Fun with edge-rolling

I took the day off from work…a mental health day was required. So I spent half the day futzing with the right elevator, trying some new techniques to close its leading edge skins. For some reason, this process seemed a lot harder than it did for the rudder – maybe it’s because the skins are thicker, 0.020″ versus 0.016″ for the rudder.

Lots ‘o duct tape

The trick, I found for me at least, was to tape the livin’ crap out of the skin edge and dowel. That way the dowel pulls evenly on the skin as torque is applied to it. I also found that rolling the inside edge very slightly more than 90 degrees, helps make a nice smooth seam – especially if you use one of those spiffy Cleaveland edge-rolling tools on the outside skin. Adjust the bend with some manual pressure and you’re all set. One other thing that occurred to me after that I did this is to use a larger dowel for the skin sections closer to the root – they have larger radii for the leading edge.

Mmmmm…rolls

Here’s what the almost-finished product looked like. All that was left for today was to close out the edge with pop rivets.