MAKING THE RUDDER FAIRINGS
I suppose I should correct that to “purchasing the rudder fairings” from Cleavland Tool. They have the basic pieces that you need to trim to size for your plane. I made what I considered a slick looking swept back look, took it to the band saw, and cut them out. In addition to making sure that the size and shape looked correct, I had to make sure I left enough room to attach them to the empennage skin. I went back and forth on this for a while. After some thought, I realized that I did not need to permanently rivet these in place. In fact, I would likely be well served to make these fairings removable for any unforeseen future need to access the cables that will be threaded through these openings.
Therefore I went with nutplates. I riveted in three nutplates per side and drilled the corresponding holes in the rudder fairings. I just realized that this is a ton of words without a picture. Regrettably I only took one because I became so engrossed with the process that I never paused to document along the way.
RUDDER FAIRING PLACEMENT
Once again, I regret that this is the only image I have from this process. One thing that I cannot stress enough is how much time I spent accurately locating these rudder fairings. It gets pretty busy behind this section of skin pretty quickly. I did not want to locate a nutplate somewhere I couldn’t rivet it in place or where the screw would not line up with an open space.
Overall, it took a long time to do relative to the progress I made, but I am quite glad I did it. This is another in the beginning of customizations that will ultimately make this our family’s airplane.
Total time today – 4 hours
Total time empennage – 190.5 hours
Total time aircraft – 198.5 hours