7 May 2024 - 1.7 hours
Since it's been a very long time since I've touched anything rudder related, the first step was to find all the bits and bobs. Took a little bit but I managed to find all the parts, including the pre-cut to width (1 1/8") scrap that will be made into the support for the rudder bottom cap/fairing.With everything located, I went to work drilling the reinforcement plates, rudder horn, and ribs to the rudder spar. Then I made this little spacer out of scrap and match-drilled some holes into it.
The rudder horn covers the bottom of the spar and overlaps onto the bottom rib flange, so this fills the gap left by the thickness of the bottom rib flange. I also worked over the top edge of the rudder horn with a file to round it out so it fits into the bottom rib web-to-flange corner.
Finally, I clecoed on the counterweight skin at the top of the rudder and match-drilled it to the top rib and counterweight rib. The fit isn't great bit it was close enough, I guess.
Next up is priming. I need to prime the second half of the rudder skin stiffeners as well as both rudder skins so that I can back rivet the stiffeners to the skins and then proceed with the drilling of the skins to the rudder skeleton.