Rudder
26 Mar 2009 I started laying out the rudder on the same piece of MDF where I started the Vertical Stab.Hours: 1.027 Mar 2009 Cut most of the rudder pieces and finished jig clamps. Routed main beam and trailing edge.Hours: 2.029 Mar 2009 The side pieces required a feathering board or sled, so I built one for the table saw. The pieces came out pretty nice. Numerous measurements on these. One thing I could have done better. When tappering the side piece (from the main beam to the trailing edge), it does not appear to required routing at all (no cap strips will go here. However, if you do router (and I did) then actually two tappers are required, one for the inside dimension and one for the outside. I just did the outside and accepted a slightly thinner inside which met the trailing edgeHours: 2.029 Mar 2009 Made templates for the corner plywood gussets. I made several and then asked my daughter which ones she preferred. I then trimmed off the wood for these to fit using the table saw, router, and small hand saw.Hours: 2.030-31Mar 2009 Finished most gluing of spars and gussets, and one side of capstrips.Hours: 2.03 Apr 2009 Glued second side of caps strips.Hours: 1.04 Apr 2009 Slight set back today. Did not notice my rudder center spar had not been centered. When the second side of cap strips was dry, I realized they protruded out slight further then the other side. I considered leaving this as is, they were not much different, cosmetically, no one would probably notice, and the chances of it effecting performance seemed small. However, the more I looked at it the more frustrated it made me, so I stopped my other work, cut off the four cap strips on one side, seated the new cap strips into the center spar very slightly (about 1/16), and re-epoxied them. it looks a lot better now.Hours: 1.0