Only a few more hours of work to get the rudder finished up as far as I can before priming. I am still holding to my decision to not dimple until after the parts are primed so we will continue to see how that holds up after the first prime and dimple. I remain somewhat convinced (although entirely inexperience on the matter) that priming a flat surface is easier to do than priming a surface that has been dimpled. I suppose more time and experience will tell.
Priming can wait. I had a different challenge to confront today. This challenge was associated with creating a gentle crease on the trailing edge of the rudder.
Allegedly, this tool is easy to use and creates a nice, uniform, gentle bend in the aluminum skin to create a nice tight seal at the trailing edge. I’ll level with you here, I did not find it to be all that easy. I would be moving along nicely for about 12 – 18 inches and then the wheels would slide deeper into the crease or fall off all together giving it a less than uniform look. This wavy pattern does not please me, but we will see how it turns out when it is all clecoed together. I have seen worse turn out looking pretty sharp on other pages so I’ll hold my breath for now. I will also have the part numbers ready just in case I’m ordering new skins from Van’s sometime soon…
Here it is zoomed in. You can see the wavy and inconsistent crease put in the trailing edges of the skin. Oh well – what’s done is done. I’ll see how it turns out when I put it all together later this week.
Just a couple of quick notes on deburring again. Important topic, not because of how amazingly awesome and fun it is *SARCASM* but simply because of how often you will do it.
My weapon of choice is a Black and Decker portable screwdriver. It moves at a slow RPM and does not pose a risk of countersinking the drilled holes. It does a great job and prevent my wrists from having to manually turn each hole for the deburring process. So far I’m pleased with this solution. More to follow should anything change.
I decided to use my dimpling table that I made as a soft surface for deburring as well. It worked great so I wasn’t flopping the skin around and risking a crease in it somehow. I must say I was impressed with how quickly I was able to get the job done with the right tools and the right setup. Patience pays throughout this whole process. Even when you spend upwards of half and hour or more just setting up jigs or tables to create an environment to do the job in a matter of minutes, it ends up being well worth it in accuracy and time saved.
Final note on countersinking as well:
I NEED to get better at this. Or find a more calibrated countersink tool. Every hole I’ve drilled I’ve felt like it started too shallow and with just one click deeper on the calibration dial on the tool it felt too deep. I even created a dimpled #40 gauge tool out of scrap skin to measure into the countersunk holes and I’m still not doing all that well. Frustrating. I’ll see how this all comes together in the coming days and report back, but for now I’ll keep at it and keep practicing on some scrap and improve my technique.
Total time today = 2.5 hours
Total time empennage = 21 hours
Total time aircraft = 21 hours