The rudder skins were prepped and rigged ready for match drilling (Sections 7.6.3 – 7.6.5)
Today I used the soldering iron trick to cleanly peel away vinyl from the edges and rivet lines on the exterior side of the skins. There is a big debate in the community about the utility of leaving the vinyl on (scratch resistance vs. corrosion potential), but I think it looks cool. Besides the plane parts are currently stored in our climate controlled bonus room, plus I do not intend to spend decades waiting to process and corrosion treat these materials.
Removing the vinyl strips…
Final product.
Here the rudder trailing edge is being attached for final trimming to appropriate length.
and the whole nine yards clecoed together ready for match drilling.