Now for the moment of truth.  I was stressed about this particular evolution as I have seen where other builders have had trouble with this.  Since it is one of the last evolutions for the rudder, I hate to wreck all my work up to this point.

Per Van's instructions, here was my method for riveting the rudder's trailing edge:

1. Set every 10th rivet by back riveting just enough to hold the rivet in the hole and checking for any developing deformities in the trailing edge.
2. Go back and set every 5th rivet, using the same method called out in step 1.
3. Set all remaining rivets, using the same method called out in step 1.
4. Flip the rudder over (carefully) and further set rivets (factory head side) to approximately 70-75%.  This allowed all the factory side heads to be fully set in the skin dimple.
5. Flip the rudder over again (carefully) and fully set all rivets by back riveting.  It took a fair amount of "hammering" to get the shop head fully set to where I was happy with it.

Now the real trick I found with riveting the trailing edge is to get the back rivet plate to be solid against the rudder skin.  Since the rudder gets narrower as you go to the top, the back rivet plate will not set flat against the skin as you progress down the rudder.

I used several standard carpenter shims to shim the back rivet plate until it was firmly sitting against the rudder skin (both axis's up-down and forward-aft).  The back rivet plate is pretty short so it had to be "adjusted" every couple of rivets.  The key I found here was to ensure that the back rivet plate does not "teeter".  If you are not careful when you shim, the plate will move when the rivet hammer strikes the rivet.  What I found worked about the best is to put the carpenter shims directly under the line of rivets on the trailing edge to be back riveted.

NOT SHOWN:  I used a couple quick-clamps to minimize movement of the rudder assembly.  Once shimmed, you do not want the back plate or the rudder to move.

Just a close-up of the same picture above.  The right side in this picture looks like it needs to be shimmed up prior to riveting.

After I completed the second pass, the rivets were beginning to look pretty good.  I again, took another pass down the trailing edge on the shop head side of the rivet.  It only took a couple of rivet hammer strikes (Sioux 2x at 45 psi) to fully countersink the shop heads.  One reference describes that the shop heads would look like a "acorn sitting in a dimple".  After this final pass, the shop heads sat very flush and almost filled the dimple on that side (almost, but not quite).

Van's instructions state that the trailing edge should not vary more than 0.100" from a straight line.  Visually, I could see only a very slight waviness on the trailing edge.  I put the straight edge (aluminum c-channel) and measured the gap (I used the light to demonstrate the waviness for the picture).  The measured maximum deviation from a straight line was measured to be approx. 0.050".

I CAN LIVE WITH THAT!!!

Very happy with how the trailing edge turned out.  Not a "Grand Champion", however, I don't want to spend the next 10 years building this thing to take out the 0.050" deviation.

Looking on the internet, I came across another builder's tip that looks like it would work really well.  Instead of back riveting the rudder's trailing edge, he modified a die set to squeeze the rivets.  He claims excellent results.  I have attached a link to that information.

http://www.matronics.com/photoshare/jimnbev@olypen.com.07.29.2003/

I finished up on the rudder's trailing edge.  I bought a length of aluminum 'C' channel at Menards to hold the rudder trailing edge straight after applying tank sealant and clecoing.

I cut the channel to length and then used the holes in the AEX wedge to drill the holes in order to cleco the channel to the rudders trailing edge.

I am using Flamemaster tank sealant I purchased from Van's to bond the components of the trailing edge to ensure a straight trailing edge when done.

This was my first opportunity to deal with this gooey stuff.  I bought the 6 oz tube for $14.95 and used very little of it.

This comes as a two part solution with the accelerator being in a narrow tube (top of picture).  The rod all the way on the right is pushed down the center to push the accelerator (black) into the main syringe body.  The instructions state not to push all the accelerator out into one place.  Therefore, I pushed a little accelerator out, the pushed on the main syringe (flange on top of the tube containing the accelerator) a little ways, then pushed out more accelerator.  By the time the main syringe was all the way down to the red cap, all of the accelerator was pushed out of the inner tube.  Then comes the manual labor where you push the main syringe rod full in and full out a minimum of 50 times (yep, called out by the instructions).  When you get closer to the 50 cycles on the syringe, you will notice the tank sealant will become a uniform dark gray.  Remove the main syringe center rod, screw on the tip and dispense.

