Rudder Delay - Starting on the Horizontal Stabilizer

Indeed yesterday was one of the most perfect days to fly yet this year. We took the 172 up for a few hours, visited some friends up at KIIB and did some t&g's to try and brush some of the winter rust off... I haven't flown nearly enough these past couple months. It felt great to be in the air on such a beautiful day though, it reminded me why I'm doing this project in the first place!

I started out today by inspecting the Proseal on the rudder since it's been two days, only to discover it was still quite wet. This concerned me at first, but then I went online and did some research to discover the stuff I had bought from Aircraft Spruce was actually of the "B2" classification (see this helpful link) and needed at least 4.5 days to cure in ideal conditions (not two as mentioned in Van's plans). Anecdotally, there are a number of posts online that indicate it can sometimes take a lot longer if the temperatures aren't warm enough, and since it's been fairly cool/cold here in the garage when the furnace isn't on, it will likely need even longer than specified. So I re-clamped the whole thing back together and brought it all down into the basement where it's out of the way and warmer than the garage. Looks like I'll be giving it at least a week or so down there to make sure it's cured... so in the meantime, on to the Horizontal Stabilizer!

No pictures from today-- lots of deburring/prep work but no real visible progress worth taking pictures of. Finished section 8-2 steps 1-4, which was mostly just the initial prep work on the HS rear spar and doubler: match-drilling, countersinking, and deburring as specified. I plan on holding off on the riveting portions for now, so that I can assemble a pile of parts to scuff, acetone, and prime all in one sitting. Lots more to do on the HS!

Joining Rudder Skins

Tonight was an exciting night! We started the night by finishing the remaining work needed for the rudder trim tab: attaching nutplates for the inspection plate, and cutting a C-shaped notch out of the R rudder skin to provide room for the control horn and servo linkage. The resulting internals look similar to what they looked like last night, but now the rudder is finally ready to continue with the assembly process:

Next came the fun part... mixing up some Proseal and riveting the two rudder skins together! From all the posts I've read online about this stuff, I can truly say I was 100% prepared to deal with it, and it really wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I put a light coat on the trailing edge of the L rudder skin, added the wedge, and then put another coat on the wedge. I used a popsicle stick to spread it out evenly across the surfaces, and I don't think I made too terribly big of a mess. Any mess that I did make seemed to clean up pretty easily with acetone. While the Proseal was drying, we had to quickly rivet the internal structure of the rudder together using pop rivets. My friends Brannen and Becca were visiting, and took these pics of the process:

Putting the pop rivets into place in one of the stiffeners.

Setting the rivets using the pneumatic gun.

Finishing up the closing of the rudder.

The rudder, just after riveting the stiffeners together but before clecoing and weighting the trailing edge.

Now, we wait! After this last pic was taken, we clecoed the trailing edge together and placed weighted boards (and a whole line of clothes pins) along the edge to hold it in place. The Proseal now needs two days to cure, after which we'll rivet the trailing edge together and finish the rest of the rudder! In the meantime, we might start on the HS, but we'll see how things go... the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, maybe we'll go flying instead :-)

More Rudder Trim Tab

Today I think I mostly finished the rudder trim tab. I added a stiffener to the control horn and left skin of the tab, visible in the picture below. That took most of the time for the night, but then I also added in the trim servo and measured how long the linkage would need to be:

The rudder trim tab with the inside still visible, screwed into the L skin, with the servo and linkage set in their approximate places.

The servo seems to work perfectly with this setup! I also cut the opening for the inspection panel and riveted in the doubler plate. Tomorrow, I think I'll have my "off the map" rudder work done and be able to get back to the manual!

Rudder Trim Tab

Today was a long (but fun!) day, just building one relatively small part that isn't in the basic plans. I wanted to add rudder trim capability since it seems like a pretty popular option, and should make cruise flight easier and more efficient. I've also seen a number of people retrofit their flying -10's with a rudder trim system, which tells me it's worth the hassle.

The project started with determining the proper size and location for the tab. After some researching online, I ended up with a desired tab size of 7" x 2.375" x 3.75" to be placed between the stiffeners in the same section as the center attach point:

It took a few tries to get the lines just where I wanted them, but that's why we draw with a marker instead of a saw :-)

Once the lines were sketched out, I clecoed both skins together with the outer surfaces touching in order to produce both cuts at the same time. I put a "reinforced" cut-off wheel on the Dremel tool, and went to work on cutting. A little while later, I had these this:

The two rudder skins after cutting and deburring

The area the trim tab will fit into. It is approximately 0.5" tall at the top and 0.75" tall at the bottom.

