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need new rudder

F

freegespeed

Active Member
I thought I'd check the VAF brain trust for some advice about my dumb hanger rash episode on the rudder of my RV6A.

I was in the middle of my nose gear AD job when my expansion bolt floor anchor pulled out that was holding the tail down while the gear leg was being sent to Langair. Luckily I had some padding under the engine and also that my prop was turned parallel to the ground. But the tail swung up and banged into the roof of the hanger.

To get to the point I have pretty bent up rudder which doesn't look salvagable after it hit the roof of my hanger.

The vertical stabilizor is good except for some fiberglass cracking in one spot.

I'm not the builder but I have done extensive work on my plane over the last four years.

I have a couple of questions.

First, does anyone know if Vans sells the necessary replacement parts for the older (1993) RV6 rudders? I have all the plans to my plane.

Also is there anyone who builds replacement rudders for an RV6?

Any help would be appreciated.
 
I have a Rudder skin .016

He will still sell parts for that. I have some of the rudder parts but not all. I have all of the tail control skins.
Sorry to hear about your airplane. I ran into one of my elevators with the wings when they were in the cradle. Of course I had to run into the left elevator, the hardest one to build.
 
Clark,

I was looking at a 180 HP -6 over the weekend and the rudder had a bunch of stress cracks in it. The owner said when he contacted Van's they asked if he had a "large engine" installed. His reply was no, he had an O-360, to which Van's said, "That is a BIG engine". Apparently the early -6 rudders had thin skins which cracked with the larger engines.

The fix for my friend's rudder is to build a new one with thicker skins.

I tell you this so you can make sure you get the "thicker" skins if you have a "large engine" in your -6.
 
N941WR said:
Clark,

I was looking at a 180 HP -6 over the weekend and the rudder had a bunch of stress cracks in it. The owner said when he contacted Van's they asked if he had a "large engine" installed. His reply was no, he had an O-360, to which Van's said, "That is a BIG engine". Apparently the early -6 rudders had thin skins which cracked with the larger engines.

The fix for my friend's rudder is to build a new one with thicker skins.

I tell you this so you can make sure you get the "thicker" skins if you have a "large engine" in your -6.
Click to expand...

In the hangar next door, is a 6A completed in 1996. It has around 1200 hrs, and an 0360 with C/S prop. At this point, it's requiring no new rudder that I know of. So who knows? :)

L.Adamson -- RV6A
 
Thanks for replys

As a follow up I thought I would inform VAF members about my current research.

First I can get all the parts I need like Aden said so thats one question answered.

I have been looking for both new partially completed empenage kits as well as used salvage parts from Wentworth parts. They actually had an RV6 rudder but it wasn't prestine so I passed on it. I'm now leaning toward building one, and there are some builders down here at KSDM as well EAA chapter 14 to guide me. I will try for a complete one for at least one more week to save some time over building.

In regards to the the skin crackiing issue, when I bought my plane the rudder had two areas of patched cracked skins by rivits near the leading edge. I had to improve the patches which gave me a chance to see the damage. Vertical cracks were eminating from above and below both adjacent rivits. Thats a little scary so I'm sure I will be using the next level skin thickness if I build my own rudder. I have read about other reasons for skin cracking in the trailing edge area do to stiffeners not reaching close enough to the bend point.

I will be continuing to report on progress for what its worth.

Thanks for all the responses. I will be itemizing my parts list so I may give you an e-mail Aden about the parts. If the price from Vans is reasonable I may just order from the factory for convienence. Just as a note I will post the total cost of the factoy parts. I will also be de-constructing my current rudder to salvage as many parts as possible.
 
It should only take a couple of days to build a rudder. Maybe three, figuring in the fiberglass work.
 
If the RV is an early model the rudder has to be built to match the vert stab. No prepunched stuff so be careful because the rod end bearings may not match up. Larry
 
More thanks

Thats a good tip about checking for the match up to the vertical stab. I will call Vans and ask them about that.

The RV7 rudder is larger I believe. Somebody should grab it just for a back up.

The time sounds reasonable even if it takes me two weeks, which knowing me it just might. I also have to paint it but I painted the rest of the plane so I can do that.

Thanks to all
 
freegespeed said:
Thats a good tip about checking for the match up to the vertical stab. I will call Vans and ask them about that.

The RV7 rudder is larger I believe. Somebody should grab it just for a back up.

The time sounds reasonable even if it takes me two weeks, which knowing me it just might. I also have to paint it but I painted the rest of the plane so I can do that.

Thanks to all
Click to expand...

