Rudder bottom fairing twist

Time to fit the bottom rudder fairing. Just sizing up the fairing prior to trimming and noticed the two halves have been bonded together with a noticeable twist. Perhaps 5 degrees or so, but it is quite obvious looking along the part. I happen to have a second fairing on the shelf and that has the same twist. On both fairings the bulge to mount the tail light is asymmetric also. That follows, I guess.
My question is, are they all like that and do other guys cut them apart and rebond them? Or do you just accept it and move on? Maybe send them back.
Seems like pretty sloppy work from Van's.

it's fiberglass....make it look like you want. won't take much effort

What he said

Van's fiberglass is a pretty good starting place. The nice thing about fiberglass is that most anything can be fixed or changed. If you haven't done much fiberglass work then start Googling; in a few hours you will have enough leads to find enough information to get started. Get some West Systems Epoxy, Some 8 oz. Rutan weave fiberglass cloth and dive in. I just made a new fiberglass belly mount antenna today and will be flying it tomorrow. Sure do love fiberglass.

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=67066

Fiberglass

I agree with "Newtech" Steve is right Van's glass is a good starting point. The great thing about fiberglass is about the only limit to what you can do with it is your imagination.

Do everybody a favor.....send it back and get a good one. It is not a "fit to the airplane" issue (you fix those). It is an assembly error at the vendor level. QC problems don't get addressed until parts start coming back.

DanH said:

Do everybody a favor.....send it back and get a good one. It is not a "fit to the airplane" issue (you fix those). It is an assembly error at the vendor level. QC problems don't get addressed until parts start coming back.

Click to expand...

That's how I think too. If I were Van I'd be embarrassed shipping out parts like that.
At my skill level, getting a good result with this fairing represents many hours of work. We are talking reconstruction.

Minor Straitening

I used a heat gun and fixed my top and bottom rudder caps on my 6 project.

They were really bad, but it really did not take as long as I thought it would.

The real surprise was how well they looked when I was done.

I do realize that things done by heating to plasticity do not always go as expected. I felt fortunate in my experience.

If you get crummy ones and you have the time, have Vans send you good ones.