With the elevator and horizontal stab tips ready for being glassed in, it was time for me to turn my attention to the rudder. Unlike the elevators, I did not have the rod bearings marked with torque seal. A quick review of the inter webs found that its not completely necessary. After all, it isn’t possible for these to rotate. However, I still did my best to torque them to the appropriate value and mark them as torqued.

First was the upper tip. This is fully enclosed and only took a little filing to make fit. Drilling and clecoing was a breeze.

The bottom is a different story. You need to cut a section out for the control horn.

I used a dremel to accomplish this.

At this point, I am not proceeding further with the bottom tip for two reasons. First, I have not purchased the strobe light that will be located here. Second, some builders have reported interference with the tail springs with the stock configuration. The fix is simple, make the tip shorter. But I’ll wait until I have both the light and the tail installed before making this final installation. There is no rush. The entire reason I’m doing these now, a bit earlier than most folks do, is because I need the practice with fiberglass prior to doing the showplanes canopy frame.