 

I dispensed a small amount of tank sealant onto a large popcicle stick and smoothed out on the edge of both skins, and the AEX wedge.  This stuff sticks to everything.  I was fairly reserve when applying this, but attempted to get a nice even coverage on the edge of the rudder.  I didn't want any bulges on the trailing edge.  When I was happy with my coverage, I cleco'd the skins to the AEX wedge and 'C' channel.

I was pretty happy with how true the trailing edge looked when I was done.  Then came the long wait to let the tank sealant cure.  I let it sit for 4 days before riveting.

NOT SHOWN:  I used a high-temp (RED) RTV I got from a local auto parts store for applying to the trailing edge where the stiffeners are close together.  My understanding of this is that it creates a pliable adhesive between the two stiffeners.  This will dampen vibration and prevent stiffeners from rubbing on the opposite skin.  The rudder is really narrow at this point, I hope the RTV works as intended.

Tonight was uneventful.  I riveted the rudder skins to the skeleton.  This was done exclusively with the pneumatic squeezer.  I was able to rivet the components together just as Van's instructions stated.  Pretty smooth evolution.  Tomorrow, I will be ready to use the tank sealant I bought to bond the trailing edge rudder to ensure I get it as straight as possible.

Below, is a picture of the rudder spar (R-902) forward side and one of the plate nuts that a rod end bearing will eventually be threaded into. 

This is a picture of the rudder horn (R-405PD) and the horn brace (R-710).   You can see that those four bottom attaching rivets were blind rivets.  After doing this, I did see where some builders stated the were able to squeeze these rivets with a longeron yoke.  I tried, but I couldn't get the outer two rivets so I decided to keep them all the same.  Van's rudder print allows for the optional use of blind rivets in this location.

Just another picture of the lowest reinforcement plate for the rudder spar.  Notice that this particular reinforcement plate is on the forward side of the spar.  On the plate nut installation in the picture above, the reinforcement plate was on the aft side of the rudder spar.  Read the instructions carefully....  In this case, I think that it will be obvious if this reinforcement plate is on the wrong side as the pieces/parts won't fit together real well.

This is a picture of the rudder counterbalance skin.  The lower row of flush rivets required bucking.  Pay particular attention here as rivet order can make your life difficult if done incorrectly.  The two philips screws attach the rudder counterbalance lead weight to the counter-balance rib (R-912).  When I "dry fitted" the weight onto the counter-balance rib, it fit perfectly.  However, after you rivet the counter-balance skin to the counter-balance rib, the rivets will stick out slightly.  The lead counter-weight will not fit correctly without removing some material from the sides.  You won't have to remove very much and then it will (should) lay in there flat.  Don't forget to torque the nuts that secure the lead counter-weight before riveting the tip rib into place.

One other item I probably didn't do well enough was that the edges of the counter-balance skin (right side of this picture) need to be tapered back so that when the rudder skin is riveted to the skeleton does not have any bulging transitions as it overlaps the counter-balance skin.

I was going to work on the elevators tonight, but got a wild hair up my ass to prime the rudder skeleton components.

Tami came home from work and helped me Alumiprep the parts which saved me a ton of time.  While shopping last week, I got some dixie cups to mix the epoxy primer (Tami made me buy Winnie-The-Pooh) cups and a cat scratching tray which had corrugated cardboard in it that was treated with catnip.  I gave the cardboard to Arnold and kept the container for myself.  The long shaped container works really well and the alodining of these parts was a lot better than the vertical stabilizer parts. 
NOTE:  The dixie cups are wax coated.  I have not noticed any problems with that when mixing my primer, however, I would buy uncoated paper cups to ensure that their is no interaction between the primer/catalyst and the wax on the cups.

When I started priming this time, I set up the spray gun by spraying on cardboard first (duh) and then attempted to prime the parts.  The primed parts looked really good tonight.  It is the simple things when it comes to using the spray gun that I need to learn to make it look good.

I will get this priming thing done perfectly on the next plane.

I did not get a whole lot done tonight as the plant was shutdown and I had to work late.  I also agreed to watch a movie that Tami has been waiting to watch (Bruce Almighty). 

The parts I did see of this movie were pretty funny, however, I slept through about half of it with the hours I have been keeping the last couple of days.

After I got my short catnap, I was ready to work on the rudder.  I disassembled the rudder skeleton and de-burred all he holes.  I began dimpling all the spars and ribs.  All I have left to dimple is the rudder skins.

