Tonight I finished deburring the other rudder skin, and then took apart the rudder frame which was clecoed together. I made a mistake at one point, as I was deburring a hole in the skin with a counter sink in a hand tool, the tool slipped out of my hand and fell sideways while the countersink pilot was in the hole. This levered up and bent the skin, so I ended up with a bend up on one side of the hole and a bend down on the other. Luckily the skin didn’t crack, but it was very frustrating. Then I started the dimpling process by dimpling both of the skins. It was a long process, as I went slow and tried to avoid any scratches or mistakes. I started with the hole where I had bent the skin while deburring. As I hoped, putting a dimple in the hole straightened out all the damage, leaving no trace of an issue.
Next steps on the rudder will be:
– dimpling the stiffeners, ribs and spar – Monday
– counter sinking the trailing edge wedge – Tuesday
– back-riveting the stiffeners to the skins – Wednesday
– riveting the shear clips to the spar – Thursday
– pop riveting the skin stiffeners (with skins attached) to the shear clips – for this step I will need help; maybe Friday night
– riveting top and bottom ribs – Friday
– riveting the trailing edge – Saturday
– rolling the leading edges and pop riveting them together – Sunday
If all has gone well, it will be finished!
Good stuff Neal glad the oops came out all right. There’s a little home built aircraft flying around here at the moment.
Sorry I won’t be there to help you on Friday night