My buddy Andre stopped by tonight to help me rivet the trailing edge.  It turned out great.

Here you can see that it’s completely straight.  One of the things Van’s really cautions you about is that setting these rivets can cause a hook in the trailing edge.  Using the sealant helps ensure this won’t happen.  I did get some very slight puckering between the rivets, probably due to slightly overdriving them.

We also got the leading edge rolled and riveted.  This was probably by far the hardest part of the rudder.  Despite how thin the skins are, these things are a bitch to roll.

I also got the rudder hinges installed.  Van’s uses rod end bearings for hinges on the elevator and rudders.  These are just screwed in to a specified distance from the spar web (or reinforcing plate in this photo).

I back-riveted the trim access reinforcement plate to the left elevator skin.

I also prepped the trim cover plate and attached it with AN507-6R6 screws.

Finally, I deburred, dimpled and put rivets in all of the skin holes where they are riveted to the stiffeners.  It’s too late to rivet these tonight, but I can knock these out quickly tomorrow morning.

Here’s the left elevator skin ready for back riveting the stiffeners.

I deburred, dimpled, prepped and primed all of the elevator stiffeners along with the spar reinforcement plates and trim access reinforcement plate (both in the foreground).

After the primer dried (15 minutes or so), I installed the platenuts on the trim access reinforcement plate.  Countersinking the reinforcement plate was definitely the right way to go.  The mounting surface for the trim access cover is totally flush.

Here is the backside showing the platenuts and rivet shopheads.

Since I’m waiting for the sealant on the trailing edge of the rudder to cure, I went ahead and started on the elevators.  Here’s the left skin drilled.  The missing section of the trailing edge on the left is for the elevator trim tab.

Here’s the trim access reinforcement plate drilled to the skin.

Nutplates mount around the inside edge of the access plate to provide a place for the screws that hold the access cover to attach.  Van’s doesn’t provide any guidance about how to attach these, but you’re expected to know enough by this point to do it.  The nutplates are held on with AN426AD3-3.5 rivets and the access plate is 0.032″.  AD3 rivets are 3/32″, and AC 43.13 (google it if you’re really interested) specifies that you must dimple material thinner than 0.032″ and countersink material thicker than 0.040″.  For 0.032″ material, you can do either.  If I had dimpled the access plate, it would require either dimpling the nutplate mounting ears (which would have necessitated grinding down the edge of my female #40 dimple die).  Countersinking eliminates the need to do that.  It’s a little tricky countersinking 0.032″ material for an AD3 rivet since just as you countersink deep enough, the countersink penetrates the back side of the material and the countersink cutter loses its center reference.  To avoid this, I clamped a piece of scrap to the back of this plate and match drilled through it and then countersunk through the pair.  This provided an extended center reference for the countersink cutter.

I also dimpled the plate for #6 screw to receive the dimples from the cover plate.  Here, you can see a closeup of one of the dimples and the countersinks on either side to attach the nutplate.

I didn’t get any pictures of the actual process since the sealant is sticky as hell.  Literally, everything that it touches will stick and you can’t get it off without a fairly aggressive solvent like MEK.  Anyway, I used one of the tubes of sealant available from Van’s that is ready to be mixed.  It was kind of a waste since you only use maybe an ounce on the trailing edge wedge.  After mixing it, I used the Semco sealant gun I picked up on eBay to put a thin bead down both sides of the wedge then spread it smooth with a popsicle stick.  It was then just a matter of clecoing on the angles that I already made.  I put clecos every hole to provide even clamping pressure (you can see just a bit of sealant oozing out of a couple of spots along the edge).

Here’s a closeup showing the sealant that has squeezed out.  Now I just have to let this sit for 2-3 days to firm up and I can rivet the trailing edge.

Here are a couple of pictures of the back of the rudder hinge reinforcement plates, mostly for the DAR to see that these are set correctly since there is no way to see inside the rudder once the skins are riveted on.  Here’s the middle hinge reinforcement plate.