Next, I went to work on building the tab itself. I decided early on that I didn't want to reuse the scrap pieces that I had cut out from the rudder, but instead use new 0.016" sheet aluminum so that I could roll the edges around and make a piece that looks continuous. Figuring out the geometry of the whole deal took quite some time, but I ended up with a design that only will only have one line of rivets holding the whole piece together (other than the trailing edge):

The resulting part actually came out just about exactly as I had envisioned! The control horn *almost* fits completely inside the rudder, but it does bump into the skin just a little bit on its way from side to side. Still better than protruding any significant amount, which is what I first thought I'd have to deal with. I think all I'll need to do is cut a small C-shaped notch out of the opening in the rudder and that should solve the problem-- then I won't even need to use the Avery fairings I bought.

The tab seems to have more than enough travel in both directions, and with the control horn's geometry, it will require about 1" to go from stop to stop, slightly favoring the left side (for right rudder). Since the T2-7A Servo has 0.7" of travel, I think this will work out perfectly and I should be able to adjust the linkage to work as needed.

That's it for now... I'm wanting to finish the tab and servo mechanism before riveting the skins together, but it appears that aside from that, the rudder is getting close to being complete!

Vertical Stabilizer Complete!

A few more rivets, and before I knew it the first part of the build is complete! Feels great to be able to check this box, but after a short break running around the garage holding this thing up like a flag and making airplane noises (I wish I was kidding), back to work!

Actually tonight was a pretty short night building. I used my back-riveting plate for the first time, and back-riveted the skins to the rudder. It worked great! It was pretty quick work, but made it look like a lot of progress!

Both R and L rudder skins, after back-riveting the stiffeners into place

I think the next step before I actually assemble the two halves is to figure out exactly what I'm going to do with the rudder trim tab. A few of the parts came today (including the ProSeal for the trailing edge), so I should be able to start on this endeavor tomorrow. That's all for now!

Empennage - More Rudder/VS Work

Started the evening by running my conduit line through the VS skeleton and fabricating two small brackets to hold the conduit in place between the lightening holes of the VS nose ribs. I forgot to take a picture of them, but they came out pretty good! This conduit will allow me to run lighting and/or antenna wires up to the top fairing of the VS if need be. I also installed a doubler in the top rib of the VS where the conduit terminates to strengthen that area. I primed all the newly made parts and riveted them all into place. The final thing I did to the VS before putting on the skin was to install a grounding nut plate, in case I decide to add static wicks (still undecided on that).

Next was the rudder. We got through the first 4 or 5 riveting steps in section 7, up to the back-riveting of the rudder skins. I'm saving that until after we get completely done with the VS, which is looking like it should be tomorrow. The rudder pieces went together fairly well, and we also added the grounding nut plate in about the same position of the rudder spar. The end of tonight's work on the rudder brought us here:

Sarah getting some more experience bucking rivets... she's doing great!

The control horn/bottom rib riveted together, and rudder spar with doublers and nut plates installed. Looking good so far!

The last thing I did tonight was start work on attaching the VS skin. I had been putting this task off because I wanted to make sure I had done everything I needed to before buttoning it up. After installing the conduit, redoing two of the rivets, and putting in the nut plate, it was ready to be closed in forever! I only got about halfway through it tonight, but I think it was the harder half with all those rivets near the leading edge that were kinda hard to get to with the bucking bar. I got all the rivets forward of the front spar done, as well as all the front spar rivets on one side. It looks like the rest should go pretty quickly tomorrow, and then I'll have my first completed part! Excited for that...

The current state of the VS. All leading edge rivets are complete, and one side's front spar is done (the side not visible).

View inside the leading edge of the VS, with the lower half of rivets complete. You can also see the conduit run going through the lightening holes.

Inside the VS looking forward, you can see the lower half has been riveted to the spar, and the conduit running through the front area.

The grounding nut plate, installed just above the middle hinge on the VS main spar.

The grounding nutplate, installed above the middle attach point on the rudder spar.

