Empennage Build Process – Page 2
Finished match
drilling the rudder today. Disassembled
and deburred. Test mounted the drilled
in the counterbalance weight. Today was
the first time I seriously used the air drill I purchased. If you don’t have one… get one. (I bought mine on eBay for $39) I had been using a cordless and the wrist
fatigue is greatly reduced using the air drill.
Dimple, dimple,
dimple, deburr, deburr, deburr. Worked
on the rudder skins in the morning. Then
started in on the elevators. I want to
prep and prime all the parts at once. Tip #10: Build a
dimple table. If you haven’t
already, build one, as it makes it so easy to dimple your skins without
scratching them up. I really like mine
and they’ve come in handy for other purposes.
Also, the rudders skins are very thin.
(The manual warns of this.) Using
my C-frame dimpler, I used one hand to hold down the female die against the
skin and lightly taped with the mallet.
This was different with the HS/VS skins where we just whacked them
good. Tip #11: Leave as much of the blue protection
film as possible. These
things are going to rattle around in your garage for years until you
finish. I used a straight edge and
soldering iron to remove enough to get access to the holes. Took me longer to do that then to actually
dimple the holes but the protection is worth it.
Monday & Tuesday,
August 12th & 13th, 2002 (4 hr)
Worked on the
elevator counterbalance arms. Assembled
and match drilled. Ordered a #10 squeeze
set from Avery and also had to get replacement nut-plates for the rudder spar. They sent -06’s instead of -6’s. Match drilled elevator spar and ribs. Assembled the whole thing so I could see how
it was going to look. Also started
playing with the trim tab just to see how it goes together. Mostly just lazing around the shop.
Cut the elevator
ribs tonight and cleco’d them to the skin for final drilling. Also put the spar back in the skins to drill
out the bottom holes to #30 to accept the blind rivets. Worked on the access cover plate and
reinforcement plate.
We made major
progress tonight with the addition of our foreign exchange student Louis. He is from
Louis drilled out
the elevators to final size and deburred both the skins and stiffeners. I did some deburring and peeled some film of
the elevators preparing for dimpling. Also
started dimpling the stiffeners. Tip #12: Use your C-frame dimpler for the stiffeners. You can really fly through them this
way.
Louis drilling the elevators.
Friday &
Lots of deburring and
dimpling of the elevators. Things are
going very quickly with Louis helping!
Monday &
Mostly puttering
around the shop. I clamped the trailing
edge on the right side elevator. This is
one spot where only the top edge is pre-punched and you have to clamp in the
wedge and drill through it and the bottom skin.
In order to keep everything straight, I cleco’d in the end ribs and a
couple of stiffeners. I then clamped
the trailing edge to a piece of aluminum angle using little c-clamps. The instructions call out to build a little
84° wood block to guide the drill bit. I
chose to free-hand it and used the trim spar as a guide and is has a slight
bend to it. The holes defiantly did not
come out straight on the bottom side.
I’m not sure if the block method would work any better or not. I’ll try it on the other elevator. The biggest problem is the bit wallowing
around before it really gets started, which causes some oblong holes. Be careful of this.
I also worked on
the trim tab. I borrowed a “brake” from
Ray Doerr that he built to bend his trim tab.
It worked well… nothing more then two pieces of heavy ½” wood attached
together with hinges. I completed the
bend over a couple of nights to let the aluminum rest. I’ve read where many people break their trim
tab in half by over bending. Be
careful. The hard part of the trim tab
is bending the edges in. Ray cut part of
his ‘brake’ so that it would fit inside the trim tab, allowing you to bend over
the ends. I found that it worked up to a
point but I used my fingers to complete the bend.
Lots of puttering
around the shop. With our two foreign exchange
students around, I really haven’t had time to spend any length of time in the
shop. I’ve just done lots of piddly
stuff.
Labor Day! And
labor I did. I holed myself up today in
the shop to get some stuff done. I
dimpled the elevators and also started countersinking the trailing edge wedge. This is a little tough. I discovered that you need to slow the drill
press down as slow as it will go. The
first side is fairly easy but after flipping over to the other side, the
countersink has a tendency to chatter.
After awhile, I got the hang of it.
I also alodined all of the smaller parts. First
Major Boo-Boo: While cleaning the
right elevators trailing wedge, I bent it and when bending it back, it broke
into two pieces. Damn. I will have to order a replacement. This is the first replacement part I’ve had
to order.
