I inspected the rudder today and found no problems with the installed rivets. I thought about polishing it but I had left three rivets out for later installation because of clearance issues with the drive horn. 
 
I had run into this on the flaps and found a solution. I made a tool that allows me to standoff from the head of the rivet and by bending the mandrel after the standoff, I can get the rivet gun on. The standoff holds the rivet flat even though the rivet gun is at an angle. It worked great on the few I did on the flaps, but I had to make a new standoff tool for each rivet because the material was too soft. 
 
I didn't want to polish the rudder if I had to do more work on it, so I decided to put in the three missing rivets. That meant I had to make my permanent tool. 
 
I sawed off about 5/16" of 1/2" steel rod and put a hole just larger than the rivet mandrel about 1/8" from the edge. The tool worked great - I'll post a picture in the future. 
 
Polishing, is it worth it? 
 
The rudder seemed like a good piece to start polishing with the procedures I learned doing the test sheet. I wanted to find out how long it would take and what kind of problems I would run into. 
 
I also wanted to know, what kind of effort gave what kind of result. I don't want to put in the effort for so-so results! 
 
It took about two hours including the three setups (three different polishing steps) and cleanup. I also ran into several problems, how to hold the piece without the clamps getting in the way, how to get the rivets done well and other various small problems. 
 
In the end, all the problems seem easily fixable. The piece itself looked alright but I could see the defects from the problems I encountered. 
 
Then I took the piece and set it next to the flaps, which looked exactly the same as the rudder before I started polishing it. WOW! 
 
As you are working the piece, it is hard to remember what the piece looked like when you started. The difference was so dramatic that if the whole plane looked only as good as the rudder, I would be delighted. 
 
So yes, I think it will be worth it to polish. Here are the pictures. 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

I assembled the rudder today. Here are the pictures. 
 
A brief explanation of what you see in these shots and why they seem redundant. 
 
Here are the steps for what I did today. 
 
1) Mark the hole location per plans. These are pilot holes. They will be used as guides to drill holes in pieces attached at that point. A previous shot showed my dad holding up a piece of hinge for the rudder with pilot holes in it. 
 
2) Drill the pilot holes - in this case - in the rudder skin. 
 
3) Deburr all the holes so that the pieces will assemble with firm contact. Also removed the white plastic protective coating. 
 
4) Position the attached pieces and drill through the pilot holes into the attached pieces. After drilling each hole, insert a cleco (a special clamp - it behaves like a removable rivet) to hold the pieces together. 
 
Carefully do this for all the holes. In this case, that also means attach the hinge with the pilot holes to the skin as well. 
 
Why Two Colors of Clecos? 
 
The silver ones fit a 3/32" hole and the bronze ones fit a 1/8" hole. All the pilot holes are mostly 3/32" holes that will be enlarged to 1/8". Where positioning is easy, I drill through the pilot hole into the attached piece (that has no hole), using 1/8" bit. This enlarges the hole to the final size, and I use a bronze cleco. 
 
In the case of the hinge, I drill through the pilot hole with a 3/32" bit. That means that I use a silver cleco and then take that cleco out and enlarge the hole to the final size and use a bronze cleco. I also used silver clecos on the first holes for the attached pieces. I then switched to drilling with the larger bit when I was sure everything was in the right place. (remember, silver means the hole has to be drilled again to enlarge it.) 
 
5) Take the whole shebang apart again and deburr everything all over again. I then give all the parts a good cleaning. 
 
6) Assemble the whole shebang again with clecos' holding it together. 
 
7) Start riveting. In this case, I left every other hole open in the hinge and those holes were the first ones riveted. Keep taking out clecos and replacing them with rivets until finished. 
 
Piece of cake. 
 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

Here are some more pictures. 
 
First, some polish test pictures. This is the before and after test using the polishing materials and procedures. Looks great! 
 
Second, catching up on the workshop pictures. These are the ones I took. The ones in the next post are from Sonex. 
 
Third, started on the rudder and vert stabilizer. I had to bend two 3/16" thick pieces. These pictures show the bending rig and the prep work on the rudder. The piece being bent in the pictures is not shown yet but it took some rework to get it right. 
 

Posted by: Bob Meyers

I started production on my plane after my dad and I attended a builders workshop at Sonex the first weekend in October. I ordered plans and then the kit in early August, the kit came in September. 
 
Prior to kit arrival, I built my workbench and made room in the garage for kit, tools and materials storage. After the kit came, I gathered tools, ordered hardware and put everything away. It kept me busy until the workshop came. 
 
I have also decided on an 'N' number and reserved it with the FAA. It will be N982SX - Niner eight two Sierra Xray. 982 is my serial number from the factory. 
 
I have my "Official" log book started and have a little over 20 hours of plane building under my built. 
 
I finished the left flap today, made the right flap last week. 
 
Pictures 
 
Here are some pictures of the work done so far. I plan on editing and posting highlight pictures here along the way. Probably not a lot of writing, but the pictures should speak for themselves 
 
Prebuilding activities. 
Building bench, kit arrival and test part pictures. 
 
Pictures of start of construction on flaps. Drive plates and skins. 
 
Right flap construction pictures. 
 
Left flap construction pictures. 
 
Here is a well shined Sonex! 
This is the look I'm going for. This plane is a taildragger however so mine will sit on the ground differently. 
 
Here are some pictures from the workshop my dad and I attended. 
 
Dad's in this one... 
 
 
We are both in this one... 
 
 
This is like the one I'm building, Tricycle, Aerovee engine, dual stick... 
 
 
Another one like the one I'm building - notice the flaps are lowered on the rear of the wing in this shot. As of this posting, that's what I have made so far... 
 
 

Posted by: Bob Meyers