July 2011 – Rudder construction

The rudder has a curved trailing edge (bow) that requires laminating several strips of wood together. It’s incredibly messy. I had to do a lot of scraping and sanding to get it looking nice.

The trailing edge bow is then glued to a hollow spar make of ½” sticks and 1/8” plywood. I used spruce for the tail feathers in hopes of keeping them light and messing up the CG when everything is done. The 2 liter bottle is just a weight to apply a bit of pressure to the glue joint between the bow and spar.

Ribs are then fitting between the spar and the trailing edge bow to complete the wood parts of the rudder.

August 2011 – Horizontal Stabilizers

I constructed both horizontal stabilizers at the same time. They are made of spruce instead of fir to reduce weight.

The plans call for these blocks to be one piece, but by building them in 3 pieces I can fit the blocks down in between the cap strips on the spar making them much stronger anchor points.

Filler strips are added to the diagonal spar between each rib to make everything the same thickness.

The root of the horz stab is sheeting in 1/8” plywood forming a box. You can see the anchor blocks where bolts will hold the stabilizers to the side of the fuselage.

October 2011