I originally built the smaller rudder that came with my kit way back when. Once Van's determined that the rudder didn't provide spin recovery equivalent to what they hoped for, they provided the bigger rudder flown on the RV-9s to those of us that wanted it, and all future builders of the kit. So, here I go building the new one. With the experience I have at this point, it is relatively easy this time around.

If you plan to prime any of the parts of the rudder, save yourself some time and match drill everything together before riveting the stiffeners on. It will make for one priming session instead of two that following the plans will cause.

Riveting is pretty straight forward, except that some of the rivets in the corners are very difficult to rivet since there is no room for a decent bucking bar. I just put in blind rivets where it made sense and moved on. You can see the angle in the last picture that holds the trailing edge straight during assembly.

The trailing edge needs to be pro-sealed in place before attempting to rivet to assure a straight edge. Once the pro-seal cures with the attached angle, then the task of double riveting can be accomplished. This is where I picked up a nice trick from another builder. The idea is to pre-set 3/4s of the rivets with the angle still attached to hold it straight. To do this you open up every 4th hole in the angle to make room for the squeezer, then move it around one hole at a time. It worked quite well. Once all of them are pre-set, you flip it over and use the mushroom set to back rivet the remaining protrusions. It turned out well and was really quite easy to do.

Here it is all done except for the fiberglass. Jadzia helped me multiple times building this, match drilling, removing the blue plastic and loading rivets with her perfect sized fingers. She is pretty proud of it too.