| June 16, 2007 |
| Vertical Stabilizer |
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| Here we were trying to make sure that everything was "dead-center" when drilling these two parts together. We had bolts clamped to some angle and placed them in the center holes. Note: This is NOT the correct orientation of these parts on the plane. We corrected this before drilling the first holes, I just did not get a pic of it. |
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| This is the correct orientation on the plane. |
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| Distance between the ruder and fiberglass tip ~ 3/16". I used a 3/16" angle to get this distance while fitting the fiberglass tip. Remember all the twist I had in the fiberglass tip? Well... We ended up heating the aft portion of the tip and very slightly, and carefully, encouraged it to straight. This actually worked out pretty well... I am aleast 80% happy with it. My tip sides have always been perfectly even with the sides of my rudder, which should not cause any adverse problems when flying, it was just cosmetic. |
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| Everything finally riveted on. My overall conclusion: If you have fiberglass experience, make these yourself or just leave them off! Trying to fix something like this to "make" it work just totally sucks! I do believe Sonex should provide better quality fiberglass parts for the price. I am not the first person to mention this. If you are a better craftsman than me, you may not have a problem... remember, I have no experience with this stuff, or anything like it! |
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| Filled in the gap with Marine-Tex filler. Will sand down to flush once it drys, may need to apply more later, we will see. Since the VS is mostly complete, we decided to start on the elevator. |