Rudder mostly complete
I already had all of the rudder parts prepared, so it was just a matter of final riveting to complete the rudder except for the trailing and leading edges. Using a longeron and 4″ yoke, I was able to squeeze all of the rivets. I used the longeron yoke to squeeze the difficult ones inside the base reinforcement bracket. The only blind rivets that I used were for the last (aft) rivet in the ribs.
When fitting the skins, I had to do some trimming of the forward edge of the stiffeners in the middle where they came too close to the spar doubler plate. I’ll set the rudder aside for trailing edge completion when I have the elevators ready. This concludes all of the “pile of parts” that I had prepared and primed. So, on to the elevators…
rudder counterbalance weight installed
trimmed rudder stiffener
Rudder control horn
no (optional) blind rivets needed here
blind rivet in last hole