Tonight I finished
alodine’ng a few of the larger parts that I couldn’t get into my plastic tub on
Monday. I also scuffed up the rudder and
elevators in preparation for priming. I
attached the nutplates to the access cover reinforcement place. I couldn’t figure out whether or not to
dimple or countersink the nutplates. I
called my fellow builder Ray Doerr and he said he didn’t do either, just attach
them as is. They will sit up a little
above the surface due to the dimpling for the rivets. Ok… I’ll go along with that.
Thursday & Friday,
September 5th & 6th, 2002 (4 hrs)
Primed the
remaining elevator and rudder parts.
Things are ready to be assembled!
I’m on the home stretch!
Sunday &
Started assembling
the rudder. I began attaching the
stiffeners to the skins. It went very
quickly using a back-rivet plate and the spring loaded back-rivet set. Zip, zip zip… right on down the line. I then attached the doubler plates to the
rudder spar along with the nutplates.
Then I started attaching the ribs to the spar and ended up getting
myself in a wee bit of trouble. I
attached to the counterbalance skin to the upper rib instead of the lower
rib. This doesn’t work out to well when
you go to put the rivets in the skin/rib as the counterbalance weight is in the
way. I re-read the instructions and
figured out where I went wrong. I had to
drill out all the rivets and do it the correct way. Everything after that went smoothly for the
most part. I used some JB Weld to
permanently attach the nuts to the bolts holding the counterbalance
weights. Seems like a big concern of RV
builders having their weights come loose.
I didn’t get as carried away as most with the JB Weld.
I then started in
on attaching the skins to the spar. Easy
job since you can reach most of the rivets (all but 2 in my case) with the hand
squeezer. I was having trouble getting
one of the skins to line up with the holes in the spar. It turned out that one of stiffeners was
hitting on the center doubler plate, preventing the holes from lining up. I removed the skin and trim about 1/8” off
the end to provide the clearance. Tip #13: The
stiffener located in about the middle of the skin may not be short enough to
clear the center doubler plate on the spar.
Watch out.
I need to
countersink my trailing edge wedge and then I’ll be ready to tackle that
project. I’m a bit worried about getting
a clean edge as the holes in my wedge didn’t line up that great during the
initial fit. Otherwise, I think the
rudder looks really good!
I’ve set the rudder
aside and have moved on to the elevators.
Attached the doubler plates to the spars and went to work riveting the
stiffeners to the skins. Once again,
pretty easy with the back rivet set and plate.
You have to crank open the skins to get access to the ones towards the
leading edge but no big deal. Use a
piece of angle clamped to the upper side of the skin. This keeps the skin from bowing and bending. I also dimpled the holes in the spar...
hadn’t done that yet.
Life has been so busy
I’ve only piddled around with the plane.
I’m about ready to start putting the spar in the elevators. Of course I have the trim tab to finish as
well.
It’s hard to
believe that I haven’t touched the plan in about a month. No good excuses. I do need to buy some more -4 rivets so I can
finish my elevator spars. I’m starting
to get the itch again and the weather is getting colder here in
I made a little
progress this evening. I had run out of
470AD4-4’s and I was waiting for the local aircraft supply shop owners to
return from vacation. Over lunch today I
ran out and bought a bag. I only needed
about 8 rivets but ended up with a ½ lb. for $5.00.
I cleaned up a few
rivets that needed some additional pounding.
I attached the counter-balance arms to the elevator spars. I put the right elevator skin over the spar
assembly and jigged it up for riveting.
(Did exactly how the manual pictured it. I think it will work well. I’ll put Sandi on the gun and I’ll buck.)
Louis and I riveted
the top elevator skin to the spar tonight.
It took me awhile to find a suitable bucking bar to get in behind to
buck, while Louis pounded the rivets from the outside. In the end, I used my 3” yoke from my
squeezer. It worked rather well. You can’t see it very well in the picture
above, but I clamped a long level on the trailing edge that I folded down
against the table to gain access. This
worked really well as it gave me a place to rest my shoulder during my
contortion process to see the rivets in order to buck them. ;-) I hope to close up the remainder of the
elevator this week, excluding the trailing edge. I’ll move on the left elevator this
weekend. I haven’t done the trailing
edge on my rudder yet, so I plan to do all three at the same time, if possible.
Louis and I
finished riveting up the right elevator.
All that remains to do on this piece
is the trailing edge.
November 6th
& 7th, 2002 (2 hrs)
We started in on
the left elevator. Skin riveted to top
side of spar, access cover reinforcement plate in. No pictures… not much to look at.
