I spent this afternoon working on the rudder fairings. First up I match drilled and countersunk the bottom fairing holes, then rivetted them in place using pop rivets as called out in the drawings.
Although I've done exactly as per the drawings, I don't like it. To countersink the fibreglass fairing you need to take a lot of the material away, which doen't leave much for the rivet to "bite" in to. I'm concerned the fairing will crack. I'll consider laying up some fibregalss over the join. We'll see.
Next up I set to work on the vertical stabiliser (VS) tip. To do this I first had to remove the VS from the fuselage, which meant cutting off the molex connector I fitted to the nav/strobe light a few days ago. Didn't think about that!
I bolted the rudder to the VS on the bench and then marked and cut the tip to suit. This was easier said than done, and took me quite some time before I was happy with the clearance.
With the VS tip trimmed and sanded to the desired shape I then made up some aluminium strips to reinforce the inside (bottom picture). I also started shaping a balsa wood block to fill in the rear-facing opening. I'll do some more on this tomorrow.
Rivetting on the bottom rudder fairing
Will the fibreglass fairing crack? Time will tell.
Strengthening the vertical stabiliser fibreglass tip, so the rivets don't pull though
