Rudder Assembly

Saturday 8th March 2008 4 hrs

Back rivetted stiffners onto both rudder skins. Rivetted the hinge reinforcing plates, rudder horn, shim, bottom rib and counterweight rib to the R-902 spar.

I missed the back rivet plate 3 times! As the plate is recessed into the bench top and is flush with the surface, this is easy to do but that's no excuse. At least it mostly did no harm to the skin or stiffner. However, one of the rivets was at the very edge of the plate and the skin was very slightly damaged as the rivet went over at an angle.

It is almost invisible except if you were looking for it so I will let it pass. I thought the skins came out very well. I had left the cut the blue vinyl only where a stiffner or spar would contact the inside of the skin. When the rest of the vinyl was peeled off, it looked good. I think I will use this technique more extensively on the wings as there is not much point in priming areas of alclad aluminium were no other part is in contact.

Our national rugby team were playing Wales at home today and expected to win. Unusually, I had the promise of a ticket so I took myself off after an early session of only one hour. I should not have bothered. After 20 minutes of dominance, they just faded away and were beaten by a late penalty kick. I was sitting there in our magnificent new stadium at one of the sporting highlights of the year thinking how much I would rather be back at my shop working on the plane.

Back to work and the air squeezer won't set the rivets. I had to hand buck in the end, which I found very difficult, particularly in the awkward spaces around the rudder horn.. I had to drill out severalrivets but the results were okay in the end. The primer is getting scratched in places with all of this hand bucking. I intend to use an art brush to touch up these little scratches, as well as coating the bore of holes that have to be match-drilled after priming.

I really have to sort this air squeezer out. It is far too important a tool to just dump there. Besides, I don't have a hand squeezer. I will contact Glenna at Planetools.com tomorrow so she sees it first thing on Monday.