Winter seems to have returned to the UK and it was too cold and wet to get the fuselage out of the workshop to make room for some of the aluminium forming needed so I did some of the little outstanding jobs on the control surfaces. First task was to close the ends of the rudder front spar. For some reason I'd left the 3/4" tubing that it used for the leading edge of the rudder open at both ends. This seems like it would encourage internal corrosion so I cut out two small disks of 4130 sheet and welded them into the ends of the tube to seal it. Next job was to fabricate and install two small plates either side of the spar and surrounding the hinge on the rudder. These will provide a flat surface for the fabric to adhere to around the hinge. These were made from 0.032" thick 4130 steel sheet. Finally today another 8 of these plates were fabricated and installed to repeat the process for the two elevators. These little jobs don't seem to show much progress but take time. Anyway, the tail surfaces are now completely finished so sometime soon I'll take them to a local specialist airframe sandblasting company to get them cleaned up ready for priming and covering. So that's another four items off the to-do list. I'm updating the list by colouring the completed items green to show progress. No additional items today which is good news!
