I started off today by pulling the right side rudder cable CF sleeve and freshly laid up mounting flange off the CS spar.  I then pulled the peel ply and cleaned up the mounting flange just enough to drill a hole to use in mounting the Clickbond with flox (no pic).

A bit later I pulled the CF rudder cable sleeve/mounting flange and prepped the Clickbond for glassing (pic #1).  I then laid up 3 plies of BID over the Clickbond and peel plied them (pic #2).

Here’s the right rudder cable CF sleeve with the new mounting tab.  Pic #1 is the initial trim I did whereas pic #2 is the final trim.  Sorry for the pics, I was in a rush and my phone camera apparently had a hard time focusing on the center item in the pic!

I had been pondering about how our rudder & brake system works over the last couple of days, so a bit later I decided that I needed the CF sleeve to be be a tad more immune to flex… since when we get to the end of the rudder throw as we press our pedal we then get into the brake portion of our pedal operation.  If the rudder segment of this throw is squishy it very well may not give me as good of an “anchor” for the brake portion.

Thus I decided that since the right rudder cable CF sleeve is in open space, then I would do my originally planned “shark fin” design.  I’ll note that on the left side I can simply mount an Adel Clamp to secure the CF rudder sleeve at the inboard oil cooler mount and resolve this flex issue that way.

I grabbed a curved piece of CF scrap from a previous cowl trimming and after a few rounds of marking it up, cutting it with the Fein saw and sanding it I had a nice shark fin shaped insert.  I then essentially adding just enough dry micro to the mating edge to provide a filleted transition and then wrapped the CF sleeved tube and the shark fin insert with a ply of CF.  In addition, the remaining part of the tube not covered by the shark fin CF got another 3rd addition of CF sleeving. I then wet out the CF shark fin and sleeving and then peel plied it (aka “an adventure in using clothespins for securing peel ply”… ha!).

While the new CF “shark fin” mod was curing, I then pulled the peel ply and razor trimmed the oil cooler scoop singly ply BID layup from yesterday.  The layup looked good with no issues.

A good many hours later I pulled the peel ply on the “shark fin” mod and did a good little bit of sanding to clean it up.

I then pulled the tape and the peel ply from the right CS spar Clickbond . . .

and test mounted the new right rudder CF sleeve “shark fin” . . . it really looks like it is going to work a treat!  I’m very happy with how both of these rudder cable sleeve assemblies came out, and tomorrow I’ll get a final weight on them.

And with that, I called it a night!