Posts are getting sparse, as is the work. Finally finished the rudder on Friday. Riveted the trailing edge. It came out OK, within spec. Not perfect. One problem with the instructions is they keep saying to check and recheck the straightness of the trailing edge as you go. But they never say what to do if there's a problem. It worked out, but there's still the elevators to go.
Spent 2 hours Saturday goofing around with the rudder attach bolts, trying to mate the rudder to the VS. Got it done after a fashion, with only top and bottom bolts partly installed, but discovered that there's no way to completely get it right at this stage. Have to wait until the fuselage is ready to take the whole lot, because the VS spars get maniputated, i.e. bent, during the final installation process. When that's done, THEN the final tuning can be done. So the rudder is done for now. That took 39.5 hours.
Started the elevators by building braces to hold them open, and then trimming stiffeners to rough length. Destroyed a bandsaw blade trying to cut a very hard piece of steel to use as a rudder hinge bolt tool. In the end, a hacksaw blade did the job, but now I don't have the right bandsaw blade to cut stiffeners.
