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wfinnell

Well Known Member
I sent an e-mail to Van?s but I wanted to get an idea what others think.

Everything seemed to be fine until I clocoed on the rudder skin. It looks to me like the bend in the trailing edge of my rudder skin is the wrong place. I am not sure if it came that way or if I bent it incorrectly myself. In the photo on my link you can see the way the trailing edge is deformed.

http://home.earthlink.net/~wfinnell/Index.html

Let me know if any of you guys have seen something like this before.
Do you think I can get a new top rib from Van?s with no holes in it and drill them myself?


Thank you,

Bill Finnell
RV-8 Emp
 
I'm sure there are several things that could have caused this and others will chime in, but it is definitely possible that the part was made incorrectly. Make sure you send the pics to Van's and maybe give them some measurements too. They've only sent me a bad part once and it did take a little bit of convincing on my part to get them to believe. You can't blame them though considering how many of us boneheads they deal with every day. Ultimately they made everything right and have always bee extremely helpful.
 
Mine was the same. Some carefull bumping with a nylon faced deadblow hammer brought it to acceptable shape. I believe the problem was bending it in the bender in one push on one side. For the elevators I bent the skin a little, flipped it over, bent it a little more, etc. They came out perfect.
 
There have been several instances of mis-bent trailing edges on parts - posts both here and on other forums. (see here)
One of my elevator skins was bent incorrectly ... just like you describe. Bill Murrish had a similar problem with a kit number near mine. Van's replaced the part promptly with no charge.

T.
 
I looks like it might be bad parts.

It looks to me like you might have some bad parts. I don't believe those two trailing edge rivets should line up with each other, but if one of them is off a bit on either the skin or the rib, it would cause the problem you're seeing.

Like others have said, be sure to flip your skins over several times when you're bending the trailing edges.

Good luck!
Guy
 
Rudder Problem

Same problem with my rudder, unfortunately I noticed it after it was riveted together. I could probably live with the end cap area, but mine also has a "BOW" in the trailing edge.

Jon Adams
RV-8 (wing kit still in crate)
Michigan
 
Re: Rudder Problem

Jon,

I have a bow in the trailing edge too. I have not receive a reply from Van?s yet, have you?

Bill Finnell
Tucson AZ
RV-8 EMP
 
Rudder Problem

Bill,

I sent Van's an email today explaining the problem. It appeares the rudder skin was not bent parallel to the spar, I'll let you know what they have to say.

Jon Adams
Michigan
RV-8 (wing kit still in crate)
 
I did this part last week and had EXACTLY the same problem, solved it with a little flutting.

When I fluted the end rib it seemed to be done and laying flat without fluting between the last set of rivet holes so that part of the flange was left flat. When I clecoed the skin on the last time to set up for final riveting I had a warp in the trailing edge just like the one in your photo. I realised that in essence one side was too long compared to the other and got looking at it. It lined right up after I added a flute between those last set of rivet holes (I effectively shortened the one side by adding the flute). The rib didn't lay perfectly flat after adding the flute but the trailing edge was now perfect and the rudder looked great.

So look at your rudder and figure out which side is too long (the curve is toward the short side), and add some fluting to the long side. One good deep flute was all it took for me. It must have shortened the rib by just a few thousandths but it pulled the trailing edge right around into perfect alignment.

Thank god I figured it out before riveting, good luck to those who didn't.

The parts are definitely NOT defective.

Grant
 
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