Empennage

I started the process of riveting the rudder today. The first step was to install the reinforcement plates and platenuts on the spar. When I finished that step I moved on and riveted the R-904 rib and all it's associated parts together.

The next step was a little more complicated. the plans call for you to rivet the R-912 counterbalance rib to the R-902 spar. After doing that you rivet on the R-913 counterbalance skin to the counterbalance rib, but not to the spar. Then I installed the E-614-020 counterbalance weight.

The next step was to cleco the skins to the spar. With that done the plans are careful to note that there are six rivets on each side that join the R-901 skins and the R-913 counterbalance skin, and three that join the rib, counterbalance skin, and spar. There are different size rivet required for these and you have to be careful to use the right ones. Once I got these rivets set, the next step was to rivet on the R-903 tip rib. It gets pretty tight when setting some of these rivets so I opted to use the MK-319-BS 'pop' rivets on the ones without enough room to use the pneumatic squeezer.

The last thing I did today was to rivet the skin to the skeleton. My pneumatic squeezer worked well for most of these rivets, though I did have to change the yokes a few times to get the one that best suited the particular spot I was in. Once again, on the last rivet on the rib I used the pop rivet.

The next step in riveting the rudder is the trailing edge. The plans indicate that building a truely straight trailing edge is one the more difficult things to do in the empennage kit. I'll have to wait to attempt this. I need to get a good epoxy and a good 6' piece of angle aluminum to hold the edge straight while I make the 'double-flush' rivets.

6 Hours

Total hours on project = 102