Rudder Styrofoam

One inch wide strips of Dow Styrofoam are required for the rudder. There are many ways to cut it (e.g., hot wire, various saws and knives), but I chose the easiest considering what I had on hand: a thin, break-away blade cutter. This method produced no mess and avoided a potential ventilation issue, too.

I found the best method was to be patient and start with the blade extended out only about 1/2", taking three or four increasingly deep cuts till I reached the underlying cardboard protecting my work surface. The final cuts required the extended blade to be less supported by its handle, so slowing down prevented chip-outs and errant cuts.

1" Thick Foam, Drywall Square and Cutter.

Foam Strips Ready for Final Sizing

With some small foam scraps, I experimented with filing and sanding to get the contour for the 1" Rudder Tube. After some trial and error, the best approach was to cut a small 'V' on the end of the foam then use some 80-100 grit garnet paper wrapper around a piece of scrap 1" tubing to get to the desired final shape.

Note: the two 24" x 48" tables above had to be leveled to fit together for a suitably long work surface. My basement and garage floors are very uneven. I found a YouTube video that had a variation on what I ended up doing. I used an old (as in early 1990's-old) 2" x 10" waterbed frame board to cut out 7" diameter circles. Next I attached them to the table legs with 3/8" x 3" long hex head bolts and tee nuts. I offset the hole in the 'wheel,' about 2" off the outer circumference,  to provide an eccentric movement, giving me lots of room to play with for leveling:

Rudder Frame Taking Shape

Taped a multi-drawing, 1-to-1 scale paper template to the tabletop again for the bottom trailing edge rudder tube bending (removed in picture below). Next, took advantage of the square, flat, straight-edged table top to align the two trailing edge tubes. This allowed me to cut the lower half of the trailing edge tube to final length for the rear edge splice (just to the right of the B4T1 drawing), and measure the angled cut where the tube joins the bottom of the torque tube.

...need a bigger table?

Tail Time

My original plan, after completing the nose, was to build the lower center wing section. However, I was unable to find the spar tube (1.75 x .035) in stock at Aircraft Spruce, and available, but pricey at TW Metals ($388 for two 96" long tubes, about $13.00 for shipping). That's about $2,500 for the wing spar tubes alone. I was unable to find those dimensions in 6061-T6 aluminum tubing anywhere else on line. (Update: don't tell anyone, but Wick's has this tubing for $6.15/ft. An 11-hour road trip and I can save the shipping cost, too).

So, instead I began on the tail. I started with a few parts seen in the pics below. Since the shipping cost for anything over seven feet skyrocketed about eight months ago (at least for UPS), I bought shorter lengths and will connect them with an internal splice.

Temporary nuts.

Internal splice for trailing edge tube.

I was thinking of using an external sleeve on the trailing edge, but I saw what looked like an internal splice on one of Mike Sandlin's photo gallery pictures:

Splice?

My method was to cut a two inch piece of 3/8" tubing, put it in a vise and cut lengthwise on one side. I then tightened the vise to close the gap and repeated six to eight more times. I filed and rounded the piece to get the result in the picture. I plan to place two rivets about 1/2" apart on each side of the cut - facing inward.

I was able to find a very good price for pultruded (epoxy impregnated) carbon rods, 1.5mm x 1000m at a place called https://www.racedayquads.com. I'm hoping the very slightly smaller diameter is aceptable as the plans call out .063"