Kyleag04

Kyleag04

Active Member
After finishing what I think is a perfect (for a beginner) vertical stabilizer and an almost perfect horizontal stabilizer (small mistake - easily fixed and will be hidden from site under the fairings), I sit here thinking about my rudder. I am almost finished with it, letting the glue cure along the trailing edge.

In my opinion, my rudder is ugly. It has been a series of trials and tribulations that has led to a structurally sound, but aesthetically unpleasing piece of riveted aluminum.

It all started out so well. All the stiffeners were cut and trimmed nicely, all of the "from scratch" parts were cut and drilled with ease, and everything matchdrilled without error. But thats where the fairy tail ended.

While dimpling the skins, I ended up with a Figure 8 hole on the L/H skin and an extra dimpled hole in the middle of the R/H skin. At that point, I pleaded for help on this site and got many reassurances that I'm not the only one. Ok, fixed those issues and moving on.

Then the fun continued with several bent over rivets, a careless dent in the skin, an ugly rivet when the rivet gun pressure was turned up WAY too high, an ugly rivet when I tried to shoot a rivet that straddled the edge of the backrivet plate, etc... All of these were fixed to be structurally sound, but the rudder still bears the scars of these "learning experiences".

I have considered scrapping the entire thing and starting over from scratch or building a new one as soon as I get it flying. I consulted with a friend and fellow RV-builder who said "Yeah, my rudder is the ugliest part on my plane too. It helped me redefine my standards."

Now that I've let out my frustrations on you poor, unsuspecting VAF surfers, I've wondering:

What is the ugliest part on your RV?
 
For me (now working on the wings) it's the elevators. I didn't bend the flanges of the rear spar enough, so there's a little "bump" in the skins there, plus my trim tabs are twisted (maybe 1/4 or 3/8" across the entire length). By the time I was done, I was so sick of the elevators I decided to wait until later to decide what to do.

I'm very satisfied with everything else.

-Rob

BTW, methinks someone could make a good side business out of building straight trim tabs.
 
I have a small dent in my left fuel tank. Luckily it is where nobody will see it! My elevator bends are not the prettiest either.
 
I rebuilt my rudder. My rudder has the worst rolled LE, with the right elevator having an ok rolled LE, and the left elevator having a pretty good rolled LE. There was definitely a learning curve with rolling the LE's. My trim tab and left elevator came out just ok, but will fly fine.
 
I'm less than pleased with the way my elevators came out - and was about to scrap them and start over, when I talked to several experienced builders about it. They all told me to get over it and move on. I decided to go ahead and work on the wings, and by the time I get finished with the wings I'll be able to look back on the elevators with a little more knowledge and experience and make a good, valid judgement about whether to use them as is, rework them, or replace them entirely.

The entire empennage is meant to be used as a grand training kit, I'm convinced. There's a reason Vans has you build the easiest (and cheapest) part of the airplane first. Worst case scenario - you scrap the entire tail and you're out $2k. Start over. You learned an awful lot about aircraft construction for $2k!
 
Gear leg intersection fairings. First, they're fiberglass, enough said. Second, it's hard to get them to fit tight and still provide enough movement. I don't think I've been happy with them on any airplane I've built.

Kyle, here's a couple suggestions to add to your "lessons learned" pile:

1. Put the rudder aside and keep moving. If it is still bugging you after 6 months, build another one.

2. The control surfaces use some of the thinnest skins. It is very easy to mess them up. Be careful using any tool around them

3. Lower your air pressure. Most early builders overset their rivets. I know I did.

4. Sometimes a bent rivet will hold better than one that is drilled out, the hole gets enlarged, the skins get nicked, etc. Sometimes, it's better to leave well enough alone. If every rivet had to be perfect, none of these kits would fly.

5. Every time you pick up a rivet gun, it is trying to smash and dent your project. Double and triple check everything before pulling the trigger.

6. Even with all that, "stuff" happens. Live with the "stuff" you can, replace the "stuff" you can't.
 
"Better is the enemy of good enough" - Admiral Gorshkov Commander of the Soviet Navy in the 1970's.

Normally I follow his advice 99% of the time. When I don't follow it probably 25% of the time I try to make something better and get away with it - the other 75% I normally mess up!

Good enough for me means safe/air worthy. Most of our mistakes will never be seen and those that are can often be hidden by paint.

The other advice I followed is do the right side of everything first - most people naturally approach an aircraft from the left, beacuse that's the way you board an airliner.

Better is the enemy of good enough!

