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Build Diary 13-September-05

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This evening I riveted the trailing edge of the rudder. I had put this off for sometime as it seemed very hard to get right - I needn't have worried. It went well. I then fitted the left elevator and had a heart stopping moment when I thought I had something really wrong. See picture text for the full story.

I bonded the rudder trailing edge and have had it cleco'ed to some angle for 3 days. Now it's time to fit the rivets. At lunctime I headed over to John'M and borrowed his back rivet plate. After taking the angle off I checked it was all straight. Then fitted the AD3-3.5 rivets in the holes.
First back rivet - not fully - every tenth rivet. After checking it's all still straight fill in the rest of the rivets. Not fully at first.

A back riveting tip: Back riveting can be tricky, especially here where the surface is at a slight angle. My tip (robbed from John) is dial the air pressure down. I went to 30psi on a 3x gun. They all went in first time. The lower air pressure makes the gun less vicious and easier to handle. I didn't need to re-do any rivets.
All done. I am pleased with the finish.
A close-up of the set side of the rivet, not the head side. Nice hey!
Umm, took a few pictures. Pleased with the result. I thought I was going to have problems here.
This is the head side.
Sorry another picture of my rivets.
After the rudder I decided to fit the elevators. First the left. It's the first time I have tried to fit them, and I got a shock! See the next picture for the reason why!
Ahh, The elevator counter balance hits the skin. I checked the hinge spacing, OK. The plans, the correct parts. What had I go so wrong. Felt gutted!

I went back to the plans and finally found what I was looking for. A small note: Trim skin to fit elevator counterbalance. Boy was I pleased. So as you can see from the top part of this picture (just above counter balance part) I trimed the skin. It's a tight fit for now, I may take some more off later.
Pleased with the results. I will fit the otherside before making any more adjustments. Get them both aligned together.
You can tell when I am pleased with something, lots of pictures!
The otherside tomorrow night.
That's all for tonight.
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