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Disaster! I?m seriously depressed.

StressedOut

Well Known Member
All that was left on my rudder was the riveting of the trailing edge and rolling the leading edge. I used Proseal on the wedge instead of tape, so after it cured I was clearing the holes of excess Proseal and discovered that almost all of the TE holes were double drilled (binocular).

Thinking back I know exactly where this happened. I used a rectangular steel tube to cleco the TE against. I match drilled holes using the TE as a guide. It served its purpose well. I had a perfectly straight TE. I just didn?t use enough care in the match drilling the tube.

The holes look to be about 15 to 20 percent oblong. I think I?m going to buy new parts and rebuild the rudder. I?m not comfortable with such a defect. The cost is about $320 plus shipping. This is a hard lesson to learn. It?s not the cost that bothers me as much as the 40 or so hours I have to spend rebuilding the rudder.
 
I rebuilt what in hindsight would have been a totally airworthy horizontal stabilizer, due to some newbie cosmetic mistakes. I know it stings, but in the long run the extra time and effort will be a rounding error compared to your total build.

One suggestion to feel better is to hold off on building a new one until later. Just move to the next project until you feel better or actually need to mount the rudder.

Chris
 
I think I’m going to buy new parts and rebuild the rudder. I’m not comfortable with such a defect. The cost is about $320 plus shipping. This is a hard lesson to learn. It’s not the cost that bothers me as much as the 40 or so hours I have to spend rebuilding the rudder.

It's not a disaster. It is education and recreation. Shrug it off. And bravo to you for not accepting defects. The best time to adopt that habit is right where you are now, building the tail.

News flash....the best builders throw away a lot of parts.
 
Bad part

Your experience is normal! I spent about a month making custom wheel pants, they were beautiful, but I missed centering the hole for the tire and it just looked bad, bad, bad.

I kept them under my work bench for a year as a reminder that sometimes you just start over and end up with a better plane.

I find Makers Mark is an appropriate builders tool. 😊
 
Many of us experienced the rudder twice! I feel your pain ... I was down to the last few rivets and made an aweful cosmetic mistake ... the second one will go a lot faster and will be better quality ... the first one was just practice :)
 
Many of us experienced the rudder twice! I feel your pain ... I was down to the last few rivets and made an aweful cosmetic mistake ... the second one will go a lot faster and will be better quality ... the first one was just practice :)

Yep - Like Dan sez - - educational.

Besides, it would have cost you 3 kts too. :D
 
Did re-use the trim tab!

I built 5 trim tabs. Vans thought I was a crazy person, my girlfriend and co-builder (now fiance, somehow) thought the same.

The re-do's seemed to calm down towards the end of the empennage.
 
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I put in a new firewall that I could have been straightened easily, but now it is new and beautiful!
 
We dont have the luxury of some of the kits you guys do, and make a bunch custom parts, each to his own to figure out how. Making parts twice or trice is a normal part of building, to the point where I've settled into the pattern of making the first one outta cardboard, then Lowes aluminum then finally the good stuff from Spruce. Just part of the journey, which usually the Gods of Building wont let you circumvent.....:D
 
It might make you feel better that I have built three fuel tanks for my RV7. When I finished the first tank, one morning I walked into the garage and stared at the tank/spar attachment holes, and decided (I still don't know what I was thinking) the holes were dimpled to "wrong" size, and re-dimpled them. That night I checked the drawing, the dimple size was actually correct, and now they are in wrong size. I was so mad at myself. I dimpled back to the correct size, it looked ok, no cracks. I might still be able to use the tank, but knowing that the material around the holes are worked hardened too many times, I decided to build another one. This added about $500+ plus 3 weeks to total build cost and time. That wasn't bad compared to the total cost and time you spent on the airplane.
 
Been there, done that. Maybe this thread needs to be retitled ?confessions and therapy?. :)
 
Get Used to It

I'm not proud to say that I replaced all the parts in my HS (first thing I am building in a 2nd hand kit). I stopped counting the number of HS attach brackets in my "spare aluminum bin". The final straw for total replacement was when I measured the final drilled holes between the rear spar and ribs. Some were #30, some were #21, some were #19. (While I'm not accomplished with my hands, I truely can't imagine how this happened.)

Lessons learned:
- I can't do anything when the kids are around except debur.
- I can't take too long to complete something, lest forget a bizillion details.
- Re-read, re-mesure, think a while, don't get so excited you pull out your superman cape and breeze through something.
- Clumsy as I am, this is a blast!

I am currently building a non-airworthy HS just to get experience. Then I'm going to build a better one.

I think you are being successful. Keep at it!
 
Trailing edge separating

Don?t fool around with the trailing edge. I have seen two of them that separated. One was found on an import inspection, the owners had not seen it.
The other was after a fatal crash, the joint not accomplished as per the builders manual.
Learn from mistakes and move on

Dale
 
I'm not proud to say that I replaced all the parts in my HS (first thing I am building in a 2nd hand kit). I stopped counting the number of HS attach brackets in my "spare aluminum bin". The final straw for total replacement was when I measured the final drilled holes between the rear spar and ribs. Some were #30, some were #21, some were #19. (While I'm not accomplished with my hands, I truely can't imagine how this happened.)

Lessons learned:
- I can't do anything when the kids are around except debur.
- I can't take too long to complete something, lest forget a bizillion details.
- Re-read, re-mesure, think a while, don't get so excited you pull out your superman cape and breeze through something.
- Clumsy as I am, this is a blast!

I am currently building a non-airworthy HS just to get experience. Then I'm going to build a better one.

I think you are being successful. Keep at it!

My son got me a Father's Day card that said "measure twice, cut once, say **** three times and go the hardware store".
 
Thanks for all the moral support guys. I can see I'm in good company.

I spent today getting deep into the horizontal stabilizer and knocked out the first couple of pages except for the riveting (got to prime first). The HS parts are pretty thick which means hours of deburring edges.

Part of me is glad I screwed up the rudder. There were a couple of areas that were not pretty but they were acceptable. I'm going to take the opportunity to switch some of the build order to make my life easier.

For example, the attach strips at the bottom of the rudder skin are riveted on after the two skins are joined at the stiffeners. It's a colossal PITA to get the two rivets near the TE squeezed. I don't see any reason why they can't be done prior to the joining of the skins.

Edit: I just reviewed the plans and there is a reason for doing the attach strips in the order shown by the plans. I'll just have to live with it.
 
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