January 2, 2002

By the time I got home from work, the glue was plenty dry on the rudder tips (holding the alclad strips to the inside for rivet reinforcement). I went ahead and positioned the tip against the top of the rudder. I had one particular fit problem that ended up not being a big deal, but was frustrating at first. The fiberglass tip fit nicely inside the rudder top flange, and lengthwise (front to back) it was perfect. But...widthwise it was way too narrow...by at least 1/8" or so. Basically the fiberglass piece didn't "swell" to hug up against the sides, leaving a visible gap. I figured this would be a major problem, since you can't push it into place while drilling (it's fully enclosed while in position), and I didn't want to drill through the aluminum and then have like 1/4" gap beneath it as I tried to press into the fiberglass. That would undoubtedly produce misaligned holes.

So I deliberated for a while and even considered putting some sort of reinforcement "rib" in there to spread the sides out. That seemed like way too much effort, and I hadn't heard about other builders doing that. So what I ended up doing was taking the fiberglass piece into my kitchen.

I set up an ice-cold water bath in a pot...cold water with a buttload of ice cubes. I then ran the fiberglass piece under scalding hot water for a few seconds, spread the piece open by hand, stretching it a bit, and held that stretched position as I dunked it into the ice bath and let it cool. I did this a couple of times, one time using wooden blocks to spread the sides, until the piece showed a visible and measurable widening.

When I finally drilled the tip to the rudder, it wasn't perfect, but it snugged up enough so that as I clecoed each hole it got snugger and snugger. It worked out fine. Here's a shot of the fairing after being drilled and clecoed into place.

Then it was through the motions of dismantling, deburring, dimpling, countersinking the fiberglass (with my now-designated fiberglass specific bits), and putting it back on with clecos. A couple dozen blind rivets, and this sucker was done. Looks good...ready for filler.

I'm dreading the lower rudder fairing. That's going to need some major trimming and I can already smell the iterations. I might move on to the elevators and horizontal tab for now. Better yet, I'll leave it for the future. Hell, this filler needs 70-77 degrees Fahrenheit for ideal curing setup, and it's about 60-65 degrees here this time of year. Plus we're moving, so I think fate is telling me to wait just a bit.

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Dan Checkoway ()