Assembling The Fin, Rudder, Stab and Elevator...

The tail section fell together fairly quickly - no major issues. Couple of minor ones including the notches for the rudder ribs being too small to fit the ply trailing edge. Also - when you're building a surface that has a taper do you build flat on the plans and shim the outboard parts - or do you build vertically stacking the ribs on the inboard spar? Just wondering...

 

Comments

[Tom Martin]

Mike,

In the case of a vertical fin which tapers over its short span, I generally do exactly what you suggested. I will glue together the parts which make up the circumference - spar, trailing edge, tip and root rib - over the spar laid flat on the table or shimmed with the entire surface laid flat on the table, depending upon my mood.

If those four parts are square and without twist, which I check by eyeball method, the rest of the tail can be built any way you choose, generally without the need to pin it down to the table. I will lay it down to mark out the rib end points on the spar and trailing edge and then often fit and glue in each of the remaining ribs with the part loose on the table or in hand. It seems to me faster and less fussy working with all those pins which I tend to dislike using in favor of fingers or clamps or rubber bands.

Tom