The rivets in question were for the eight holes on either side of the horn brace. Initially I wasn't able to set them since neither my regular 3 inch squeezer yoke nor my bucking bar would fit in the tight space, so I ordered a 2.5" flange yoke (often called a longeron yoke) to squeeze these.
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| For the tight space around the rivet closest to the horn itself, I had to flip the sets so the larger one could reach the shank inside the horn to form the shop head. |
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| Nice! I could have used pulled rivets here, but the solid ones look a lot better in my opinion. |
The absolute final step for the rudder was to put the rod end bearings into place. It takes a significant amount of force to screw these in, so I covered each with a cloth and used a vice grip to gain some leverage.
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| The lower rod end bearing should have its center at 1 1/16". Looks good to me! |
With that, the rudder is finished for now. I took my vertical stabilizer off the wall to check the fit and make sure there wasn't any binding as the rudder is moved side to side.
Thankfully the travel was smooth throughout the rudder's entire range of motion, so no adjustments to the rod end bearings are needed at this point. I did temporarily put the fiberglass pieces in place to get an idea of how everything will look after it's done.
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| It's a tail! |
After many months, the rudder is done! I couldn't resist taking a couple glamour shots in the polished skin.
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| I probably won't keep the aluminum polished (paint is a must), but it's fun to take advantage of the reflectivity while I still have it. |
Into the stand it went, and it's now safely tucked away next to the horizontal stabilizer already hanging on the wall.
Rudder done, elevators next!
