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Well last night, as you know, I buttoned up the rudder and got it looking pretty good. I then tried my hand at rolling the leading edge of the rudder. Now you'd think (well at least I thought) that these aluminum skins are so thin that it shouldn't be too difficult to roll these babies into a nice rounded leading edge. Wrong. This is really tough to do much less do well. I had the entire leading edge of one side all taped up and tried rolling it but it was just too tough. I had to undo the tape and roll each of the three sections of each side individually. Even then, tough work. Finally, I got them rolled enough to get some clecos in the holes and hold the two edges together. Here's a shot of the bottom section of the rudder clecoed together.  I had to drill out the holes to the final size for the blind rivets and set those. Wash, lather, rinse and repeat for the middle and upper sections of the rudder leading edge and here's what you get:  Overall the leading edge is not perfect as there are a few places that have bumps in between the rivets and it's not a perfect curve (if you are doing this, it takes a lot of downward force against the table with the rolling implement to keep there from being a slight "corner" where the skin leaves the edges of the spar). I'm not at all worried about this because this is not a structural part so there is little force on the leading edge and it is covered by the trailing edge of the vertical stabilizer so it is neither in the airstream causing drag or able to be seen by people. Only me and the probably six people who will ever read this will know it's not quite perfect.
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| Thanks for visiting! | Last Update: 25 May 2012 |