I prepped and primed the top rudder ribs. While they dried, I dimpled the rest of the holes on the skins.

Received my replacement counterbalance rib today. Fluted, drilled, and deburred it. Then, I match drilled the new counterbalance weight to it. This time I managed to dimple the holes without cracks. Fit it to the counterbalance skin and it fits perfectly. Then I decided to rivet the rudder skeleton together, with exception of the counterbalance…

Prepped and primed skeleton for rudder number 2.

Finished all the deburring and dimpling on the rudder understructure. Everything was going so swell and then I got to the step where I match drill the counterbalance weight to the counterbalance rib and dimple the rib and countersink the weight. This went so smoothly last time. I must’ve let my guard down. The drilling…

Man…I am flying through this second rudder. The first one seemed to take much longer. I’m starting to get the hang of the rhythm though. Drill, de-burr, dimple, prime, rivet. Today, I clecoed on the skins and final drilled the remaining holes with the exception of the AEX wedge and trailing edge. On the last rudder I think…

Had a fun and productive day today. Prepped all the Rudder stiffeners for priming and got the priming done on my lunch break. Then later tonight, riveted the stiffeners to the skins. Did a much better job this time. Not one single rivet needed to be drilled out. All met spec…and I remembered to put…

Today was a treat. Leza (wife) came out and helped me dimple the rudder skins.