I guess this pretty much brings work on the tail to a close for now. I could start work on the fiberglass tips, but I don’t have any of the materials or anything. I’m just going to save that for when I’m in fiberglass mode way down the road. I really only had one simple goal tonight: to get the rudder hung. That turned out to be kind of an exercise in frustration, just because it took a lot of trial-and-error to get things lined up properly.
Last night, I thought I’d found a useful solution by sighting through the rod end holes to verify their alignment. But the first time I slipped the rudder into place today, it was clear the alignment was still not correct. Turns out the hinge points on the v-stab aren’t exactly in line, so the rod ends on the rudder had to be moved to account for this. To make a long story short, it took probably eight or nine trial runs before I finally got things to line up. And of course, even when I did get the alignment right, I still had to pull the rudder one more time to torque the jam nuts in place and apply torque seal. Only then did I get to install it for the last time. (for now, at least) I made sure to stand the assembly up and check the rudder for free movement and no binding before adding and tightening the nuts. A good wipedown to get rid of fingerprints, and…that’s it!
Of course, there had to be some photo ops with this thing.
I feel kind of lost now with nothing to work on. Although I do still have to figure out storage for this stuff. I’ve got a place for the horizontal assembly, but I have no idea yet how to stash the vertical. In the meantime, I’ve got to find myself a new car, since mine got wrecked this past week. And there’s some other stuff around the house I can be catching up on. I figure my wings should be here in about three weeks. I also am planning on doing a semi-scientific rattle-can primer shootout when I finally get a weekend with nice weather.