Rudder Horn Brace Question

I just trimmed the excess from my R-710 horn brace for my rudder. I
did not have "scribe marks" indicating where to trim as per the R-710
detail on DWG 7, but I did have three holes marking the line and I
cut from center to center. My R-710 now "looks" like that on the plans.

That said, when I attached the R-710 underneath the R-904 bottom rib
and to the R-405PD rudder horn, I became concerned about the flanges
of the horn brace that tuck up under the flanges of the bottom rib
(where it is OK to use the option CS-4-4 rivets). The bottom rib, of
course, has the holes on the flange... my horn brace has none in that
location, and if I were to drill through the rib flange into the horn
brace flange, my edge distance from center of hole to the edge of the
horn brace flange would only be about 5/32", not the 1/4" typically required.

??? Is that sufficient? Did I perhaps cut too much off the brace
when trimming? I know in general to shoot for 1/4" edge distance for rivets, but is that primarily for thin skins? Is 5/32" edge distance sufficient for the horn brace which seems to be about .040 thick?

Any help?

Thanks,
Steve

I think in this instance, the 5/32" is fine. Final authority, howver, would be Van's tech support.

Matthew
RV-9A Finish
www.n523rv.com
#90569

Top Notch Builder

Steve - You must be a top notch builder - why? Because I made the same goof! (trimmed too much)

Van's told me there were lots of rivets there and it would be fine, but the part was cheap, so I just replaced it. Keep it on my bench as a reminder to look for edge dist.

Good luck with your kit. It just gets better and better.

Cheers,

Pete
Fun with Slider Frame

Thanks, Pete (and others). I looked up the price already too and came to your conclusion. For $9.00 I suspect I'll just go ahead and do it over... this time making sure that I smooth out only the tooling holes that form the cut line and not grind down the entire edge just to get rid of the tooling/indicator holes. Given where Van's put the tooling/indicator holes, though, they really didn't leave much room for smoothing the edge after the cut!

Thanks again. I am having fun... not doing too much head scratching... and am still amazed that after about 4-5 years of seriously considering this, I'm finally doing it! The "community" is great too!

Steve

edge distance

Remember, when measuring edge distance, measure from the center of the hole not the outside edge.

Jim White