July 14, 2004 HOME

With a few hours to work today, I ended up spending most of my time cleaning up the shop and putting tools away.  Get organized!  Right...

When I did get to work on the RV, I wasn't very focused, so I worked on little tasks rather than tackling anything big.  First (below), I drilled the hangars for the rudder.  That took about 20 minutes to find the drill I had misplaced and 3 minutes to put in the chuck, drill 3 holes and put the drill away where it belongs.

Moving on to fitting the vertical stabilizer tip, I inserted the screws and checked for fit and alignment.  Remember, I'm using screws with nutplates instead of riveting in place.

I made a poster-board cutout to exact fit of the desired opening.  Using 2 sheets of medium weight fiberglass cloth, I fiberglassed behind the poster-board using plastic wrap as a separator (release shield).

   

Here's another picture of the same thing -- laying up the fiberglass.  I don't like the fiberglass work.  Glad I didn't build a Lancair!

The finished product with the poster-board removed looks mottled.  Actually, it is nice and flat and all the measurements check out.  I'll have only to trim the end piece (at the bottom in the pic) and it's ready.  The end piece needs to be trimmed to fit snuggly against the inside of the VS to top against the VS tip rib.  It can't be glassed in place, because I am using screws to make it accessible.

 

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