My first leading edge!

I was waiting for a time when I could get some help to roll the leading edge of my rudder. I have worked ahead on the elevators and just finished bending their trailing edges with my new brake. When I was at Home Depot Aviation Supply today getting the wood to build the brake I picked up the necessary supplies to build a rolling jig. Here is the results I have a little bit of creasing on the last 3 inches of the bottom third. Now I'm dreading un-doing it to remove the blue film and debur! All in all the jig worked really well, maybe a 1" pipe on the lower third would have worked a little better.

Things I learned:
1. U-bolts don"t work well as the inboard portion hits the skin/spar as you roll, so I cut it off making a J-bolt.
2. Gorilla brand tape is AWESOME!
3. Take a few deep breaths and I can do anything!
4. Be thankful for all the help on Vansairforce.net! Thanks guys!
5. Be willing to build things several times, notice the position of the pipe on the table in pics #2 vs #3!

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Wow Michael! Did you do the curve alone? I suspect a woman is involved

All by myself!!

Michael, it looks totally airworthy.

Nice work.

Hey, congratulations! I just rolled my first LE too. I borrowed an extra pair of hands though. Isn't it amazing how good you feel after you finish these little steps that you've turned over and over in your mind worrying about?

I did it in a slightly different manner, using the pipe and the T-handle, but used two short pieces of oak plank, each one clamped to the bench on two spacers that would raise the bottoms above the workbench so that the pipe would just fit under them. That held the pipe down, but still let the rolling pipe move horizontally when rolling the bend, leaving the elevator stationary on the bench. One thing I would have done differently, though, would have been to use steel pipe instead of pvc. The pvc "gave" enough in torsion so that the far end of the skin did not curve as much as the near end. Got it close enough to rivet, though, but the steel would have made it still better.

Congrats!

That's a pretty schnazzy edge-rolling setup. I wasn't nearly as elaborate, I just duct-taped a length of iron pipe to the edge of the sheet metal... clamped on some long handled Gator Grip pliers and rolled away. I only had to do one edge, though, the previous builder had done the other two.

Thanks Katie I know that feeling well!

Thanks Dale!

I enjoyed your build log. Good work!

~J~