Comment

Comment by Brian A Manlove on December 26, 2013 at 11:38pm

I just riveted the saddle. I have no problem drilling out a few A4 rivets if I have to. My turnbuckles are at the stick so I shouldn't need to get in there. I'm very happy with the fit and all clearances between elevator and rudder.

As far as zeroing the vertical on the rudder... I used a laser level in "vertical line" mode. After leveling fuse side-to-side, I pinned the rudder to the bottom hinge in place on the fuse and then pinned it to the upper hinge plate BEFORE I drilled the four AN3 bolts for that plate. Then positioned rudder vertical until dead on the laser... drilled the 4 holes... etc.

Hope that gives you an idea of how I did it... I have been very fortunate to be able to spend a LOT of time in the shop, so it actually represents a whole lot of time and work!

Comment by Brian A Manlove on December 26, 2013 at 11:24pm

Larry,
The rear of the fiberglass saddle is also the "upper stop" surface in full up elevator. Spec is (approx. - from memory :O) 32 degrees. So, I clecoed the saddle on and used a protractor to get a line @ 32 deg. with the center of the elevator hinge as the "origin". I then trimmed the fiberglass around the moulding lip... and basically just eyeballed the line back to intersect with the "stop line."

Once I had the saddle fitting good, I then pinned the rudder in, turned full to one side of the saddle... then projected the saddle angles onto the rudder, first one side, then re-pinned turned over the other side. Projected saddle lines onto that side of rudder.

Pull rudder, trim & fit, re-pin, check, etc. just a little at a time until I had about 5mm gap on both sides when rudder was dead neutral.

Rear of saddle also stops up elevator in spec.

Comment by Larry Ward on December 26, 2013 at 9:47am

What technique did you use to measure, cut and fit the rudder to the fiberglass saddle?  Also did you make any provisions for taking the saddle off to inspect the turnbuckles?  How did you check to see if your rudder was plumb with the fuselage?  Looks like you are making great progress!   I wish I had time to keep up with your pace.  Happy building and Happy New Year!