Left elevator dimpled

Pictured the cut out for mounting the trim cabling / actuator.

Dimpling the left elevator skin

Dimpled half the left elevator skin tonight, it's fairly tedious.

Elevator drilling

Drilled the #40 holes in both elevators & stiffeners.

Rudder Complete

Attached the clevis pins and locknuts to the rudder tonight - the rudder is now done.
Also finished trimming the last few remaining elevator stiffeners.

All rudder rivets complete

Tonight, I final sized the holes in the bent rudder leading edge, deburred and fitted the AD-41-ABS blind rivets.
These are the last rivets in the rudder, all that remains are the hinges.

Rudder leading edge bending

The bend for the rudder leading edge, and cleco'd together...

Rudder skin riveting complete and bending the rudder leading edge

Busy night tonight, I figured out a way to rivet the skins rivets in the tight spaces on the aft edge of the skin, using a back-rivet plate, and a wood chisel to transfer the action of the rivet gun ( last picture ), so i am pleased with finishing all of the rivets in the rudder skin tonight.
Also began bending the leading edge of the rudder using the taped steel pipe method as outlined in the manual, I will probably enlist some help to get this completed tomorrow night.

More rudder skin riveting

Using the hand squeezer tonight to avoid noise. Trying to figure out some creative ways to rivet the skin near the trailing edge which is particularly tight.

Closing the rudder

Began to rivet closed the rudder tonight.
Before commencing I placed a dap of rtv sealant at the tips of the stiffeners where they come together at the trailing edge.

Rudder progress

Good progress on more elevator stiffeners first today, then back to the rudder.
The new bucking bars arrived so I went back to the rudder horn brace riveting.
It was quite difficult, but using the smallest bucking bar, which only weighs a half pound, I was able to drive the AN470 rivets in the R-710 rudder horn brace. The light bucking bar and the tight space makes it quite difficult.
Once that was done I went back to the top end of the rudder to dimple, countersink and attach the counterweight, looks ok, although more threads are protruding than I would expect ( as you can see in the photo) but the bolt matches the part number called out in the plans.

Elevator stiffeners

Trimmed more elevator stiffeners tonight, looks like I'll need to order some more from vans, not sure why this time.

Elevator

Started on the elevator tonight, first step, trim the stiffeners.
So far, so good, trimmed seven stuffeners for the right elevator.

Dimpling the rudder skin (more)

Dimpled the holes on the edge of the rudder skin, now that i am sure that they need it.
The holes on the leading edge I have not dimpled, as it looks like when I bend that into a curve and blind rivet, those rivets don't require dimpling.

Was going to rivet r-710 onto the skeleton, but I need more lp4-3 rivets for that, also need to see if there is a bucking bar suitably shaped so I can use solid shank rivets.

Riveting the rudder skeleton

Riveted most of the rudder skeleton, except for the R-710 part, which needed a last touch of primer.
These are all AN470 rivets of varying lengths, and included the first few nutplates on the plane.

Rudder bending & corrected the rudder brace

Busy night tonight.
I received the replacement R-710 rudder brace, trimmed it, drilled it, cleaned, alodined and primed it.
As you can see from the pictures ( after alodining, but before priming ), the edge distance for the drilled holes is much better now.
I also built the bending brake for the rudder trailing edge and bent it.
Then pushed some rivets in R-713 and R-703, the first rivets in the rudder skeleton.

Riveted all of the stiffeners to the rudder skin

Back Riveting the stiffeners to the Rudder Skin

Tonight I began to back-rivet the stiffeners onto the rudder skin, back-riveting is easier than i thought, I wasn't able to locate the rivet size on the drawing, so i went with AN426-AD3-3.5, which seems to be the right size.

Rudder primed and built the back-riveting plate

On Saturday I flipped over the rudder stiffeners and all of the other rudder internals and primed.
Once it was dry, I then proceeded to build the recessed back riveting plate setup.
Not possessing a router, i went scouring Lowes for some 5/16 board to match the thickness of the back riveting plate, but to no avail.
Although i did find some 1/2 inch plywood and some 3/16 peg board, which conveniently leaves 5/16 for the backing board.
Cut out the holes I needed tonight, and it is all ready to start back-riveting.

Priming

Tonight I spent some time sealing off the airflow between the garage and the rest of the house using plastic sheeting.
The last time I was priming the odor went right through the house, and lasted all day, definitely want to avoid that.
Then went to apply some primer...
The primer i am using is from spray cans of Zinc Oxide from Aircraft Spruce, and it's plenty frustrating, the temperature is cooler now than when i was priming the vertical stabilizer and the can clogs up so much that it is unusable. I need to find a better way....
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Ok, I went out to try one more time after reading various tips about how to clean the nozzle, but not much changed.
Then I tried a can of the self-etching primer 'dupli-color' brand which i had picked up at an automotive store, man, what a difference, the spray nozzle is different, the ball in the can also seems a bit different, and the result is an easy, smooth application, I'll do a bit more research, but it looks like i've found a winner with this.

Prepping and Alodining

Spent tonight cleaning all of the stiffeners, spars, ribs, bits and pieces of the rudder using metal prep and then alodined them all, ready for a coat of primer.
Also, decided to order another R-710 Rudder Horn Brace as the edge distance ( distance between the rivet holes and the edge of the material ) is too small. It should really be 2 rivet diameters from the center of the hole to the edge of the material ( 3/16 of an inch in this case ).

Dimpled, deburred and edge finished the rudder

Spent tonight dimpling, deburring and edge finishing the remaining rudder components. I had a real job of dimpling the narrow ends of the ribs, but eventually got an acceptable result.

I've been following closely the discussions on the RV10 and Aero Electrics and the RV list at matronics I added a link to the web site to sign up to the lists on the right here ---->

Lots of very informative discussion on ground connections in the RV 10 list, although I am not building an RV 10 it looks like a lot of other people are, because that list is definitely the busiest of the RV related lists.

And there is a wildfire raging in the RVlist about aerobatics in unapproved aircraft, self taught aerobatics as well as discussions on how to bail out of various RVs.