Brief Description: Rivet substructure and rudder skin
Wow, I worked 7.0 hours on the project today! I got 3 hours in before noon mass, and then some more work in after church and lunch. Although 7.0 is a lot of time - I was working thru some tedious things. Riveting the rudder substructure took me the first 3.0 hours - since there were 2 layers of aluminum to some parts and three layers to others - the rivets are different lengths...and so the squeezer setup is different. I also found out on the substructure that most of the spar reinforcement rivets had to be trimmed... the 2 layer callout was for a -5 length rivet but I bent that one over on the first try. So after drilling that one out I trimmed it to a -4.5 length – and it worked out great! Same with the 3 layer, -6 rivets - they had to be cut down too.
Teresa came out to tell me she was going shopping - and dropped some rivets in the dimpled skin - so she gets an assist today as a "partner"... maybe next time I will talk her in to doing some rivets. :)
Towards the end of the build session I was deciding how I was going to get the rudder leading edge bent. I moved the clamps so that they won’t interfere with the VS connect points, the counterweight extension on one end, and the control horns on the other end. Since the rudder has to lay flat on the bench in order to bend the leading edge – there is a lot to consider. But, all in all, a good day building!
Total time - 104.75...over the 100 hour mark!
happy squeezer...riveting the skin
a few rivets left on the rudder - need another tool for those