Bob Ellis
Wings nearly complete
www.rv-8.co.uk
 
Just keep going

Kyle,

I am about where you are in the build process. While doing the right rudder skin, I misplaced the back rivet plate and made a small dent in the skin. Then I tried to use a bucking bar to get out the dent, which made a bigger dent. Then I used a hammer to flatten out that dent, which resulted in an oil can (stretched) skin. That was last December. I ordered a new skin, but out of frustration I stopped building for 7 month.

Last month, I started up again with the rudder skin. This time, I made three mistakes that were worse than the original. It's structurally sound and can be fixed in appearance when painting, so I'm not going to worry about it and press on...
 
On the -7 the Rudder is definitely my ugliest part. Not only did I mess up stiffeners because I wasn't paying close enough attention (ordered new ones and drilled out) but I let a couple of other people I'm trying to get interested in RV's rivet a couple of things. My dad let the gun jump off and nailed the skin, and someone else I was bucking with got the bar off the back side, so both skins have little divots.

On the -4 that I bought... the VS is toast, the guy miss drilled a whole line of rivets for the fwd spar into the skin, so it's got a bunch of extra rivets and holes. It's just too much to bear.
 
VS by far!

I bought a new skin for the vertical stabilizer so it can be reskinned. looks like I'll have a couple of weeks to do so before the fus.-wings show up. Aaaarrrg!
 
According to Randy Lervold, it's my battery hold down bracket. It seems as though he has something against me anodizing it purple. But it sure is purdy!
 
I fear my canopy is going to be on the list, be we'll see when I get to doing the fiberglass. In reality it is going to be my reflection on any part of the aircraft.
 
Ugly is relative. As you've probably discovered, once you start building you never look at a plane the same again. At the next fly-in you'll scrutinize every rudder on the line and invariably find a few worse than yours, kind of like taking you family to the carnival. And once in a while you'll find one that leaves you hoping they didn't actually fly it in.

Builders look at parts and details, spectators look at the paint job.
Examples:
  • empanage fairing fit
  • rudder bottom fairing cutouts
  • canopy skirt fit
  • cowling pin retention
  • and everyone wants to see the baffles (hoping they're worse than yours), but nobody un-cowls!
  • etc
 
Ugliest?

Left aileron. Riveting of that followed a 3 year period of inactivity, and in my haste to make up lost time, I did not practice. It's fugly. It is also scrap(my painting practice part), as I built a new one.

Otherwise, I'm not proud of my trim tab or the TE's of the empennage, but a little file work and proseal will clean those up nicely. Keeping them. Painting it white, should hide most. One figure 8 dimple on the top of my HS. Node ribs of the HS . . . massaged those out a bit. Only you guys would ever notice - 'cause you know where to look!

To be completely honest . . . my workmanship, even on the ugly parts, is better than half of what I saw at OSH. I saw some ART - and I saw some, um, opprtunities for improvements.

Build on. Trust primer and paint.

Rick 90432 canopy
 
Identical thoughts

Kyle writes...I have considered scrapping the entire thing and starting over from scratch or building a new one as soon as I get it flying.

Same here.

HS and VS are quite nice looking. The rudder? Quite a few rivet gun "smiles" along the trailing edge (straight though). Also, the rivet line along the main rib/horn brace junction has some depressing depressions where the rivets are squashed-plus (strong though).

If this is the worst looking subassembly, then I'm okay. Hopefully, I learned enough technique to make the other control surfaces look as airworthy as they are.
 
DaX said:
I rebuilt my rudder. My rudder has the worst rolled LE, with the right elevator having an ok rolled LE, and the left elevator having a pretty good rolled LE. There was definitely a learning curve with rolling the LE's. My trim tab and left elevator came out just ok, but will fly fine.
Click to expand...

bingo!!!!!!!
 
FUGLY

For me it was the tank skin to baffle rivet line.I dont know how we didnt notice but we managed to make the same mistake about seventy times.The problem was we didnt counter sink enough on both sides of the tank and we ended up with a whole lot of "proud" rivets.I tried to hand squeeze them a little to knock them down but no luck.I actually considered buying a whole new tank but that allmost made me cry.Finally about two months later I got out of bed in the middle of the night and pulled the tank off the wing and put it in the cradle and went at it with gun and bucking bar.After some low pressure massaging I managed to take the curse off of most of them to my satisfaction.Pressure tested the tank and its still sound,just some slightly over-squished shop heads hidden away.Note to self--on right tank remove just a little more material with c-sink and no hand squeeze.
 
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