« Archives on November 27, 2005

Rudder skins and stiffeners

4 hours
This process is easy. Make the stiffeners on the bandsaw, then run them on the Scotchbrite wheel to finish them up. Cleco to the skin, then matchdrill.

Stiffeners for the rudder

1.5 hours
Just got back from Thanksgiving vacation.. went to Florida. Land is no longer cheap there. bummer.. Anyway, today I fabricated the 16 stiffeners for the rudder. This rudder is the new 2-part skin design. I’m not sure if 1.5 hours is long or short for stiffener manufacturing time, but I tried to do each step to all 16 stiffeners. One trick I figured out that was pretty cool, is that on the pre-punched stiffener stock, there are notches for reference as to where to cut the forward edge. Let me see if I can describe this properly, Since I Still. Can’t. Effing. Post. Effing. Pictures. Just do this: After you’ve cut the 2nd stiffener down to size, you should have a bit left over with a rivet hole, a notch at the angle, a little notch on one edge set back from the big notch at the angle, and another little notch on the edge that lines up with the one in the angle. The bend, that is.
place the scrap with this notch/hole/notch with the hole lining up to your last hole on the end of the stiffener. Mark the notches with a sharpie. Cut from the edge marks to the center mark.
I suppose I should go back out there and do some more stuff, but I need to do some more research into why the VPN connection isn’t working.