Short night...

Final drilled rudder skins to rudder skeleton.  Disassembled rudder and deburred rudder skins.

One challenge I had to figure out is how to machine countersink the rudder trailing edge (R-916 a.k.a the AEX wedge).  There is about a 8 degree taper to the trailing edge and looking at web sites of other builders, they machine countersinked the AEX wedge with the countersink running perpendicular to the skin holes.  In other words, I need to figure out how to countersink this thing with the sides perfectly flat with the countersink cutter perpendicular.  Tami actually came up with the design (jig) to accomplish this.

We started by angle sanding a 1" x 3" wood using a Dremel belt sander that I purchased when Tami was doing wood crafts.

Tami was able to roughly sand the angle into the scrap piece of 1" x 3" wood.  When Tami got it roughed in, I took a wood chisel and "fine" chiseled the angle I needed in the 1" x 3" by taking out a sliver or wood, setting the rudder trailing edge in the angle and doing it all over again and again until I got this thing to lay flat in the scrap wood.

As you can see, the rudder trailing edge (R-916) lays flush in the "wood jig".  I then clamped it to the drill press and drilled a #40 pilot hole into the wood jig so that the countersink alignment pin cutter had a place to go.

Once I got the countersink properly adjusted to allow the rivets to sit roughly flush, the simple little jig made some really nice countersink holes in the rudder trailing edge.  Care had to be taken not to over countersink these holes as the piece is not really all that thick and it is countersunk on both sides so that the rudder's trailing edge will be very thin.  Over countersinking would result in enlarging the hole as it would cut completely through the trailing edge piece.

I just couldn't get enough today.  Today was extremely productive and I hated to stop.  I started assembling the rudder skeleton.
While fitting the rudder skeleton together, I needed to do the following evolutions:

1. Round off the upper edge of the flange for the rudder horn (R-405PD) in order to get the holes to line up perfectly for match drilling.
2. Make the R-917 shine to fit between the rudder horn and the front spar (R-902).
3. Trim away excess material from the horn brace (R-710).
4. Match drill the counterbalance skin (R-913) to the tip rib (R-903) and the counterbalance rib (R-912).

So far, the directions provided by Van's was pretty accurate and clear with the exception of where to obtain the R-917 shim and the R-918 bottom attach strips.  None of the parts in the kit were labeled as such.  Looking at their parts web page, these parts are fabricated from aluminum stock (AS3-032x1 1/8" x 40").

 

It is 11:30 pm and we are leaving for my sisters house for Thanksgiving dinner in the morning.  I guess the plane will have to be on hold for a day while I socialize with the family.

I started today with back riveting the stiffeners to the rudder skins.  This worked extremely well.  I had Tami come out and back rivet a couple of rivets so that she had an idea of how to do this.

In my opinion, back riveting produces the nice flush rivets of any method I have tried to far.  As you can see below, they sit really nice and flush with no deformation of the skin around the rivet that is seen with bucking and squeezing rivets.  I just wish all methods produced results this good.

Below, you can see the inside rudder skin for the left side.  The stiffeners are primed and I have left as much of the vinyl on as I can to prevent scratching the Al-Clad skin while working with it.

There were no surprises and this went smooth with NO CLOSE calls for wrecking more parts.  So far, so good.

Today was a long, but productive day fabricating rudder stiffeners.  The rudder skins now come in two separate sheets of aluminum that are very thin (0.019" thick).  To stiffen the rudder assembly, angled aluminum stiffeners are riveted to the inside of the rudder skin.

Van's just sends you 8 angled aluminum stiffeners which are pre-punched on one side.  These are then cut to make 16 rudder stiffeners.  Van's has taken alot of the guess work out of it by pre-punching the angle cuts that must be made to the stiffener.  More or less, cut from one hole to the next to get your taper cut.

It took me the better part of the day to cut stiffeners to length with the band saw and then clean up the edges and round the corners with a scotchbrite wheel.

The next task was to de-burr all the holes.  Tami came out and helped me take off the vinyl covering on the rudder skins with the soldering gun.  She also is very "project supporting" when I need holes deburred.

Finally, I dimpled the rudder skins with the c-frame.  I purchased a new hammer to use with the c-frame.  It is a 12 oz soft faced hammer.  It has a really nice feel when striking the c-frame giving a definitely noticeable different feel and sound when the dimple has been formed.