Empennage - Rudder - Day 3

Short day of work today. Finished dimpling the remaining rudder skin and then Sarah helped re-dimple the VS skin with the new hammer. It's hard to tell the difference unless you test-fit a rivet in the hole. After re-dimpling the rivet clearly sits flush in there, where beforehand some of the holes didn't let it quite fully set into place. Lesson learned! :-)

After dimpling, we did the typical acetone wash and priming routine. I used a little less primer this time than on the VS, only really focusing on the metal-metal contact points and then a lighter dusting elsewhere to conserve weight. This method might only conserve a few pounds at most throughout the whole plane, but hey, everything counts!

Tomorrow I'm going to try and button up the VS, and at least rivet together the skeleton of the rudder... should be an exciting day!

 The rudder skeleton after priming

The two rudder skins after priming.

Empennage - Rudder - Day 2

So I took the day off yesterday from doing any actual building. I did, however, have my EAA Chapter 33 Tech Counselor, Tom, over to my house for the first time to show him the workshop and what I've got accomplished so far. He seemed happy with just about everything, but he did point out that I haven't been hitting the dimpler hard enough with the hammer when dimpling the 0.025" thick skin of the VS. Good thing it isn't attached yet, should be really easy to run through the C-frame again, this time with a 2lb ball peen hammer. (I had previously been using a 3lb rubber mallet... apparently you don't want to use rubber mallets for the job, who knew?) The only other finding came when I pointed out 2 rivets on the VS main spar that didn't come out 100% perfect, and I wanted to know how close they were to rejection-level. He said they were fine as is but if I wanted to I could drill them out and replace them, just to get the practice and have the extra peace of mind. I figure I might as well, it can't hurt anything.

Last night I also ordered the parts for the rudder trim. This will be the first add-on I will be attempting that is not in Van's Plans. My idea for rudder trim will be to do something similar to Brian Steeves' post but use a longer pushrod and mount the servo closer to the front of the rudder to minimize potential control surface balance issues (but also the slightly larger/heavier/cheaper RA servo). There's also an interesting post going on currently on VAF that I'm paying close attention to, I might incorporate some of the things I'm reading in there too, we'll see. My bill of materials for rudder trim so far is as follows:

Ray Allen T2-7A Servo ($145.00)
Van's VA-195C/D inspection plate doubler and cover ($7.10)
Van's AN257-P3X3' hinge ($7.50) will only need about 7" of the 36" part
Avery fairing set ($16.00)
Click Bond Studs ($9.65)

On to today... we nearly completed the metalwork for the rudder. We started by clecoing on the skins to match-drill all 4 billion holes in the skin. The plans said to use a cleco in every hole, so that we did. Sarah and I spent the first half of this task figuring out a system to communicate which holes still needed to be drilled, and which ones needed a cleco removed or inserted after drilling, etc. By about the time we got the rhythm down, she wanted to switch roles from clecoing to drilling, and the learning process started over again :-). We're having great fun putting this stuff together though! And the resulting rudder appears to have come out quite straight and looks pretty neat:

The rudder with the skin fully clecoed into place. Notice the empty cleco bin on the stool to the right, we literally used every 3/32" cleco we had! Maybe it's time to buy more...

After finishing up all the match drilling and clecoing, it was time to tear it all back apart and begin the painstaking deburring and dimpling process. I set a cutoff time at midnight for today, which got us through everything except for dimpling one of the two skins. Should be about 20 more minutes of work tomorrow, then the rudder will be ready for priming and final assembly!

The parts needed to build an RV-10 rudder, minus one of the two skins. All parts here are cut, deburred, match-drilled, deburred (again), scuffed, dimpled, now ready for priming and final assembly!

Empennage - Rudder - Day 1

Well, after making a lot of great progress on VS Day 1, I feel like I've slowed down a little bit today. Staying up way too late last night finishing up this website, combined with the loss of an hour with daylight savings definitely didn't help. I have a feeling like there will be plenty more days like yesterday, and plenty more days like today yet to come!

So I decided to keep the skin off the vertical stabilizer for now and move on to the rudder. I'm still wanting to get a little more comfortable with the whole process and figured it won't hurt anything to leave them separate for now, and rivet it together another time. So... on to Section 7 - Rudder!

