I did finish the major build tasks on the fuselage dolly, but allow me to cover the day chronologically:

I started off this morning checking the NG30s’ outboard side layups.  I failed to get this pic in the mix last night, but it’s essentially a bunch of heavy stuff that I balanced on separate 2x4s that are resting on plastic over the 3 hard points I just glassed, on each NG30.

When I pulled everything off, here’s what I found.  Nice & flat!

And then I pulled off the peel ply.

And here’s the finished product:  Edge-trimmed & sanded NG30s ready for attachment to the F22 bulkhead.

I re-drilled the gear actuator mounting bracket holes and put the NG30 nose assembly all back together to check fit & clearances.  As  you can see, it all looked good and went together smoothly.  I checked the inside measurement of the NG30s and it’s almost exactly  3″, so the width is spot on (it would actually be a little tough to be off with the configuration as it is, with the mounting bracket spacers and all, but still, good to have the right numbers!)

Nose gear actuator, nose gear pivot (NG6B) and NG30’s ready for install!

Here’s a good shot of why I filled in the hard point depressions.  As you can see below, the washers sit nice and level on the new glass and there’s no concern over torquing these very important bolts down to the right value.  Nice, clean & EZ!

After all the work on the NG30s was done for the day, I spent about an hour upstairs researching parts & electrical connectors for the nose gear actuator (I really don’t care for Molex connectors in an airplane so my plan is to swap them out for AMP CPC connectors, as my buddy Dave Berenholtz did).

I then opened up the garage and got to work on the fuselage dolly.  My first task of the day was to get all the corner support struts built and attached.  These are essentially the corner table legs that keep the top fuselage table mount steady and secure at each elevation.

The support struts are simply 2x4s with a 5/8″ slot cut down the center so that a stationary 1/2″ bolt mounted on the lower box slides through the slot.  Then, when the table is at it’s desired elevation, I simply tighten the 1/2″ wing nuts and secure the table mount in position.  A point of note is that I intentionally made the slots in the support struts a little oversized at 5/8″ compared to the stationary 1/2″ carriage bolt (which protrudes through the strut slot) to ensure there was wiggle room in the sliding action to prevent any unwanted binding.

Here I’ve positioned a corner support strut and am marking the upper point to be drilled out with a 5/8″ auger bit.

Here’s a corner support strut ready to be permanently screwed to the table platform.

Side view of fuselage dolly with the corner support struts ready to be permanently mounted to the table platform (top work/mounting surface).

I had also done a bit of research on creating ratchet arms as a safety mechanism since I’ll have a fair bit of weight on this table.  The scissor jack can easily support & lift 5,000 lbs, but the area that it supports is less than 1 sq. ft., so these corner struts are vitally important to the stability of the load on the top table platform.

So although I haven’t designed or made the exact ratchet pawls, I went ahead and notched each corner support strut every 3″ starting from the bottom of the strut for the ratchet pawl to engage with once I make & mount them.

An updated pic with ratchet notches on the support struts:

This is a pic I took immediately after testing out the raising and lowering of the table platform.  So far my plan is working as designed!

This is pretty much the same view as above, but some minor additions have been made such as cross supports at the end of the table platform and the final install of the lower decking immediately adjacent to the scissor jack on each side.

You may notice in the pics that the scissor jack is not at its full extension height.  This means the height of the table platform is being limited by the length of the slot in the support struts, not by the scissor jack.  I have already planned out additional steps I can implement to allow the scissor jack, and thus the table platform, to reach its max height… IF I really need it to go that high.  We’ll see if I need to go that route during future build tasks.

It is getting dark much faster these days, and that will be even more accelerated here on the east coast as tonight we change our clocks for daylight savings time.  Thus, by the time I had the top mounted it was fairly dark, so I lit it as best as I could.  After turning on the outdoor lights there seemed to be enough that instead of just taking a simple picture, I figured I would attempt to make a video to show the fuselage dolly in operation.

Now, I didn’t narrate the video because I did this on a whim, and I had music playing fairly loudly in the garage.  However, the mike on my phone hardly picked up the actual volume of the music, so the video seems like a silent film to a degree.  Yes folks! I’m that lazy that it pains me to now talk during my videos!  Ha!

