2004-11-14


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Today I spent most of the day at church rehearsing for the "Celebration of praise and thanksgiving" service. The service was at 5:00 so we had to rehearse from 11:00 to 1:00 and then go back at 3:00 for another rehearsal. Needless to say, that didn't leave much time for building. I figured that I could put a couple of hours in and I was thinking that maybe I could prime those elevator stiffeners. It was still too cold so, with the proseal in the leading edge still in need of one more day of hardening, there was only one thing left that I could do.  Roll the leading edge of the rudder. 

Ok, do or die time. I've actually been dreading this for some time. The problem is that there is just so much of a potential for messing the rudder skin up. (well, I think there is) But I've seen others do it successfully so I am just going to follow their lead. 

Start by duct-taping the edge you are going to roll.
You could tape up a lotta ducks with that.
Now we've flipper it over (you'll notice we've already done the first edge) and tape the iron bar to the skin. 
After a couple of fairly good yanks with a monkey wrench, this is the result. The top part is perfect and the bottom is very far apart. 
Putting clecos in the top was trivial.
The middle part work out OK as long as you started from the top and worked your way down. The bottom, however, was not so easy. I needed a way to apply an even force so I wouldn't put a dent in the aluminum. 
This method worked pretty well. I had three pieces of duct tape and I kept pulling one off and making it tighter, then I'd pull the one next to it off and make it tighter, etc. Gradually the whole thing came together perfectly. 
Then it was just a matter of removing a cleco...
Drilling the hole out with a number 30 drill.
And popping in a rivet.
Except when one of the mandrels from the rivet got stuck in the rivet gun. And I mean REALLY STUCK. would not go in or out.
So I grabbed it with the drill...
And spun it out.
Anyway, here it is, all done. Tomorrow, I'll finish up the trailing edge and then we'll have ourselves a rudder.