Rudder

The rudder section details quite a few more steps than the vertical stabilizer.  As always, patience is key, I'm trying not to rush through anything.  The first few steps require the separation (cutting) of parts as well as deburring and shaping them to final size.  The shear clips were pretty straight forward and easy to handle.  The stiffeners were a little more challenging, but doable.  To make the long straight edge, I used a long ruler/straight edge matched along the "guide" angle to draw the line down to the end of the stiffener.  I then used the bandsaw to cut roughly along this edge.  I did the fine detail work to create the appropriate edge and angle using my oscillating belt sander.  This allowed me to sneak up on the edge I had drawn previously while giving me a nice flat edge in the end. Pictures of the final edge below.

There's a lot of shaping to do on flanges and ribs (R-903 and R-912 in the rudder) to make sure there's no faceting once the skin is applied.  Once again, I used the bandsaw to sneak up on the final curvature that's shown in the plans.  The initial fit of the skin seemed to be okay and I didn't have to struggle to get the skin on in any particular place.  Based on how much material was moved, I'm betting that some shaping of the lead counterweight balance will be required to fit inside of the cavity and the shop head of the rivets.  Mock ups and other reference pics below.

Rudder horn shaping per plans so that it fits inside the spar during final assembly.

Buy extra clecos.  I doubled my order in the Cleaveland -14 kit and it's paying off.

Time to disassemble everything, but so far looking good.  I didn't take any progress pictures between the mock up and after riveting, but there wasn't too much to see there.  The trailing edge came out very straight, with less than 1/16" spacing in one area.

Rolling the leading edge required a slow and steady process.  I also found that I had to do it in the correct order, otherwise I didn't have enough room for my "rolling tool."  The picture shows that I started in the center section, but once I flipped over the rudder, I finished the small section at the top first, then worked my way downward.  I used vice grips and a lot of downward pressure while rolling toward the trailing edge.  There was very little hand forming that made any difference, so I just kept adjusting the rolling tool but releasing the vice grips and tightening again so I had more room to roll the aluminum.

The rudder is complete, minus the fiberglass.  Total time was about 29 hours for rudder construction.