Tonight, I spent 4.5 hours in the airplane factory. Just short of an hour at lunch, then 3.5 more in the evening.

First up, time to bend the rudder skin. Having had some experience with this on the RV-7, this came pretty naturally. I didn’t have to go through the same “you want me to push HOW HARD on these delicate skins I’ve been babying for the last few weeks?

Easy peasy. I used some hinges to sandwich the trailing edge between the workbench top and a 2×4. Squeeze, move the trailing edge out a little (away from the hinge line) and squeeze until there is no more bulging of the skin.

I did not use a 1/8” dowel rod the way I did last time.

Once the skin was bent, it was time to cleco it on and get everything matchdrilled.

Here I am drilling the lower fairing attach strips to the skin holes.

I’m not ready to start thinking about rolling the leading edge, but I know from experience that I should get these holes final-sized, deburred, and primed now.

I think this next picture of my “build clock” was just for record-keeping. Bu when I thought about how busy tomorrow was going to be, I zipped up my big boy pants and decided it was a good night to put in another few hours to get everything finished and primed.

Here’s where the pictures slow down. That next 2.5 hours was a lot of deburring, dimpling, cleaning, and priming. I systematically edge-finished each rudder component, then deburred any holes I drilled, dimpled where appropriate, cleaned with soap, water, then acetone to promote drying. Then show it withe the rattle can.

I finished up doing the same with the rudder skin, inviting it to join the rest of the skeleton for priming. Here’s a shot of the last moment in the shop prior to bedtime.

4.5 hours total in preparation for final assembly of the rudder.