QSP Rudder Workshop Testimonial

We started off inventorying the parts, which were well labeled with part numbers corresponding to the drawings and instruction manual. Immediately there were a few tasks we didn’t quite know how do, but the staff was quick to help out and get us on our way. We built up the rudder’s main spar with a sequence of steps repeated many times: clamp together, mark hole locations, drill, cleco together, undo parts and de-burr holes, coat with anti corrosion, cleco back together and pull rivets.

On Friday, after the kids had been put to bed, Randolph and I took off for Cloverdale by car. I did not want to risk a VFR plane trip with my non-instrument rating, being bound by the workshops start and end times. I also had to bring home a finished rudder and wasn’t sure it would fit in the plane. As it turns out, traveling by car was a good choice; the fog would have kept us out of WVI on Sunday evening. I think the rudder would have fit in the plane easily.

The Cloverdale airport is right next to Hwy 101, and gives the sense of a wonderful, cozy rural airport, with QSP’s hangar being the largest on the field. Randolph and I were right on time and among the first to arrive. A busy QSP staff were setting up for their open house. So we chipped in with the set up and took some time to have some coffee and doughnuts. After a short while the rudder workshop attendees arrived and introduced themselves. There were three CH701 rudders being built and one CH601 rudder. Everyone else had predetermined what they wanted to build.

Pulling rivets, as compared to bucking rivets, entails loading up the pneumatic rivet gun with a rivet, pushing the rivet through the hole, squaring up the gun with the mating surfaces and squeezing the trigger. I wasn’t prepared for the satisfaction that resulted from squeezing the rivet gun’s trigger. The gun makes a sound sort of like: Whoosh – bink! I smiled and did another one. Whoosh-bink. I looked over at Randolph and said “ Oohhh, you gotta do this! This is great!”. This was nothing like solid rivet bucking I had previously done. This was fun! The riveting alone provides an incentive to do all the other previous steps. I made sure Randolph and I split up the riveting between us, as it was so much fun.

I also discovered that it is easier to drill out badly set pulled rivets compared to solid rivets (which only happened once, I am proud to say). Punch out the steel pull pin with a modified center punch. Drill the rivet to the hole size. The head falls off. Push out the remaining part of the rivet. Piece of cake!

Michael Heintz started off by explaining their philosophy of the workshop: to get us to the point where we would need little help working from the plans and instruction manual. So Michael and his workshop staff, Erik Peterson and Doug Dugger, would be available for any questions but weren’t going to hover.