Matt's RV-7 Project

Back from far-flung lands! I deburred and dimpled the rudder skins, including the six holes at the aft end of the top rib that you can only dimple before you rivet on the skins.

Then I countersunk the new AEX wedge to accept the dimples in the skin.

I riveted the counterweight skin on, then bolted on the counterweight. This time around I decided to put some J-B Weld on the nuts, since you can't access them once the top rib is in place. Don't want those guys vibrating loose.

The J-B Weld package cracks me up. Better than bailing wire, indeed.

Next I riveted on the top rib, and riveted the counterbalance skin to the rudder skins.

Then I finished riveting the rudder skins to the ribs and spar.

I got out my old piece of straight angle and clecoed it to the trailing edge to test the fit. Yep, it's straight.

The next step will be to proseal the new rudder trailing edge, when I get some time.

All I've had time to do this week is to match drill the new rudder skins to the old skeleton. Deburring, dimpling, and riveting will have to wait a while, since I'm leaving on a trip for the rest of June.

I worked on the new rudder on and off this weekend. On Friday night I match drilled the stiffeners to the skins. (This was a mistake; taking the wife out on Friday night instead of working on the airplane is smarter and causes fewer difficulties.)

On Saturday I deburred and dimpled the skins, which was harder than it sounds because my DRDT c-frame tool was 50 miles away in coworker John's RV-9A workshop. Mary and I threw the skins in the car and made a day out of it, stopping at a couple other places and driving around in the country a bit. We also stopped by briefly to look at RV-7 builder Bill Gill's project – or rather I looked at the airplane, and Mary played with Bill's dogs. Everyone was happy.

After we got back to town, I primed the skins:

On Sunday morning I got up before it was too windy and primed the stiffeners too:

I spent most of the middle of Sunday messing with the air compressor – the "off" position on the switch has never worked since I bought it, and despite my best efforts today it still doesn't work. Then in the evening I back riveted the stiffeners to the skin:

The complete rudder is now clecoed together and looks like a rudder, all right:

The next step is to match drill the skins to the skeleton, deburr, and dimple, but I'm too wiped out from the gym. Plus I'm going on a week long business trip soon so I suppose it's in my best interest to pay attention to the Mrs.

Made a bunch of rudder stiffeners tonight:

The balloons attached to the second fuel tank have been inflated for about a week now. That's more than ample proof that the tank is not leaking, I think. Hooray for proseal!

Mary came out and helped me wrestle the wing back into the wing stand. Barring something unforseen, the wings should be staying in the rack for quite a while.

Look at this. This is the trailing edge of the rudder. It's so wavy it hurts to look at it.

I know I said I was happy with it, but now that I've really stared at other RV's and seen how it's supposed to look, I hate it.

So, I'm going to re-skin the rudder. I started tonight by drilling out all the rivets holding the top rib in place.

Then I drilled out about 300 more rivets, until the skin was completely detached from the skeleton. The skeleton is in good shape – only a small handful of rivet holes got elongated, and they can be fixed with oops rivets.

So, now all I need to do is make new stiffeners, rivet them to a new pair of skins, and put the new skins on the old skeleton. Luckily I decided I was probably going to do this a few months back, and I have all the materials I need sitting around.