Oh, one other note on the video.  In the video I appear to be hunting & pecking around for the hex drive on the scissor jack that is situated towards the center of the table under the table platform (If I haven’t mentioned it before, I angled it towards the corner for easier raising/lowering operations when the fuselage is mounted on the table platform).  My point is that it’s actually very easy to see and engage the scissor jack under the platform, it was just more difficult & time consuming to attempt it while trying to film the process with a phone in my hand.

Ok, a very final note on this video: the canopy is inside the lower box with the end caps screwed in place, making this a very secure housing for the canopy until I get to Chap 18.

I started off today intent on getting back to the canard, so I sanded the canard swoosh tips, the inboard area of the swoosh tips, and the immediate area around each of the outer two hinge tabs with 220 grit paper for about an hour.

I then got pulled away by a few mandatory errands, phone calls and work teleconference.

I got back to working on the plane at about 4pm, and since the days are getting shorter, and cooler, I figured I would get to working on the fuselage dolly during the daylight, and while it was a bit warmer (vs night), and not raining.  I apologize but since I left my camera upstairs and I was in the “I’ll get it in 5 minutes” mode, alas, there are no pics.  However, what I did was basically cut the remaining canopy box covers & the framed the main table top and mounted it to the scissor jack.  There’s a few more things I need to tweak to optimize its operational use, but I can already tell I’m going to be really happy with the functionality of this fuselage dolly.

I ended up spending about 3 hours on the fuselage dolly.  My guesstimate is that I have just about another 2 hours to go to finish it up.

After the 3 hours were up (and it being too dark to see any lines on my tape measure!), I ran to Home Depot to pick up some hardware.  I grabbed a quick bite while I was out at a nice little Hibachi place, then came back home and got to work on the final sanding of the swoosh tips on the bottom side of the canard.

After about another 30 minutes of sanding, I broke out the primer, mixed it up really well for a good while, and laid down a coat of primer on the bottom side of the swoosh tips, the inboard area of the swoosh tips, the elevator weight pockets and around & on the hinge tabs.

After the first coat of primer was on the bottom of the canard, I picked back up working on the  NG30’s.  Now, yesterday was all about the inboard side of the NG30’s while today is all about the outboard side.  My goal was to finish prepping the NG30’s so that they would be ready for install on the nose of the fuselage.

My specific steps today on the NG30’s was to fill in the 3 aft hard points with more BID “roundels” to bring the surface of each hard point up to the level of the surrounding NG30 surface.  Why?  Well, because I want to be able to use the correct washer and right now I either have to go with a smaller washer, or pack the hard point depression with flox before I add the washer.  Thus, in my mind it made more sense to just add a few more layers of BiD into the hard points.

Since I’m adding glass to the hard points, I am following the advice that Jack gave me during a conversation a few years ago by adding 1 ply of UNI at a 45° bias angle from the F22 junction down toward the front of the NG30 (just aft of the NG8 screws).  And then on top of the UNI will go 1-ply of BID that also goes right up to the NG8 area. To be clear, Jack had mentioned this as part of a few possible, but not “mandatory,” mods to increase the strength of the NG30’s.  After reviewing my emails with Jack, and taking into account Jerry Schneider’s not too distant crunching of his stock NG30’s in his Cozy after a hard landing, I decided to employ all NG30 beefing up measures, weight be damned!!! (Forgive me Burt, for I have sinned . . . !)

The first task was to clean up the excess epoxy and prep the glass for adhesion using the Dremel tool.  One point of note is that when I originally built these NG30 hard points, I did them to plans so I put weights on them to compress the glass.  Boy did it ever!  Plans say to glass in 15 plies, and I ended up adding at least another 3 plies.  Well, the weight really worked, and the top of each hard point is still well below the surface of the NG30.  Great for strength but bad for washer positions!

Below shows a progression of me cleaning up the NG30 aft hard points with the Dremel tool.

After I got the hard points cleaned up, I then sanded & prepped the surface of each NG30.

I then grabbed some scrap BID to use in the pre-preg for the hard point “roundels.”

