Trent's RV14 Build: 7-05,08,09: Rudder Assembly

I primed the rudder components in 2 batches - the skeleton components, then the stiffners and the skins. I primed the outside of the right hand skin where it will go under the left hand skin in both the counterbalance rib location, as well as the leading edge location. Unfortunately, I placed the right skin outside face down to dry, forgetting i had primed the outside and it ruined the paint. I cleaned it all off with Acetone and will have to do that bit again.

7-05: Rudder Skeleton Riveting

This section was fun! The upper reinforcement plates and nutplates were squeezed with the longeron yoke: all the rivets came out ok. I checked that the eye-bolts would fit through the holes before riveting the nutplates on (as the paint may have made it challenging later).

The lower reinforcement plate, rudder horn, shim and lower rib were all riveted with the short cupped set and tungsten bucking bar. I found that the cupped set was fretting on the rivet and marring it - i tried putting some painters tape but this just failed quickly. What worked well was the use of electrical tape on the end of the set.

The lower 4 right hand side rivets were shot without any tape - you can see the marring. The other rivets were done with the electrical tape, and this worked much better.

The upper counterbalance rib was riveted with the squeezer and the longeron yoke - i put the manufactured heads of the rivets on the forward face of the spar to be consistent with the other rivets.

The completed skeleton - it's great to finally be riveting some stuff together!

7-08 Rudder Stiffeners

The rudder stiffners were backriveted to the left and right skins, along with the right hand side only lower rib and fairing attach strip. The only problem was that i did half the stiffners with the skin in one orientation, then rotated it to do the other end. Unfortunately, i put the next stiffner onto the rivets in the same orientation (not rotated) - so it was on backwards! The stiffners were backriveted using my small backriveting set, which unfortunately has a metal collar, so i covered this in tape to protect the stiffners. I held finger pressure on the stiffners on each side of the rivet when riveting.

Right hand skin and stiffners - the bottom rib is not attached yet.

The left hand skin, with one stiffner riveted on backwards!

To drill out the errant stiffner, I centre punched each rivet with the automatic punch then drilled through the head using a #41 drill (slightly smaller than the #40 hole the rivet was set in). I then used a 3/32" pin punch to break the head off the rivet, and pushed the tail out with the automatic centre punch.

Fist major brain fart - but manage to get the stiffner off with no issues or enlarged hole. All the heads have been broken off here, but the tails haven't been punched out yet

Once the stiffners were backriveted on, the rudder shear clips were pull riveted onto the stiffener ends with LP4-3 rivets, using the hand rivet puller.

7-09 Rudder Skin Assembly

The rudder skin assembly began with the scuffing of the trailing edge using 400 grit sandpaper. I then cleaned it off using EkoClean, and finally acetone. I wore gloves from this point to stop the oil on my hands preventing the tape from sticking. Tape was applied to both sides of the wedge:

I had planned to mask the skins and stick the wedge directly to the aluminium. I had emailed Van's and asked about this, as my understanding was that the proseal that was previously used, would prevent any water ingress and corrosion. I was concerned that using the tape and leaving the area unprimed would leave a section liable to corrosion. Van's response was that i should leave the area unprimed, or use proseal if i was concerned, and noted that if i were to prime i had to ensure that the paint was securly attached to the skin (tape test). I had previously done a tape test, and the primer sticks very strongly to the aluminium. In any case, i decided to mask the skins.... then forgot!!! So i was left with paint on the skins, but no paint on the wedge. I simply decided to scuff the paint on the trailing edge of the skins, and i used some metho to remove any oils etc to ensure the tape stays adhered. Ce la vie!

Moving forward, the tape was peeled from one side of the wedge and adhered to the right hand skin. I had previously prepared an aluminium angle drilled at the correct angle to help keep the trailing edge straight. I drilled 3 largeish holes in the vertical face, to allow me to drill the angle off to the edge of the workbench. I used some screws which had a section of unthreaded grip, and these were not tightened to the workbench, so as to not put pressure and bow the angle. They are basically there to let the angle float on the screw grip and remain level with the top of the bench. I used clecos in every hole to keep the wedge held down tightly to help the tape stick. This was left for 20 mins to set. Once this was set, all the clecos were moved from above the wedge, to coming though the angle into the wedge - this left just the small tails of the clecos sticking out of the holes and allowed me to align the skin with these as i laid it down.

The wedge being held down the skin through the alu angle to help stick the lower tape in place

I then followed the procedure on page 7-09 to roll back the skin, progressively peeling back the tape, laying down the skin onto the tape, and moving the clecos to the top surface to keep downward pressure on the skin to help set the top tape. Each rib was pull riveted in 3 locations as i went. The skin was held back using the DRDT2 and a roll of tape - this worked very well.

The final product - it will remain clecod to the aluminium angle until i am ready to rivet the trailing edge (i can rivet in the skeleton with it clecod to the angle i think).