Larry is exactly right.
You need to find out what vintage empenage kit your RV-6 was built with.
If your airplane is built with an emp kit that was purchased from Van's after the first of the year 1996 (or later), it should be a prepunch emp kit. Prior to that it is not, and would require custom building a rudder to fit the vertical stab.
You need to keep this in mind when considering the purchase of replacement rudders. If yours is not prepunched then no other rudder will likely fit. If yours is prepunched, then any other "prepuched" rudder should fit.

As for the cracking problem, it has multiple causes. Bigger engines do exacerbate the problem but the cause is mostly from an improper amount of(not enough) roll done on the leading edge part of the skin. Pulling the skins together, causes a preload at the fwd most rivets on the stiffeners. Add some drumming of the skins (particularly from the bigger engines) and you have the recipe for cracks.
 
old rudder as template

My kit is from 1992 so it must be a non-prepunched kit. I had an Idea that maybe I could use my old rudder as a template as well as the plans of course. So I guess I will need to measure out all my components according to plans, sounds a little tedious and daunting.

With pre-punched parts out, is there any problems to look out for when measuring and buillding a custom replacement rudder?

I hope Vans sells non pre punched parts for older RV's. I will call them next week about it.
 
freegespeed said:
My kit is from 1992 so it must be a non-prepunched kit. I had an Idea that maybe I could use my old rudder as a template as well as the plans of course. So I guess I will need to measure out all my components according to plans, sounds a little tedious and daunting.

With pre-punched parts out, is there any problems to look out for when measuring and buillding a custom replacement rudder?

I hope Vans sells non pre punched parts for older RV's. I will call them next week about it.
Click to expand...

Since the airplane was built with a non prepunch emp kit, you will have to purchase non prepunch rudder parts and build a custom fit rudder (build it to fit your vertical stabilizer).
The only other option would be to install a different rudder and vertical stabilizer. Then you could build from prepunch parts or purchase from someone already built. The drawback is that it would be a bit more involved fitting/match drilling the new vertical stabilizer to your fuselage, but you would have the taller vertical and rudder (RV-8) that was being shipped with the very late RV-6 kits.
 
Again, this should not be a time-consuming job. If the rudder spar is salvageable (likely, if you only dinged the tip of the VS), then drill off the old skin and upper rib, and order replacement skin, stiffeners, upper rib, and glass. The complicating thing here is how to drill the skin to match the old skeleton. If you jig the skin per the instructions (particle board V-clamps) then with the skeleton in place you can carefully back-drill the upper- and lower-most holes on the spar on both sides using a long bit. The slight angle you'll have to drill at won't have much effect here. Now place the skin and skeleton on it's side on a flat piece of particle board and drill through the two holes again so you can cleco it to the board. Next, back-drill the remaining holes on that side and cleco them to keep the skin flat to the skeleton. Repeat with the other side, dimple, and rivet.

If the rudder spar was damaged, then drilling the skin will be simpler. You'll match the spar to the VS rear spar the same way the original rudder was done - drill for the rod ends as close as possible but slightly oversize and, with the ends attached to the hinge brackets, attach and adjust the spar with the plate-nuts before final drilling them. Seriously, a non-prepunched rudder should take about 20 hours to construct, especially if someone local to you still has their V-jigs and trailing edge press.

All that said, though, it's still worth considering building a new VS as well. Not only do you get the pre-punched components but there are some advantages to the new design with the counter-balanced rudder. I know that there was a lot of discussion at the time it came out and some -6 builders opted to put the new style tail on their aircraft. Since I had already built mine and since -6s had been flying satisfactorily on the old design, I didn't change but I was tempted.
 
Once again thanks for the latest input

I just found out that a friend of mine has a completed RV6 empenage which I will be checking out in the next few days. After all the input I've received here, I'm not getting too euphoric yet about my find, until I check it out to see if it fits.

Canibalizing parts sounds like a great idea, but I'm pretty sure I will need a new spar and skin. I will post further as progress is made.
 
Last edited:
Quick follow to old thread for conclusion

For some reason I keep deleting my self after nearly finsihing up a couple of paragraghs by hitting some wrong key, so now I'm going to be real brief.

To make a long story short I finished building my rudder just this week although I had other repairs to due during the 3 months since this happened so it probalbly took two months to get done. I have had some health issues as well.

The plane flys better then it did before it seems. It seems truer in trimmed out flight.

As for the building, I have more respect for builders now due to some of the tedious jobs that come with this kind of thing. The measuring, drilling, clecoing,deburring,dimpling etc thats stuff feels more like work then fun.

Finall assembly in the jig is kind of exciting as you see how the semi monocock contruction does its magic strenthening everything up.

The fiber glass had a few wierd areas by the rudder horn.


Over all I just thought I'd add this to complete the thread and say its nice to back up in the air again.:)

I maybe looking at the RV12 kit in near future.
 
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