Here’s a shot of the BID glass “roundels” getting cut and glassed in place.  I have to say that I thought most of the hard point depressions would handle another 6-8 plies of BID, but by the time I got to laying up the UNI pieces on each side, I would have to say I added about another 10 plies into each hard point depression.

Below is my finished NG30 quest for the evening.  Each NG30 has 1-ply UNI at 45° bias (as per discussion with Jack) & 1-ply BID over the now surface level glassed hard points.  Then I peel plied the entire layup mainly to match the original layup surface texture.  Of course I’ll also be adding a number of BID tapes to these in the nose build process.

I took quick shot of inboard side of canard swoosh tip area to show what it looks like.  Note that I taped up the end of the hinge tab to prime it.

And here the tape is removed and you can see that the majority of the hinge tab is primed.

Tomorrow I plan on cleaning up the NG30’s by pulling the peel ply, razor trimming the edges and ensuring the layup was good.  I then plan on sanding the primer on the canard, and hitting whatever spots on the canard bottom that need another coat of primer.  I will then knock out the fuselage dolly.

I started off this morning working for about an hour on some build project housecleaning duties such as updating my spreadsheet with recent purchases, and my project “Order of Battle,” and my specific to-do lists for each chapter.

After getting the paperwork out of the way, my first priority of the day was to work on all the stuff that makes noise.  If noise wasn’t an issue, I would have worked on the canard first, then the nose NG30’s, and then the fuselage dolly.  But, since I can’t be making enemies of all my neighbors, or keeping the neighborhood awake with my plane-building shenanigans, then I need to prioritize to get my clanging & banging finished ASAP in the day.

I started off today working on the NG30’s for the nose.  I needed to get some minor stuff taken care of so I could glass the aft inboard side with a 2-ply BID layup.  This layup would serve 2 purposes:  1) It covers the depression made in the upper aft area of each NG30 to allow freedom of movement of the nose gear actuator housing, and 2)  It reinforces the aft inboard edge of each NG30 with 2 plies of BID to strengthen the NG30 when attached to the center post of F22.  This was a recommendation I received from Jack Wilhelmson back in 2012, so I of course complied!

The first of this required stuff was to drill the 1/4″ holes for the actuator mounting brackets in the right NG30, by using the left NG30 as a template to make sure the holes are perfectly aligned.  Once the NG30’s were aligned and clamped it took very little time to drill the holes.

The next order of business was to expand the NG30 upper holes that provide clearance to the main nose gear actuator connect bolts.  This expansion is a result of the boo-boo that I mentioned earlier where I overlooked Jack’s mandate that the holes on the edge of the actuator mounting brackets are required to have 3/8″ clearance from the edge of each bracket to the bolt hole.  I’m fairly certain I was using the original holes shown in the old plans NG51s (mount for mechanical nose gear retract assembly) for reference, and those didn’t have the proper clearance.  The bottom line is that since I had to move the holes on the mounting bracket further away from the edge, it caused an issue of bolt clearance in the very top open hole.  It needed about 0.15″ more space at the aft end of the hole.

As I was checking the spacing on the upper NG30 hole below with the actuator installed (see pic below), I also marked off the area of the upper NG30 that needed to be removed to allow the proper clearance of the nose gear actuator top motor housing (the anodized gold cap at the bottom of the actuator in pic below).

Here I’ve prepped the Dremel tool to use on expanding the upper holes.  The area marked at the bottom of the hole is the offending mass that must be removed!

The last task on my list before glassing the inboard NG30’s was to remove the area that I had marked off above to allow unhindered movement of the nose gear actuator.

I used my router with a 3/8″ “square” bit and freehanded the cutting into the NG30 tops.  I set the depth at just a hair over 0.2″ (say, 0.21″)

After using the straight bit, I used a “V” bit to bevel the edges of the depression.

I then set everything back up to ensure that the top of the nose gear actuator motor housing had plenty of space, which it did.

And I also checked that upper side holes provided the correct clearance for the main nose gear actuator attach bolt, which you can clearly see that it does below.

And finally, a shot from aft showing the clearance between the actuator motor housing and the sides of the NG30’s.

