Rudder: Completed, with a sigh of relief!

                             

                                      Welcome back, all. I hope everyone had a great 4th! 

The rudder sub-assembly was a lot of work. Only had a couple of minor bobbles along the way, and everything turned out OK in the end. I am a little disappointed in how my trailing edge turned out; nothing structurally wrong, and the edge is nice and straight... just not happy with the cosmetics of the double-flush rivets. For some reason, they ended up a little offset in their dimples. Oh well, it is what it is! On to the fun stuff.

     Here we have a 1 oz Proseal tank sealant kit from Van's. You mix it just like epoxy, and it cures into something similar to vulcanized rubber. It can also be used to tack assemblies together prior to riveting, making it easier to get good results.

At this point, I've mixed the Proseal, applied it to both sides of the AEX wedge, and clecoed the trailing edge together using match-drilled aluminum channel on each side to keep everything straight. After the Proseal cures, the channel will be removed and the T.E. will be riveted.

      Here's a shot of the T.E. with the clecoes removed and weights on top, ready to be back-riveted.

And here's the finished product. Not my best cosmetic work, unfortunately- but the trailing edge is nice and straight. The riveting was done using a combination of a back rivet set and a swivel mushroom set.

The next task is to roll the leading edge of the rudder, allowing it to mate properly with the Vertical Stab. I didn't get any pics of the actual rolling, but in a nutshell: you tape a length of 3/4" pipe to the leading edge skins, and use a vise grip to roll the skins with the pipe. This creates a nice smooth radius, which couldn't be achieved by simply bending the skins.

But first, there's a detail to attend to. I purchased an edge roller tool from Cleaveland Tools, it looks like this. It is used to create an ever-so-slight bend on the top skin (the one that will overlap), thus creating a very nice, smooth seam when the Leading Edges are rolled.

                                                    Here's a view of what this tool does.

You see here how nice the seam turned out; I'm happy with it  :)   Blind rivets are used to finish it off.

And the only thing left, aside from fiberglass work (which is going to wait), is to attach the swivel eyes which make up the hinge/attach points for the rudder. 

 Here's a swivel joint nestled snugly in it's place. A jam nut is used to secure it; I also applied a bit of blue Loctite to the bolt threads for extra security.

       The finished product. It gets hung from the ceiling now along with everything else. I'm glad it's finished- on to the elevators!