Posted in Empennage, Rudder

Rudder Stiffener and Skin Dimpling

   Published Date: October 22, 2025  Leave a Comment on Rudder Stiffener and Skin Dimpling

Still waiting on replacement parts and tools, but alas, I have something productive I can be doing with the rudder!

Even though the stiffeners aren’t final trimmed (especially where they will be trimmed to accommodate the trailing edge of the rudder which will be bent to final shape), I was able to deburr the holes and dimple them. Same with the skin, necessitating use of the DRDT-2 dimpler.

Apparently I didn’t take a picture AFTER deburring, scuffing, and dimpling, but here’s the before picture.

I then moved on to the skin. Deburring both sides, then scuffing the stiffener area. This picture shows the right side of the rudder (the part at the bottom of the picture) deburred and scuffed.

Scuffed!

After finishing the other side of the rudder, I whipped out the DRDT-2 and set up for some silent dimpling.

You can see the 1/4″ wood spacer I’ve had to put in under the mdf shelf the DRDT-2 is sitting on to make the female dimple die even with the top of my black carpet. I’ll design something more permanent when I have time.

After chugging through both sides of the rudder skin, It’s theoretically ready for priming and riveting of the stiffeners. Of course I’ll need to final-trim and edge finish the stiffeners when my aviation shear set arrives on Friday.

That’s pretty!

I’m still working a little out of order, but I like being able to jump out to the garage and confidently knock something out while I wait for parts and tools. Makes me much less impatient.

1.5 hours

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Author: Andrew

I'm too lazy to fill this out. If you are actually reading this, send me a message, and I'll spend some effort on it.

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