Brief Description: Back rivet board and control surface bender.
Most of today I spent working on some homemade devices I will need to complete the rudder. The first one is a back rivet board. I bought a back rivet plate and needed to route a grove in a board so that it sits flush. This way I can lay the part on the board and line it up with the steel plate for riveting. I was a little off with the router depth and the plate sits a little low, but only by like 1/16th.
The next contraption was a brake for bending the trailing edges of the rudder and elevators. Essentially you put two boards together with hinges, then you sandwich the bend of the rudder or elevator in between and push the boards together until the bend is the correct angle. The skin for these parts has a bit of a bent but not acute enough for the finished part. They do this so you can rivet on the stiffener, then after that is done you make the final bend to the part. There is some level of trepidation since this is a prime area to trash a part. Also if you do not get the bend correct you can end up with weird control surface flutters or vibrations. We will so how I do. I added some steel pipes on the edges for some leverage in the bend. These are not part of the plans Van’s suggests. I don’t really need them for strength but I want to be able to apply even pressure. I also used 7 hinges, I have read where some where getting a curve in the rudder and this was caused by the boards flexing where there were no hinges. Hopefully I will not have that problem either.
Plate in MDF board
Back of bender
Bender open, control surface goes in here for bending
