With some help from Jen and Joyce, I was able to rivet together the left and right rudder skins tonight. The stiffeners on each skin are tied together with a single pop rivet, and the forward ends are pop riveted to the shear clips. There isn’t a great deal of clearance, so an assistant is needed to hold the skins apart while setting the rivets, from bottom to top. I had an annoying issue with the pop rivet tool where the mandrel was breaking off half way instead of flush with the rivet head, after fully forming the rivet. I had to trim off the mandrel on about half the rivets, which was a real pain. With the lack of clearance, I couldn’t get very flush with the rivet head, but it’s good enough given this will be completely enclosed. I’m going to need to figure out the issue, but it worked ok for tonight.
For the trailing edge, I picked up a tip from my EAA chapter and bought a couple of shelving channels for $5 from Home Depot. They are straight, narrow, and have holes cut that are an almost perfect match for 3/32 clecoes.
I taped the trailing edge, and clecoed one channel to each side of the trailing edge, giving a perfectly straight edge while the glue sets. Hopefully this will help the edge to stay straight while riveting.
Well done Neal it certainly helps to have the right equipment and advice on how to do the job.
I’m sure you are pleased to have this milestone behind you, a great way to keep the edge straight.