Rudder Post and Hinges

Today I drilled a series of 1 mm holes through the rudder post for the lower rudder hinge. Turning a series of holes into a nice neat sawn line required a bit of head scratching. I ended up taking this old saber saw blade in my hand and very gently pulling it from hole to hole, back and forth till I had a shallow trench in the rudder post. This particular blade just happened to be the exact same width as the hinge. I sawed very gently for quite some time and the trench turned into a cut. Eventually the saw blade came out the bottom of the wood and the rest was easy. Happy to say I was able to attain an absolutely perfect fit! The hinge fits so snugly that I actually had to tap it gently with a rubber mallet to push it through the slot.

I initially held the saber saw blade in my hand but this was very uncomfortable so I converted a piece of scrap into a quick and dirty handle in about five minutes. This made the job much easier.

The AN hardware fits very snugly but without issues. I put the bolts in just to make sure that they would go all the way through. They fit snug enough that I actually had to turn them in with a screw driver.

I think I should probably paint these hinges before putting them into the post for good. I was considering using POR 15. That stuff is amazing.

Tool Bench, Work Table #2, and Vertical Stabilizer.

Spent my Birthday leave getting my shop prepared to build wings! In the background you can see our new tool bench which was cut down and repurposed from an old storage loft in the garage. We had enough material to make the bench top and a shelf underneath.



Middle ground you can see my second work table butting up against the first one. That board underneath is just sitting there, I’ll cut it down and make it a cross brace tomorrow morning. I still need to add the straight edge to the second table. This should be sufficient space to build the plane. Sorry about the mess!



I helped a fellow Minimax builder move shop to a new house last Thursday and he gave me his old drill press. He had just purchased a new one and didn’t need two. The old one works just fine and has a new belt. The little wedge on the right hand foreground is our table saw.



Not a whole lot of progress on the actual plane last week. I tried to build an aileron bearing rib #5 but decided I didn’t like how it turned out. I am going to build it again and see if I can do better this time. I am learning some new tricks. Every time I start a new component I am back on the learning curve, but hey that’s what this is about. Now that I have a drill press many jobs are going to be easier and neater.



Today I cut the piano hinge provided from TEAM into two hinges for the rudder. Just used a vise and a hacksaw cleaned up any burs and sharp edges with the bench sander, they turned out pretty nice. Tomorrow I’ll drill the holes in the vertical stabilizer spars for the hinges and the fuselage mounting points.



Now just saving money to build spars.