Today I got started on the rudder. Its construction is a little different from the vertical and horizontal stabilizers – rather than having a one-piece skin which folds around a set of ribs, the rudder consists of two thin, floppy skins that are given their strength by aluminum angle stiffeners every few inches.
To cut the stiffeners to the proper lengths, I used this cheap cutoff saw I got at Harbor Freight last year. But first I had to squint at the plans for a while to figure out just what they wanted me to do here. They don't exactly go out of their way to make it clear.
Here are the stiffeners for the right-side rudder skin. At this point they are only rough-cut to the approximate shape, but not smoothed and deburred. I'll probably pick up a cheap benchtop belt sander to finish these guys off.
Here's a shot of the stiffeners for the left-side rudder skin. I guess I could have omitted this photo since it looks a lot like the previous one, but here you go anyway.
