N546RV
Well Known Member
First, allow me to show this photo from last night, which in retrospect is quite illustrative:
Eagle eyes will notice that the two topmost stiffeners are oriented differently than all the others. Those were the very first ones I cut, and I found it rather odd that all the other stiffeners I cut seemed to be oriented. But I sallied forth, spending the rest of the evening cleaning up the stiffeners and finally clecoing them to the rudder skin before going to bed.
During a lull in the day's work, I strolled out to the garage and was admiring my work, when I noticed that the edge distance on the leading edge of the two "backwards" stiffeners was quite a bit more than all the others. A quick reference fit check with the spar confirmed that there was too much material there. Huh, guess I'll have to trim those down a bit more.
I'm mildly ashamed to admit that it took a further four or so hours before a rather plausible explanation for all these oddities became clear. Yep, I cut the taper for those two stiffeners on the wrong end.
My off-the-bat feeling is that these pieces should be salvageable, provided I ensure the taper is correct and trim the extra material as needed to allow the spar to fit. The only thing that gives me pause is the way the other stiffeners are designed-they have a lot more edge distance at the trailing edge/tapered end than at the opposite end. Modifying my miscut stiffeners would leave with pieces that don't have this extra bit of material at the tapered end.
Is this a problem? Is there a reason for that extra material?
For reference, here's a comparison of the tapered ends of a correct stiffener (top) and a custom Philip unit (bottom):
If I have to rebuild these, I'll be particularly miffed, since I just placed an order for some replacement parts yesterday...
Eagle eyes will notice that the two topmost stiffeners are oriented differently than all the others. Those were the very first ones I cut, and I found it rather odd that all the other stiffeners I cut seemed to be oriented. But I sallied forth, spending the rest of the evening cleaning up the stiffeners and finally clecoing them to the rudder skin before going to bed.
During a lull in the day's work, I strolled out to the garage and was admiring my work, when I noticed that the edge distance on the leading edge of the two "backwards" stiffeners was quite a bit more than all the others. A quick reference fit check with the spar confirmed that there was too much material there. Huh, guess I'll have to trim those down a bit more.
I'm mildly ashamed to admit that it took a further four or so hours before a rather plausible explanation for all these oddities became clear. Yep, I cut the taper for those two stiffeners on the wrong end.
My off-the-bat feeling is that these pieces should be salvageable, provided I ensure the taper is correct and trim the extra material as needed to allow the spar to fit. The only thing that gives me pause is the way the other stiffeners are designed-they have a lot more edge distance at the trailing edge/tapered end than at the opposite end. Modifying my miscut stiffeners would leave with pieces that don't have this extra bit of material at the tapered end.
Is this a problem? Is there a reason for that extra material?
For reference, here's a comparison of the tapered ends of a correct stiffener (top) and a custom Philip unit (bottom):
If I have to rebuild these, I'll be particularly miffed, since I just placed an order for some replacement parts yesterday...