No recent progress,
however as I was walking in the garage this morning something dawned on
me. I received an email from a fellow RV
builder unhappy about his rolled leading edges on his rudder and elevator. I haven’t done that yet so I couldn’t offer
too much advice, but as I walked by my rudder this morning, I realized that rolling the leading edge is
going to be difficult since I have already mounted my counterbalance skins and
weights. Tip #14:
Roll your leading edges BEFORE mounting the counterbalance skin. I think I’ll be able to roll it OK but it
would have been easier without the counterbalance skin in the way.
PROGRESS!! There hasn’t been a lot of progress the last
couple of months, however, I’ve decided to complete the empennage kit over the
Christmas holiday.
It’s amazing how
disorganized I was, not sure where I left off last. I needed to close up the trailing edges so I
for $9.08, I bought a piece of 4’ angle iron to use as a back-rivet plate. One of the other RV-9 builders did it this way. Spent about an hour sanding and polishing it
by hand. My plan was not to use ProSeal
on the edges even though most builders do.
After a test rivet on the left side elevator I noticed that there was
going to be a small amount of pillowing between rivets so I went ahead and
ProSeal’d it. I hope it comes out
straight because I forgot to clamp it to the angle iron (Our exchange student
Louis really likes to help but sometimes distracts me from the task at hand.)
The other task
remaining is the trim tab. I had not
counter-sunk the trim tab spar yet, so I worked on that. The weather has been cold here in
More progress
today. Riveted the trailing edge of both
elevators. I did the left first since it
was the shortest. It came out pretty
good but I did cause a few dings.
I came up with my
own riveting technique for the trailing edges.
I tried using the rivet gun on a few with the mushroom set with poor
results. I’ve seen other builders grind
one of the squeezer dies to the angle of the trailing edge and squeeze
them. I almost did this but then tried
something that actually worked well. I
put all the rivets with the manufactured head on the top side of the elevator,
flipped it over and placed the edge along my 4’ back-rivet plate (angle iron)
and clamped it down. I then squeezed the
rivets straight down (as the
instructions say to do) until I had to stop.
I then used a small piece of the AEX wedge on the bottom side to offset
the angle, placing the die at the same angle as the wedge. (See pictures) This actually worked very well! I’m happy with the results. I’ve got a nice straight trailing edge with
some nicely set rivets. I’ll have to compare
to a couple of other builders to see how well this really worked.
(It’s hard to see
but in the second picture, the first rivet is untouched. The second is compressed about ½ way and the
third is completely set.)
I started this
afternoon by countersinking the rudder wedge.
I worked up a jig that made it fool proof. Since I had an extra piece of wedge, I used
it to keep the surface flat in relation to the countersink. (See pictures, the level worked as a long
flat surface and had a hole right above the bubble.) I then riveted the rudder trailing edge. After all the trouble I had early on with the
rudder, the wedge and holes lined up great with no pillowing. I’m not sure why! J I
did the rudder the same way that I did the elevators. I did not use ProSeal. I will use it on the corners as Van’s
recommends. (I’m waiting to do all my
ProSeal stuff at once.) Tip #15: If you choose not to use ProSeal on the
rudder trailing edge, I recommend that you alternate the side you put the
manufactured head of the rivet along the length of the edge. I did not do this initially and there is a
small amount of pillowing between rivets that occurs on the side opposite the
back plate. (I’m also including a shot
of a C-frame rivet set. I think every builder
should have one of these as it allows you to get in tight places!) Next is the trim tab!
December 31st –
January 8th (4 hrs)
I finished up the
trim tab over the last week or so. There
were no real surprises. The manual
doesn’t talk much about mounting the hinge to the elevator and tab. Make sure that the trailing edge of your tab
lines up with the trailing edge of your elevator. You’ll probably notice that the tab trailing
edge is folded but the elevator is not.
Many builders modify the trim tab to match the elevator. If I were to do it again, I would do it that
way. It would be very easy to do. Here’s the almost finished product.
I have really have
just been poking around in the shop off and on.
Trim tab is finished. I rolled
the leading edge of the rudder and riveted.
Two suggestions on this. 1) Roll it before you mount the counterbalance
skin/weight. It would have been much
easier. 2) If you have an edge roller,
use it. Will help to give you a good
seam. I’ve started cutting the
elevator weights but they really chew up the band saw blade. I need to order some more blades. Will be ordering wings on May 6th!!