Torque wrench finally arrived today so I was able to torque the bolts which hold the counterweight to the rib and close it up. I put a little red Loc-tite on the bolts. Don’t want them coming lose and since they are in a place which can’t be inspected I figured, “better safe than sorry.”…

Today, I still can’t put the top rib on but decided to get as much of the skin riveted on as I could. Because the trailing edge must be “glued” in place with fuel tank sealant, I decided to go ahead and prep the surface now by roughing up the inside trailing edge of the…

Riveted the rudder skeleton together today. I had ordered a flange nose yoke for the squeezer. Wished I had had one all along. This allowed me to get to the rivets inside the horn brace. I was able to use the squeezer for the most fo the rivets except the ones connecting the counter balance…

Nothing fancy today. Just primed all the skeleton parts except the trailing edge AEX wedge.

Today was pretty much a waste. I made an attempt to countersink the AEX wedge. After seeing how others had been doing this, the only way to get the countersinks nice and even is to create a jig. Basically the hole get’s enlarged slightly and the countersink pilot does not have anything to hold onto…

Deburred and dimled all the skeleton parts and countersunk the counterweight to fit the counterweight rib. Countersinking the rib was a no-brainer:  I had to order a #10 dimple die set from Cleaveland. Their kit does not include one. Screws fit like a charm in the counterweight rib. All dimpling and countersinking done with the…

Trimmed and finished the rudder horn brace and fabricated the rudder bottom attach strips. A common mistake with the rudder horn brace is to trim too much off it. When you drill it the holes end up being too close to the edge. Thanks to some other builder’s who kept excellent logs, I avoided this:…

Well today ended with something that looks like a rudder. Pretty exciting. I prepped the spar and ribs. This involved match drilling all the holes in the rudder horn, reinforcement plates (on the spar where the bearings will eventually connect to the Vert. Stab.), and ribs. The top rib and counterbalance rib required some fluting…

Finally, got the first part of the rudder (preparing the skins) done today. This was also the first time I got to try back-riveting. Up to this point, I have squeezed and bucked rivets. Back-riveting is the easiest. Now that I said that, I will say I screwed up but, it was not anything major. I…

Today was a fun day and ended with the parts being ready to rivet together finally. First I primed the stiffeners: Then, with the help of Leza, I got both rudder skins dimpled. This was a bit of a milestone in the project as it was the first time she helped me with it. Thanks,…