Here’s a couple of self portraits that I took with my Darth Vader-lite gear (I figure every now and again I should show the FAA that I was the guy actually doing the work!).

And here are the depressions ready for glass after I refined the beveled edges with the Dremel tool.

With the glassing ready to commence, I needed to make a template of the areas I intended on glassing.  I wanted to stay clear of the gear actuator mounting brackets (that bolt into the 3 hard points) as to not mess up the set internal dimensions of NG30 components (e.g. relationship between actuator mounts at the aft end of the NG30s and the NG6B, nose gear strut pivot at the forward end of the NG30s).

And then I had to do something that I haven’t done in quite a while . . . cut glass off the roll! After making the template, I calculated that I needed to cut two 15″ x 15″ squares of BID for the pre-preg setup.

Here’s the 2-ply BID pre-preg (“poor man’s”) setup ready to go.

And then I added epoxy–using fast hardener–to wet it out.

Once the BID was fully wetted out, I used the glass template that I had just made and cut out the two pre-preg setups for glassing the NG30s.

I realized if I had staggered the sides a little better, I could have conserved more BID . . . oops!

I then cut out the two BID pre-preg setups.

I set the “oops” section aside so it will cure flat, at which point I’ll use some of it later on by cutting it into 1/4″ strips to use as filler material when I have to increase the depth of both my stock strut cover (SC) and nose wheel cover (NB) that I bought from Feather Light… tweaking these parts is a second order affect that is a result of having to cut the gear strut channel deeper to get the nose wheel to set fully into the belly of the plane–which differs from the original plans where the nose wheel hangs down below the airplane by just a bit.

I then laid up the BID pre-preps on the inboard sides of the NG30s.  After ensuring the layups were good, I peel-plied the critical areas/edges.  As per my plan, I was able to just skirt the edge of the actuator mounts by about a 1/16″ to 1/8″.

I noticed after laying up the glass, that the glass at forward top of the depression would not lay flat on the foam on the right NG30.  I kept my eye on it and finally after messing around with the pesky glass for a few minutes, to no avail, I simply covered that area with Saran wrap, put some cushioning material on it to flatten out the invariable ridges from the plastic, and then threw a sandbag on it to keep the glass weighed down while it cured.

Now, onto more noise-making activities!

I pulled out the big dog to make some real noise!  This sucker will cut anything!

Here’s the stash of goodies that will turn into an operational fuselage dolly.

I pulled the canopy out and placed it into the fuselage dolly . . . it fit perfectly!

I then notched the sides to make a mount for the . . . ???

(what could it be?!)

Yes, it’s a scissor jack from Harbor Freight!  At last, my secret is out!

As you can see in the pic below, I offset the jack slightly off center, a few inches towards one end of the dolly to allow the extension to meet the side near the front corner.  This will allow me to operate the scissor jack being off to one side of the centerline and not have to work with an airplane nose or tail in my face.

Here’s another shot of the scissor jack.  When extended the scissor jack gives me a good 19″ of added height.  I think you can see where I’m going with this, so I’ll have the base table height, and when need be I can raise the fuselage up from around 2′ off the floor to around 4′ up.

Once I had the location figured out, I drilled the four 5/16″ holes for the carriage bolts.

I then installed the carriage bolts.

After cutting the top two 2×6 pieces for the screw jack mount, I also cut & installed another 2×6 support in the front inside at each corner on one end (I had already installed these at the other end).

With the inside 2×6 supports mounted, I was then able to finish installing the final two lag screws for the wheels at the corner.

I then cut some shed siding that I had sitting around & mounted it in place.  I left one top side open to use when I clean out the lower fuselage dolly before placing the canopy inside of the box.  It will then be sealed completely (via wood siding) to protect it.

Below is the last shot I took of the fuselage dolly in its latest state before I packed it back up in the garage and quickly changed to get on the road to see my buddy Doug.

My good friend Doug & I were Air Force Bomb Squad Technicians (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) stationed in England together back in the 1980’s.  It was great seeing him & catching up, and since he’s a pilot, we had some good conversations about a variety of Burt’s creations!

When I returned home after having dinner with Doug, I knife trimmed & sanded the edges of the NG30 layups from earlier.  I’m really happy with how they turned out & think that they will be very beneficial in their new state.

