March 21, 2004

Didn't get as much done on the weekend as I had hoped, but still had a good amount of progress.
Friday my new R-1001 Rudder skins came in from Van's.  They did a great job shipping them
UPS Oversize, just as I requested.  Sandwhiched between two thin plywood sheets, with duct
tape wrapping the edges of them, and then taped to the center of the boards so the edges wouldn't
slip out and get banged up.

This time the rudder skins went MUCH better.  Didn't match drill, just went right to final-drilling
the holes of the skin.  Used the chucking reamer, and it hardly took any metal off to
finish the holes.  Didn't miss a single hole with the C-Frame dimpler, or the pneumatic squeezer.
Even the deburring wasn't as miserable.

Primed the Horizontal Stab spar.  I had alodined my smaller parts, but this long spar was
more than I wanted to alodine.  I sprayed it with a light layer of Mar-Hyde spray can 5111
primer.  I later then sprayed a light coat of Akzo over it to seal it.  I may try to alodine
the next one using the box it came in as an alodine tank, but this one needed to have some
parts primed before assembly so this was easier.



Hung and layed out my rudder parts, and dimpled rudder skins for priming.  Small parts are
alodined, skins were just cleaned with MEK, scuffed, and sprayed with Akzo.  Seems to
have pretty good adhesion to the skin so far.



Another shot of the parts before priming.



One more, just to bore you. :)



The spar after a coat of Akzo.



All of the parts with a coat of Akzo.



Bored yet?



Started riveting on the stiffners.  Started at the bottom, used rivet tape cut the length of the stiffner.
Then, did the stiffer of the same size on the other side.  By Alternating sides, and successively
shortning the rivet tape, I was able to make one strip of tape last for all of the stiffners, and it worked
well.  You know the saying.... "A Penny saved is a penny for my glass cockpit avionics." :)



Riveted up the rudder horn. I put a clamp on the nut plate in the middle to prevent it from tipping
up on one side after a rivet was put in on only one side.  On those 2 rivets I used my thin-nose
yoke.



More nutplates.





Stiffners all in place.



Had to get out the ProSeal.  Once again, let me say that stuff is awful!  Just make sure you have
plenty of gloves.  I'll be soaking my clecos for a while after a couple of days.



The edge is laying over the end of the bench, weighted by a couple steel bars on a board.





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