Planned to get the rudder riveted per plans 6-6, but as they say…
Drilled out the nutplate mistake, first thing.
Installed the nutplates and reinforcement plates to the spar, no issue. Continued with the counterbalance assemble to the spar – that is where the ‘trouble’ started. The plans call out for several sizes of rivets and the written instructions provide a limited, if not vague (for a new builder) outline. IMHO. Took my time but still missed the order.
When pairing the R913 counterbalance to the R901 skin(s) I riveted the R903 tip rib first, then wondered how I was going to get to the spar on the counterbalance. You cannot. Order is important.
So I drilled out the tip rib and tried again. Very difficult to get back into the R913 under the skin. With that done, I moved on to the skeleton and cleco’ed in place. That went smoothly although my hand squeezer would not reach, so I bucked.
Moving to the Tip and Bottom Rib, the forward side went good but as the trailing edge got smaller – this was a problem. I tried several things but could not get the final rivets in and seems to be slightly damaging the edge – so I decide to blind rivet - after checking the plans and calling customer support.
Need some aluminum angle to do the trailing edge, I decided to start on the elevators. Cut the Stiffeners from stock and got them laid out with the skins.