And here’s the upper hinge reinforcement plate.

I got both skins fully riveted on (except for the trailing edge).  Here are the counterbalance skin to main skin rivets.  You can sorta see here how the tapering I did on the counterbalance skin allows the main skin to flow smoothly down on to the spar.  When you feel it, you can barely detect the joint.  This will all get covered in filler most likely when I do the fiberglass work for the rudder top fairing.

Here’s the top rib riveted on.  The top rib is riveted to the spar with pop rivets since the other side of this joint is inaccessible (or nearly so).  The only thing to remember here is to switch from AN426AD3-3.5 to AN426AD3-4 rivets where the skins overlap since there’s a little more material the rivet is going through.

Here’s the completed rudder structure (again excluding the trailing edge.  I’ve already drilled two aluminum angles that I picked up at Home Depot, so all I need to do is clean this, apply the sealant and cleco it together.

I managed to get all solid rivets where the skins and bottom rib join the horn brace.  The longeron yoke got the rear three, but the hinge nutplate interfered with the yoke when I tried to do the front rivet.  The three-inch yoke with a 1/2″ flush set cleared fine.  I hand squeezed all of these so that I could easily back off if I felt interference.  The pneumatic squeezer has so much power that it would easily bend any interfering parts before you could stop it.

Jenn helped me shoot the last two rivets (seen here at the far left and right edged inside the rudder brace hole).  Jenn had never riveted before, but she picked it up quickly and did a great job.

Here are the rest of the rivets that hold the rudder brace on.  I managed to get all solid rivets in here without too much trouble.  This would have been nearly impossible without the longeron yoke.  A lot of people wait until the fuselage to order the longeron yoke, but it’s been invaluable on the empennage.  There have already been a number of spots that couldn’t be squeezed any other way.

I riveted all of the rudder stiffeners on this morning before work since I’ve been getting home too late to do it before the kids go to bed.

These rivets are back-riveted which means the rivet gun forms the shop head while the manufactured head rests against a back-rivet place (in this case a large piece of cold rolled steel that I picked up at a local metal supply shop.  Below, you can see the rivet tape that is used to hold the rivets in place until they’re driven.  As everyone says, back-riveting rocks.  The skin is amazingly smooth.

Here is the structure all clecoed together.  Most if not all of the remaining rivets except the trailing edge can be squeezed.  I’ll knock that out tomorrow and then get started on the trailing edge.

I prepped and primed all of the rudder components.

After the primer dried, I clecoed together the rear spar with reinforcing plates and nutplates for the rudder hinges.

Here’s a closeup of the rudder horn showing the nutplate that will receive the rudder hinge.

Here are the reinforcing plates all riveted on.  The plans don’t include the rudder callout of the nutplate rivets, but you should be able to figure it out by this point.

I couldn’t reach the outer two holes in the rudder horn with any of my squeezer yokes, so I’ll have to shoot and buck those.  It’s too late tonight to make that much noise though.

I could squeeze the counterbalance rib and skin rivets, so I did those.

I also mounted the counterbalance weight.  This required considerable trimming of the lead weight in order to fit between the rivets.  A vixen file cuts through lead like butter though.  This is all torqued and ready to be closed up.

I began assembling the rudder skeleton tonight.  First up is to drill out the 3/8″ hole through the lower part of the spar where the lower hinge bracket will attach.

Next is to fit the rudder horn in place and match drill it to the spar.  This view is looking aft from the bottom of the rudder.  The outer holes at the top of the horn will eventually attach to rudder cables coming out the side of the rear part of the fuselage.  The lower holes are for chains that will connect to the tailwheel assembly (though I’ll almost certainly use the rocket steering link).

I started to flute the tip rib when I noticed that the rib is apparently bent incorrectly.  The flange (and therefore hole) on the right side are almost 1/8″ higher than the flange and hole on the left side.  I clecoed on the skin, and this definitely causes alignment problems.  I’ll shoot Van’s an email tomorrow and see if they can send me a new rib.