Rudder work - Me 5 hours, Jim 3 hours.

Today was a productive day.  Jim from the local EAA club came by to assist and we were able to get a lot of the rudder together.  I cut and trimmed the rudder ribs before Jim arrived, but we got the ribs onto the spar and got the right skin attached.  Another day that we have what looks to be an airplane part in the garage.  Here is the product of today's work.

VS Takes Shape (3 hrs)

The second day was a little shorter. Ryan had his Senior Brunch, I can't believe that he is about to graduate High School.

Put the ribs and front spar on the rear spar for the Vertical Stabilizer today.  Had some difficulty getting the holes lined up on the second side of the skin and probably should have stopped there and done some research, but I pressed ahead with the confidence that Van's Instructions were right and that I had executed them in the correct manner...  Got it together, but then noticed that there are a couple outward bumps in the skin.  This was caused by the nose of the ribs in the bend of the skin.  First learning moment and bump in the road.  Should have stopped when it wasn't going together as it should and done some research... Not too bad of a price to pay, but still a price.

My small dents... :(  I don't think that they will be noticeable later.

Disassembled everything at the end of the day to do some more deburing and getting ready to prime.

The Journey Begins! (4 hrs)

With the success of the tool box fresh in my mind, I decided that I could start working on the Tail Kit.  The first step is to cut a 16" slice out of the Vertical Stabilizer Spar doublers.  Scary for the first step!  I have used my new band saw a couple times, but didn't like the cut it was making with the band that was included with it so I replaced it with a very fine tooth band and that seemed to cut a lot better.

I got the two doublers from the parts and measured twice and marked the cuts.  Here goes nothing!  After the cuts and running them on the deburing wheel for a bit, they looked pretty good if I did say so myself. :)

Pictures to come.

Spent the rest of the day clecoing, drilling, un-clecoing, deburing and reading the steps.  Did around 4 hours of work and then cleaned up the shop.  Not bad for a first day!