Rudder Prep

I had my initial tech counselor meeting tonight, which was very helpful. Everything looks good, except my 1/8 rivets are slightly under-done. While they are all 1.5x the diameter by the calipers, the rivet gauge shows them slightly under “ideal”. I will fix it easily by squeezing them all slightly more. I ordered an adjustable squeezer piston from Plane Tools, which will allow me to fine tune the squeeze, rather then having to use the washers as spacers which is slightly less accurate.

I then spent some time deburring rudder skins, and final drilling the rudder counterweight support ribs at the top of the spar. Despite the plans indicating otherwise, I found that the top two holes where the spar attaches to the top rib were already final size.

2 thoughts on “Rudder Prep

  1. I like the idea of the adjustable piston rather than the washers, a lot less of a fiddle and more accurate
    Have you been able to replace the threaded part of your hand squeezer
    Keep up the good work

    1. Should be much better and more repeatable. Still looking for the right part for the hand squeezer.

Comments are closed.