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Serenity
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Date: 10-19-2006
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Number of Hours: 1.50
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Trailing edge bonding
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Today was work on the dreaded rudder trailing edge. There is a bit of difficulty in riveting this and producing a straight edge. Van's recommends bonding the trailing edge wedge and skins with fuel tank sealant (FTS, one brand is ProSeal) or epoxy, then clecoeing onto an L-angle to hold straight for a few days. After cure, you then rivet is an unusual technique where you set the shop head of the rivet into the dimple - the other side has the usual flush head. To set this, a back rivet set is recommended to start deforming the rivet shank and binding the trailing edge, then flip over and place on a steel plate and use a mushroom set on your rivet gun on the manufacturer's head. The partially protruding shank will flatten on the steel plate further until flush with the skin, and mostly fill the dimple. For today, I drilled the trailing edge hole pattern to a 4 foot piece of aluminum L-angle, clecoed everything together for a fit check, took apart, then applied FTS to both sides of the wedge. FTS is tenacious, thick, sticky stuff. I bought the 3.5oz form from Van's - it is the 30 min drying stuff, not the 2 hour stuff in the quart can. It will get on everything, and will permanently stain clothing, etc. I used a bunch of Latex gloves to keep clean. Application was with the sealant gun I also got from Van's (see pic). I applied a blob of FTS to the stiffner ends (may prevent cracks - tip from other builders). After all this slop was applied, I clecoed everything together to the L-angle, ensured proper squeeze out, and cleaned all the run out, smears, etc. with lacquer thinner. I tried acetone, too, which also works. MEK may be superior, but I didn;t have any around.Lastly, I put in blind flush rivets in the last skin/rib holes, as the taper is so much that I can't rivet effectively with the squeezer or get a bucking bar in.
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tank sealant cartridge and gun
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Trailing edge, wedge inside, all clecoed to L-angle after fuel tank sealant applied.
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Bottom last rivet done with blind rivet
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