The Long EZ Build: Winglet and rudder hinge pockets

With the winglets installed onto the wings, it was now time to focus on rudders.

The rudders had been cut away from the winglets a while ago and sitting on my workbench ever since. The first step was to mill out a 1" deep pocket on the leading edge of the rudders. Although the plans say "approx 1 inch", I took this to be 1" and wish I would have made it 1.3" - especially on the winglet trailing edge pocket. This is because the hinges get tucked into a 0.2" cutout into the trailing edge of the winglet - pushing the hinge forward into the winglet 0.2" so a 1" pocket isn't truly deep enough. I ended up having to trim my hinges lengthwise by 0.2" but that will be explained in a later post.

Anywho - moving on...

So I used my dremel to mill out a 1" deep pocket on the rudder's leading edge...

I milled out a top and bottom channel.. and then free-handed the dremel in between...

I then used a metal file to make the surface perfectly flat... notice the duct tape handle I added to the metal file.. this made sliding the file back and forth effortless.

That is a nice looking 1" deep pocket! Notice how I took the pocket all the way to the ends (through the top and bottom of the rudder). This is because I am going to install the hidden belhorns at the very bottom of my rudders. I'll figure out how to "cap" the ends later.

But before I could apply the pocket layups, the glass surfaces had to be prepped for a nice glass-to-glass bond.. I weighed the rudder down using gallon water jugs...

And with the dremel I removed all the micro and prepped the pocket for the layups...

Here's a BEFORE pic....

And here's what it looks like AFTER passing the dremel...

Of course, this had to be repeated for the other rudder...

I then focused on prepping the winglet pockets...

I drew a line to show me a 1" pocket. Again, I wish I had done a 1.3" deep pocket to give me more room for the hinge later on.

I adjusted the dremel depth...

And began milling out the foam...

One side first...

Then the other side...

I then did a middle channel and snapped the foam off...

This leaves the pocket a bit rough...

But is easily sanded with a metal file...

Now that is a perfect hinge pocket!

Just like the rudders, the winglets also need to be prepped for a glass-to-glass bond... so the micro is sanded off with the dremel..

Much better!

The bottom of the pocket also needed to be sanded so I switched to a finer sanding drum...

The plans say to create a 0.6" pocket at the top.. but I decided to keep it flat. Small detail, but I think it looks cleaner this way.

With the pockets milled out, it was time for the pocket layups. This is composed of 3 BID plies at 45.. and then 2 plies BID locally where the hinges go. I started out by painting plain epoxy on the pocket walls...

Followed by slurry on the foam surface...

And dry micro on the corners for a nice fillet. I should have kept this fillet as small as possible, as it later caused an issue with it catching the forward lip of the hinge. I had to trim the hinge a bit so not a big a deal - but something to consider.

Here is Austin helping me tuck the BID ply into the pocket... this went pretty smoothly.. using a brush to tuck the ply in...

I then wetter the ply out, and installed the second ply.. and then the third...

I then trimmed the plies about 0.5" overhang...

I then installed the 2 plies locally where the hinges will go.. I purposely made these plies 2" longer than the hinges to give me more wiggle room later...

With everything wetted out... we let cure...

The next day, I drew a line length wise where I needed to trim the rudder's leading edge...

This was easy to do since the rudder already had the outside skin showing me where the leading edge lip is...

I then rough trimmed with the multi tool...

And sanded everything smooth... I was careful to not remove too much material - as any material removed would show up as a gap between the winglet and rudder later on...