Bullseye
Well Known Member
Post Title: More Rudder Stiffeners
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Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:45:27 +0000
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After a very busy end of the work week, I managed to squeeze a couple hours of airplane time in the shop today. I started by mocking up the R-902 front spar, and drawing a black line on the left rudder skin (this is the forward bottom edge of the left skin). I'm going to draw out all of the mating surfaces on these skins, since they will have to be primed at different times (more on this later).
Forward bottom corner of the left skin. You can see the front end of the only full size stiffener.
Next, I dove into match-drilling the stiffeners and skin. Here are the first size holes drilled. I don't want any waviness in the rudder, so I am clecoing every hole as I drill. (You can see that like everyone else, I am drilling straight into the MDF that's on top of my workbench. This works well, and is basically per the plans.
First six holes of the stiffener to skin match-drilling process.
After I finished the first (lower) stiffener, the next one needed to be cut down to size. I made another mark on that stiffener, this time in line with the front spar line I drew earlier. Now, when I trim the stiffeners on the aft side of that line, there will be no interference with the front spar.
Getting ready to trim the second stiffener.
Then, I got in the groove, so the next picture was after a few of the stiffeners. I used my cordless for this. Not as noisy.
Lower 4 stiffeners done on the left skin.
All done with the left side. Oh yeah, it was 60° today, so I worked with the garage door open. So nice...
There's something really rewarding about getting to this point. OH MY GOD!, WHAT IS THAT MARK BETWEEN THE FIRST TWO STIFFENERS!?
A closer look...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Link to Post
Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:45:27 +0000
Prev | Next
After a very busy end of the work week, I managed to squeeze a couple hours of airplane time in the shop today. I started by mocking up the R-902 front spar, and drawing a black line on the left rudder skin (this is the forward bottom edge of the left skin). I'm going to draw out all of the mating surfaces on these skins, since they will have to be primed at different times (more on this later).
Forward bottom corner of the left skin. You can see the front end of the only full size stiffener.
Next, I dove into match-drilling the stiffeners and skin. Here are the first size holes drilled. I don't want any waviness in the rudder, so I am clecoing every hole as I drill. (You can see that like everyone else, I am drilling straight into the MDF that's on top of my workbench. This works well, and is basically per the plans.
First six holes of the stiffener to skin match-drilling process.
After I finished the first (lower) stiffener, the next one needed to be cut down to size. I made another mark on that stiffener, this time in line with the front spar line I drew earlier. Now, when I trim the stiffeners on the aft side of that line, there will be no interference with the front spar.
Getting ready to trim the second stiffener.
Then, I got in the groove, so the next picture was after a few of the stiffeners. I used my cordless for this. Not as noisy.
Lower 4 stiffeners done on the left skin.
All done with the left side. Oh yeah, it was 60° today, so I worked with the garage door open. So nice...
There's something really rewarding about getting to this point. OH MY GOD!, WHAT IS THAT MARK BETWEEN THE FIRST TWO STIFFENERS!?
A closer look...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!