I like the plan of moving on to the rudder so far – I think it has been a good call. In fact, it has been an excellent move because the replacement primer was supposed to arrive yesterday and UPS sent me a notice today saying that it was damaged in transit and would not arrive. Honestly, I am not that upset as I would rather them take care of spilled toxic primer BEFORE I have to open it up. I think I came out on top for this one. Still, that makes two orders of primer damaged in transit… no fun. I’m still pretty high on Aircraft Spruce though as their customer service continues to be top notch through the whole process.
Next thought: my pneumatic cleco gun. It’s amazing. I especially like it when match drilling skins. You go through and match drill every open hole, then you have to move every single cleco into the holes you just drilled to free up the holes they were occupying and repeat the entire process. It’s quite an impressive ordeal if you’ve never done it I promise. One that would take an even great deal of strength and patience with only hand pliers available. With the cleco gun it’s pretty slick. I just need to make sure that it is all way way up to 90 psi (sounds like another learning experience here doesn’t it?) otherwise the piston won’t compress the clecos all the way and then they won’t fit through the drill holes.
The cleco gun from Aircraft Spruce. Nice.
Today was a pretty good day for rudder work overall. I was able to complete the construction of all rib pieces and attach them to the main rudder spar.
Once the ribs were clecoed in place it was pretty neat to see how it all started coming together. It might just look like an airplane again soon!
You can also see the overhand in this picture for the rudder as it hangs over the end of my workbench. This also gives me a sense of how it will mate up with the vertical stabilizer.
Total time today = 1.5 hours
Total time empennage = 17 hours
Total time aircraft = 17 hours