I thought to myself yesterday that I'm almost done with the empennage... So I looked on my shelf for remaining parts and here's what I came up with. The trim tab hinge, the trim tab spar, and 2 copies of the trim tab push rod mount. So you can guess what part I have left to do. :) Anyways, I have 2 copies of the push rod thingie because 1 comes with the kit and 1 comes with the optional electric trim kit. I've heard that you can send stuff back to Vans for credit, so I guess if I ever get something substancial to send back, I'll include these with it...
So, today I spent a lot of time in the garage/shop cleaning up and rearranging and other stuff and only spent about an hour on real plane work. That work was applying the Proseal that I got from Jeff. He let me borrow some that he had gotten as extra from another builder. The can of black hardener looked pretty much empty, but he said that it'd be more than enough. So I scraped up a wad of the black stuff about the size of a smallish marble. I then opened up the stinky can of white stuff (polysulfide compound) and put about 12 equal sized blobs in the dixie cup and added the black hardener to it. I wasn't too worried about being exact, as this isn't sealing up fuel tanks, just holding the trailing edge together while I rivet it... and the ratio is 100:10 by weight or 100:8.3 by volume, so that's where I made my guesstimate of 12:1 from.
It is just like everyone explains it... Used chewing gum consistency, sticks to whatever it touches, but I don't remember anyone mentioning the poopy smell (actually an odd, but not terribly strong sulfury smell). Here's the rudder after having the proseal smeared on where the trailing edge comes together, and I also put the extra on the ends of the stiffeners to try to head off any cracking that seems to be an issue with these rudders. The straight angle has been clecoed on (Thanks for letting me borrow it, Jeff, it would have sucked to have to drill all those holes myself, and I know that angle isn't cheap either).
I guess I put on just a tad much in some places...
And it doesn't wipe off good.. duh.. So I just ran a screwdriver along the edge to 'cut off' the extra proseal that seeped out. It'll stick the the angle, but it's not like it didn't already have some residue on it from the last user.
I should mention that knowing some local builders is VERY handy. You can borrow the little one-time tools like this instead of having to buy and build them yourself. And this little dabble of proseal is leftovers from a previous tank build. You don't need much, just what the tank builder didn't have time or need to scrape out of the can... (Seriously, I would have classified these cans as 'empty' but I have learned that there was way more than enough in there...) I'll be borrowing Jeff's trailing edge bending brake for the elevators soon, so I won't have to make one of those.. But I've got to wait for it to come back from another builder borrowing it. This network of builders is super cool. I can't wait to meet more of them (and maybe bum a ride in a finished RV for some insirpation.. hint, hint...) :)