R-1003, R-1004, R-1010, and R-1015 parts, raw

The beginning of Section 7 involved quite a bit of metalwork. The top and bottom ribs needed to be separated from their raw stamped parts, along with the shear clips and each of the seven stiffeners needed to be cut to different lengths. Then each piece needed the usual deburring which seemed to take quite a while with all the little resulting parts. Here is what this same pile of parts became after about 3 hours:

R-1003, R-1004, R-1010, and R-1015 parts, cut and deburred

It was about at this point that my good friends Alec and Cody showed up to check out the project. It was great to do a little show and tell over the semi-complete VS, and walk through the whole process that I am just beginning to get the feel of. I've told all my friends that throughout this process I'm implementing an open-door policy: anyone who wants to come watch is more than welcome to do so, but they'll have to help out (at least a little)! So:

Never too cautious, Alec agreed to help by peeling the protective layer from the R-1002 spar assembly :-)

The rest of today's work was pretty straightforward: a little deburring work on the rudder horn and striker plates, and then clecoing all these parts together. It yielded this nifty piece of work:

That's actually pretty much it for today! Lots more work to do on the rudder, and still need to rivet on the VS skin at some point... Hopefully I'll get in a few hours each night throughout this week!

Empennage - Vertical Stabilizer - Day 1

So, today was the first day we began building our own airplane. Be warned that the caption of the below photo is a bit incorrect though, since the beginning of the build is neither called step one, nor is it on page one. It is called Section 6, which quite logically occurs immediately after sections 1-5. Sections 1-5 cover many of the prerequisites to embarking on such a project, including company/aircraft information, terminology, methodology, and just general information about exactly we've gotten ourselves into. Van's indeed seems to be very thorough in guiding their builders along, and I for one am very thankful for that! For all intents and purposes, though, Section 6 is really Step 1 for actually building something.

Page 1, Step 1!

I gathered all of the necessary parts for the vertical stabilizer, stripped off the blue vinyl protective sheeting, and began following the instructions that lay before me. I cut some aluminum angle to make R and L spar caps, and before I knew it I was neck deep in drilling/deburring, watching things take shape before my eyes!

These are the two VS spar caps, just after cutting them with the bandsaw.

The top of the spar caps, tapering away as you go upward.

The lower part of the same spar caps, beginning to get clecoed into place.

The VS rear spar, with caps, hinge brackets, and doublers all clecoed into place.

 

Adding in the front spar and the rest of the VS skeleton.

 

Clecoed and final-drilled the skin into place... just to have to take it all back apart again for more deburring, dimpling, and then priming for final assembly!

I've chosen to go with Rustoleum self-etching auto primer because it's relatively cheap, easy to work with, and my research seems to indicate it provides decent protection for the money. I considered other techniques like alodining or using a higher-dollar 2-part primer, but quite honestly I can't justify the cost in both time and money spent. Lots of planes are built around the world without any primer at all, and so I'm really not too worried about choosing this route over some other methods preferred by the primer purists-- this seemed like the best middle-of-the-road choice. For those who may not be aware, primers tend to be a volatile subject among aircraft builders... lots of differing opinions out on the forums that lead to lengthy discussions and spirited debates... me, I chose what I hope/believe is best for my purpose, but may not be the route others have taken or would/should take. Unless asked specifically, I promise this is the last time I'll discuss primers and choice/rationale here on this site!!!! ;-)

Priming is done, so that means it's time for rivet #1!!! Too bad it was for kind of a boring part: the rudder stop tabs. It was a good place to start, though. Here's the final part after putting the six rivets into place:

The first part I riveted together for my very own RV-10!

A few dozen rivets later, it was Sarah's turn to take a shot at it!

 

She's been busy assembling her Van's toolbox practice kit, but she took a quick break from that to help out with the front VS spar doubler plate. She did a great job!

After riveting the spars together and then (most of) the skeleton, we're ready to attach the skin! Time to call it a day, though. I have to say, things seem to be going more quickly than I thought they would. I'm not in any kind of rush, and would much rather take longer and make a quality build than go quickly and make mistakes... but today seemed to go very smoothly and we cruised right along through most of the steps. I can only assume that the SportAir workshops we attended are responsible for a lot of this progress made... all I can say is, if you're thinking about building a plane, take the class!