Great start to a bad morning...

I finished work yesterday feeling somewhat accomplished after riveting the trailing edge of the rudder successfully after I had been putting off the task for nearly a week.

I walked into the "airplane factory" this morning with two seemingly simple tasks: 1) Roll the leading edges of the rudder and 2) Pop rivet the edges together.

I got an early start this morning and drilled a few holes in my bench and installed three u bolts to hold the 3/4" conduit I planned on using to roll the skin.


The first skin rolled perfectly as planned, so I moved on to the next skin. Low and behold it rolled just as easy and I was making good time! As I starting untaping the skin from the conduit my heart stopped when I got to the top of the rudder and saw this:


I apparently I rolled the conduit too far and the u bolt was driven in to the side of the spar. I literally sat and stared breathless and speechless for at least a minute, not believing what i was seeing. Adding salt the the wound the rolled edges went together absolutely perfectly!!

I know that I'll probably have to redo the rudder but I figured I'd share and make a deposit to the "be careful of this" repository.

Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but the bend did not seem to move/affect the rivet orientation. In other words, the depth of the dent in the spar flange doesn't seem to be deep enough to affect the rivet.

I would not be building a new rudder. Seaming pliers slowly and gently to prevent cracking, will get it close to correct, then an impact flush set and a bucking bar, or tap hammer and bucking bar, will finish the job nicely. Then a little filler before paint, and your good to go.

Pretty sure Kahuna has it nailed, but you might want to run it by the factory just for your own peace of mind.

Rudder

Before you loose hope, send an e-mail to the Mother Ship. You never know.

You might consider J-bolts instead of U-bolts. On mine, I ground the end of the J-bolt to a smooth round end so it rides up and over. I still watched them to make sure but it also allows the bend to go farther till the J-bolt touched the spar web.

Thanks for the input, an email has been delivered to Van's. Sometimes the smallest oversight can cause major heartache!

I agree with Kahuna. Remove the fastener, straighten with seaming plier and you can route out a little of the edge to make a smooth transition. Just maintain edge distance on the fastener.

Others have encountering the same problem. You are not alone. I just finished rolling the elevators using the homemade J-bolt procedure mentioned elsewhere on the Forum. I have found it very useful to search the forums for part numbers on each step of the build. It's saved my tail several times.

A pneumatic squeezer with flush sets in both sides might also work to flatten this out. I have used this on a number of oops occasions. Remove the rivet, flatten, redimple and then rivet. You will have to look hard to find any trace!!!!

I would use a plastic mallet or deadblow hammer and a dolly. Seamimg pliers will leave marks and a metal hammer will stretch the metal. The dolly could be a pc of hardwood sanded to the right radius and it could have a recess for the existing rivet. Whatever you do do it slowly and patiently. Sneak up on it, don't try to repair it in 3 blows. A half hr of gentle tapping and checking is much safer.

Ouch. I used the same method and realized just before I was about to do what you did. I got lucky.

I wrestled with that leading edge for probably 8 hours trying to get it how I wanted it (perfect.) That's the one thing in the build so far that I'm really not happy about. It'll fly. It'll be safe but it didn't turn out how I wanted it!

Good luck!

Rolling edge

I went about rolling the edge a different way. Take the conduit and use duct tape to tape the leading edge of the roll to the conduit. Clamp vise grips to the end of the conduit. Crank the vise grips and roll the leading edge around the conduit. The shorter end (top) will finish rolling before the longer (bottom) end. Over roll for your needs. It is easier to take bend out than to put it in. Remove tape from area that it finished. Roll again until next section is finished. Remove more tape and repeat. Bend everything back to fit and rivet.

Easy to repair

This is quite easy to repair and move on. One thing I have noticed is that you talk about bolting downthe tube. Sorry if I understand it wron but:

I have a different approach. I use cheap alu tube and cut it in the required lengths plus about two inches for every piece of leading edge that needs rolling. Then drill 4 to 6 1/4 inch holes around the circumference of the tubes, close to both ends. Then use duct tape to tape the tube to the leading edge.
Then with the rudder or what ever safely on the bench, I put two screwdrivers into two holes and start rolling. As it bends, you then reposition one screwdriver at a time. This way I do it in only a fw minutes and no chance of damaging anything.

Not so clear, but maybe you can see it on this page.
http://www.mykitlog.com/users/display_log.php?user=jan&project=574&category=3913&log=63976&row=1

Janekom said:

This is quite easy to repair and move on. One thing I have noticed is that you talk about bolting downthe tube. Sorry if I understand it wron but:

I have a different approach. I use cheap alu tube and cut it in the required lengths plus about two inches for every piece of leading edge that needs rolling. Then drill 4 to 6 1/4 inch holes around the circumference of the tubes, close to both ends. Then use duct tape to tape the tube to the leading edge.
Then with the rudder or what ever safely on the bench, I put two screwdrivers into two holes and start rolling. As it bends, you then reposition one screwdriver at a time. This way I do it in only a fw minutes and no chance of damaging anything.

Not so clear, but maybe you can see it on this page.
http://www.mykitlog.com/users/display_log.php?user=jan&project=574&category=3913&log=63976&row=1

Click to expand...

Jan,
I like your method and will definitely give it a try on the elevator, flaps, etc...

Checkout this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdnej5bASxg, it show rolling the leading edge of an elevator. Very simular to the methods Daivd and Jan mentioned.