Rudder-&-HS

Rudder Trailing Edge

It's been a busy two weeks and while I've been making progress with the airplane build, writing these posts have been relegated to the back of my to-do list. Taking pictures similarily. So a quick brief about these sections.

I followed the plans and went straight to Vans to order proseal. Turns out the plans are outdated, and Section 5 actually calls out a new 3M tape that's easier to apply. I found this out after I finished applying proseal, so yay. Have some minor pillowing in the trailing edge, but I'm not bothered enough about it to do anything. All in all, it's pretty straight, the process is decently straight forward, albeit very very messy.

Takeaways? Buy the 3M tape from Vans, and definitely use gloves. Preferably the kind you can throw away.

Rudder Finish

Took a weekend off from building while the trailing edge cured. Came back and launched into riveting the trailing edge and finishing the counterweight. At this point, if you haven't done this yet, go ahead and order more machine screws. It's a good thing to have around, and you may end up stripping the head of a few screws if you use a power drill (I did, my first time around). Anyways, link to Aircraft Spruce here, the part you want is MS24694-S9.

That really concludes the rudder. I put it on the shelf next to the VS and called it a day.

Horizontal Stabilizer

First impressions? Awkward. As in, awkward to work with. This is the longest spar in the kit, and it takes up both of my EAA 1000 workbenches put together. At this point, everything is pretty straight forward here. Same drill really. Final drill, deburr, countersink and dimple when needed, prime, rivet.

You'll need a torque wrench if you don't have one at this point. Section 5 talks about it a bit, but essentially, in-lbs is what you need. You could pay Aircraft Spruce $200 for a known to be good one, but Amazon sells them for $40. It's probably ok. I mean, decent reviews I guess. You'll want to get a socket set too if you don't have one, but any old 1/4 inch socket set will work.

Section 8-2 also asks you to fabricate the first parts in the entire build, yay! I'm open to suggestions on how you're supposed to do this. The way I did it, I used a cheap hacksaw to make imprecise cuts, which takes about 20 minutes and a lot of boredom per piece. Then I used a belt sander to sand it down to size. All in all an hours work.

Time and Cost

Money spent so far:

Category	Budget	Spent
Tools	3800	4200
Shipping	300	524
Empennage	4310	4310