Elevator – Day 7 – 2 hours

Nothing fancy today. Just prepped and primed all elevator stiffeners.

Rudder #2 – Day 10 – 2 hours

Prepped and primed skeleton for rudder number 2.

Rudder #2 – Day 9 – 2 hours

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…

Rudder #2 – Day 8 – 2 hours/ Elevator – Day 7 – 1 hour

For the rudder, today I used the AEX wedge as a guide to drill the aluminum angle I will be using for keeping the trailing edge straight while the sealant dries. This went pretty fast and turned out so much better than the first time I attempted this. Next, I clecoed the AEX wedge to the skins and…

Rudder #2 – Day 7 – 2 hours

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…

Rudder #2 – Day 6 – 3 hours

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…

Rudder # 2 – Day 5 – 0.5 hours

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

Elevator – Day 6 – 1 hour / Rudder #2 – Day 4 – 0.5 hours

Today’s task was to dimple all the stiffeners for both the Elevator and Rudder.

Rudder #2 – Day 3 – 1 hour

While devinyling the Elevator skins, I decided to also devinly the rudder skins. Not my favorite thing to do and not even really necessary but It does help protect the skins until ready to paint.