Having recently received my Van’s RV-8 tail kit I have been very eager to get started and I did so by doing a test fit of the vertical fin.
You’ve gotta love all the CNC machined parts and how well they all fit together. I had no trouble getting the vertical fin together with a few clecos.
During the past few weeks while I was waiting for my tail kit to arrive I have been in correspondence with Mark Frederick who is the man behind the TeamRocket F1. As the F1 kits are no longer in production, Mark has been providing me with guidance on how to modify and “beef-up” the RV-8 tail with mods that are similar to that of the F1 EVO tail.
One of these mods are to add 1/8″ (0.125″) doublers on the forward and rear side of the lower forward vertical fin spar. In the picture below I have started to do the layout to begin planning how to make a template to make the required doubler.
A few things to note in the picture below are:
- I added / laid out where the additional rivet holes and spacing will be for the doublers. In the picture below you can see how much larger the doubler on the back side of the spar is compared to the front side (as shown).
- I marked out the edge distance for the rivets.
- Marked out the dip for the doubler “fork”.
Please comment, I love to hear from my readers. Thanks again for coming along for this ride, you make my work worthwhile.
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