simple. Next, I had to drill a hole in the rib to 3/8″ using a hole in the spar as the guide. Again, simple. Then, we fabricated the R-917 shim. This was a little harder, but it was just measuring out a rectangle and cutting it from some aluminum sheet.
The complicated part was match drilling the shim. To do this, we had to line up holes in the rib, spar, shim and the R-405PD rudder horn. Well, we couldn’t get everything to line up. After looking at all the parts for 15 minutes, we realized the rudder horn was not allowing the rib to fit flush. The angle that the horn is constructed from was flat on one edge and rounded on the other. The flat edge was too high to let the rib slid down to the proper height. It will need to be rounded to match to other side and, then, all the pieces should nicely fit together.
Rows of rivet tape!
Rivet tape is used to hold all the rivets in place when the piece is flipped over.
My Dad picked up back-riveting quickly.
All the stiffeners are back-riveted to the rudder skin.
Back-riveting is quick, yields good shop heads and a perfectly smooth outer skin.
A Day of Deburring and Dimpling (11/21/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 21, 2009
4.6 Hours -
Nothing too exciting today.
I spent 2 hours finishing the edges of the right stiffeners, 15 minutes dimpling all sixteen stiffeners with the squeezer, 30 minutes removing protective vinyl from the rudder skins, 45 minutes dimpling the skins with the c-frame, and 66 minutes prepping and priming all these pieces. I’m exhausted!
Tomorrow, my Dad is coming over to help. We’ll back rivet the stiffeners to the skins and start the rudder skeleton.
Another one for the FAA...me dimpling the rudder skins with a c-frame.
A fresh line of dimples in the rudder skin.
16 primed rudder stiffeners.
I primed the inside of the rudder skins where the stiffeners will attach.
Finished Half of the Rudder Stiffeners (11/19/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 19, 2009
1.1 Hours -
It took me just over an hour to finish the edges and deburr the holes on half of the rudder stiffeners (the eight stiffeners for the left skin). After cutting them, the edges were pretty rough. To smooth the edges and radius the corners, I used the Scotch-Brite wheel. This wasn’t difficult, but it took some time to even out the taper cut on the aft end of each stiffener. Once all of the edges were cleaned up, the holes were deburred with my Avery Deburring Tool.
I’m probably going a little overboard with finishing these pieces, but they look nice! The pictures below compare finished stiffeners with unfinished one.
The forward ends of the rudder stiffeners don't have a taper. The two on the right are finished, the two on the left are not.
The aft ends of the rudder stiffeners are tapered so they don't interfere with the skin or each other. The two on the right are finished, the two on the left still have some work to be done.
Cut and Final Drilled Rudder Stiffeners (11/18/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 18, 2009
1.6 Hours -
Each side of the rudder has 8 stiffeners. When these are cut from the provided stock, they are all the same length. Unfortunately, only the bottom most stiffener, on each side, needs to be the full length. The rudder becomes narrower near the top, so all the other stiffeners must be cut to the appropriate length.
The right rudder stiffeners laid out on the skin.
I started by laying the stiffeners out on the skin and marking their locations. Since the forward end of the stiffeners will be cut, I used the punched holes in the skin as a guide and marked the forward most hole for each stiffener. Then, I lined up the final hole in the un-cut stiffener with the final hole in a finished one and marked the unfinished one for cutting. Once all 14 stiffeners that needed shortening were marked, I proceeded to cut them with my band saw.
I marked the length of the stiffener using the skin and then a finished stiffener helped me mark where to cut.
All the left stiffeners were cut to length with my band saw.
With the band saw making quick work of the stiffeners, I moved on to final drilling the stiffeners to the skins. As an attempt to save my workbench tops, I places some quarter inch plywood beneath the skins for drilling. I drilled through the stiffener, skin and plywood. A cleco could then be inserted through the hole, clamping the skin and stiffener to the plywood.
I left all the stiffeners clecoed to the skins. The next couple of days will be spend deburring and dimpling all the parts.
16 stiffeners final drilled to the rudder skins.
Started Rudder Stiffener Fabrication (11/17/09)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Construction, Empennage, Rudder on November 18, 2009
1.0 Hours -
On to the dreaded rudder!
The rudder doesn’t look that difficult, but everyone really makes a fuss over the trailing edge. After much research, I have my gameplan…let the work begin.
Ready to tackle the rudder.
Because the rudder has such thin skin (0.016″ aluminum sheet), stiffeners are used to give it rigidity. These stiffeners are almost like small riblets. Van’s provides 8 pieces of rudder stiffener stock that are pre-punched and notched. Using the notches as guides, the 8 pieces can be rough cut into the 16 required stiffeners.
The rudder stiffeners have notches that show you where to cut...like an expensive game of connect the dots.
From the 8 pieces of stock, I rough cut 16 rudder stiffeners with the band saw.
The aft end of the stiffeners have to be tapered so they don’t interfere with each other or the skin. Again, Van’s makes this simple by giving you two notches. Connect the notches with a straightedge and line, cut along that line with a band saw…stiffener tapered. My band saw made quick work of this step.
The trailing edge of the stiffeners has to be tapered. I rough cut these with a band saw.
Once all the stiffeners were rough cut, I decided to do the edge finishing on the two lowermost stiffeners only. These two will not need to be cut down any further, while the forward end of all the others will be further cut to length. To finish the edges, I just used my Scotch-Brite wheel . The first two turned out great, but it was time-consuming. It is going to take a few more hours to cut the remaining stiffeners to size and finish them.
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