Tomorrow I plan on working on the outboard sides of the NG30s (more layups), the fuselage dolly and canard.

After my meeting at work today, I grabbed lunch on the way home and went over my plans for the dolly I will be building for the fuselage, ala my buddy Mike Beasley.  Since I was close to the final design, I knew that I would actually need to build the base to get enough data to finish this sucker.

First off, why am I doing this now?  (Instead of planting my butt in front of the canard and sanding away . . . ???).  Well, the reasons are: A) To take a break from sanding while still being incredibly productive!, and [more importantly] B) I don’t want to get to a point where I am so frustrated with positioning, repositioning & flipping the ever-weight-increasing fuselage that I work in a less optimized state until then, and then have to take time out to build this thing.  Also, with my buddy’s fuselage incident where it fell off the saw horses & smashed his rear longerons, I figured I would pay the piper up front and get this fuselage dolly knocked out early so I can enjoy its functionality.

Here are the key features and requirements for this thing:

• Had to be mobile (i.e. on wheels)
• Had to be low enough when working IN the fuselage & high enough when working ON the external fuselage (adjustable height . . .  more to follow!)
• Had be able to be leveled as a surface–not shimming the actual item, but leveling the platform itself. (Leveling screws . . . aka, poor man’s outriggers)
• Secure canopy storage (since I would have the length and width, I might as well make the underneath area useful and store the canopy in a wood box)
• Optimized stabilization of the fuselage (when the fuselage gets its nose, etc. more weight will be added and more awkwardness in controlling it will ensue, thus multiple tie down points are a must)

So, while sitting having lunch 2 blocks from Lowe’s, I realized that I had met all my critical design goals and I could begin construction immediately.  I bought a couple of sheets of flooring material (OSB) and a few 2x4s to get me started.  While checking out the cashier asked me if it started raining yet!  So with that info in hand I rushed to get to the house and get some wood cut.  It did sprinkle on me quite a bit, but never got into an actual downpour, thank goodness.

After cutting the wood, I started constructing the base of the fuselage dolly.  Here’s the very bottom of the dolly.  I’m about to attach 4 each 2×4 cross beams & the wheels to the bottom of this thing.

Here’s the base turned upright.  If you look closely you can see the wheels near the corners (mobile) and the four threaded leveling screws just inboard of each corner as well.

Here are the OSB sides attached.

And the future temporary home of the canopy.

I added the top cross joists that sit on a 2×3 stringer that runs the whole length of the dolly on each side.

After getting to the point where I needed to cut more wood, and for some parts buy the wood to cut it, and get some more hardware, I cleaned up my work area and stowed my new creation up on end.

I then ran off to Harbor Freight to pick up some “supplies” . . . mission operational security does not allow me to divulge any information until later, after it’s been implemented and tested.  ha!

Upon returning home I sat down to fix a design flaw in the Nose Gear Actuator wiring before it became a problem.  There is a small electrical component (diode? capacitor?) that was soldered in the wiring line with one of its two tiny legs soldered to a wire on each side.  If you look at the second pic you can see daylight between the component and the wiring bundle.

Now, my Long-EZ building buddy, Capt Meatballs, pointed this out to me after his broke and he had to find it via troubleshooting.  The connection legs were so fine, that when the one side broke he had to buy an entire new component & solder back into place to fix it.

To avoid this issue I employed the “poor man’s electrical potting material” solution to this situation.  I took electrical tape that I had folded over a couple of times and wedged it underneath the suspended wire legs on each side to secure them from any pressure coming through the tape and still snapping off one or both of the legs.  I then wrapped the whole assembly in electrical tape.  May not be the prettiest fix, but with a big clump of relays just down the line I wasn’t able to get some tubing shrink wrap over it.  So this fix will have to suffice!

Now that I have the base of the fuselage dolly built, I’ll start incorporating it into the build schedule.  Thus, while any part, epoxy, or primer is curing I’ll take a few moments to get this dolly built.  My plan is that when I start in seriously on the nose & nose gear that I’ll have this fuselage dolly underneath the fuselage and ready to go.