The 3M VHB tape from Van’s showed up this week, so I was ready to start back on the rudder again. Thankfully, this time the tape VAN’s sent worked like a charm. This further validated that the tape I got from Amazon was junk. The night that the tape came in, I adhered it to the trailing edge wedge piece. Tonight I attached the wedge to the right skin which sits flat on the table. Clekos were installed from the underside of the skin in the trailing edge at the end of each stiffener. I then got my wife to help me as we rolled the left skin onto the right skin, stopping at each stiffener location to finish the internal riveting of the stiffeners and shear clips, peeling back the 3M tape on the top of the wedge piece as we went. Once this was done, I finished riveting the lower rib to the skin, and installed clekos in the rest of the holes of the trailing edge in an alternating fashion. I clamped a 6′ steel angle to the edge of the table to give a straight and uniform edge. Finally, I put a wide board over the skin with some weights on it to hold it down and let the surfaces bond to each other. I’ll leave it overnight like this. Good progress tonight!
adamsrv10 