Author Archives: Michael Carter

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, mainly because I’m documenting the build on the EAA Builders website primarily. It’s that website that will contain all the “evidence” I need to show the FAA when I’m ready to petition … Continue reading →

Today we brought back all the rudder parts that we primed in order to start the assembly. There aren’t that many parts in this phase. The biggest ones–the skins–were prepped in an earlier stage and are waiting to be mated … Continue reading →

While watching some YouTube videos, I noticed some sheet metal tips in the comments that I thought were worth keeping. Here they are: The only time you use a Vixen file is for heavy shaping. There is no need to … Continue reading →

So we’ve taken a bit of break, but we’re back at it! Today we continued working on prepping the rudder for assembly. I had to wait for a #10 dimple die set I bought from Cleaveland Aircraft in order to … Continue reading →

Tonight we’re back at it, working on finishing up the rudder. We’re at the point now, with the skins finished and primed, where we connect up everything and check for fit, then match-drill all the holes, deburr and dimple, then … Continue reading →

While we wait the 6-8 weeks for the wing kit to arrive, I’m trying to make sure we have all the tooling we’ll need, in advance. In this order, a longer back rivet set, and a hand-held back-rivet plate! I … Continue reading →

We stopped by last weekend to do some work, and this is what we found! Evidentally it was a tad windy the night before, and it looks like the roof lifted just enough for the door brackets to come free … Continue reading →

After thinking about the mess I made of the left rudder skin, I decided to just buy another one and give it another shot. The skin itself was only $43 and change. I also needed 8 stiffeners at $5.09 per … Continue reading →

Today we planned to rivet in the stiffeners on the rudder skins, then start the assembly of the rudder skeleton. We used the back-rivet set to attach them. This involves placing a line of rivets and holding them in place … Continue reading →

This last weekend we brought out the Monster (DRD2 dimpler) and carefully dimpled the skins and stiffeners for the rudder. The rudder skin is really thin (0.016″), so we had to dimple gingerly. No issues, fortunately. After dimpling we brought … Continue reading →