I started off today by hot gluing the outside corners of the canard jig that I had been messing around with yesterday while leveling the canard & ensuring it was straight.

I then cleaned up the spar: sanded, Dremeled, & prepped the LE & TE.

I then cut the antenna cable runs & installed the canard VOR & ILS antennas.

I vacuumed the entire top surface of the canard & made a final check of my preparations before starting the final main skin layup.

I used a mixture of fast hardener for the dry micro paste for all the heavy dings & divots, and around the installation of the antennas.  I used a ~50/50 mixture of micro & flox for the LE prep. Something I may not have mentioned before, but something I’ve noted to building buddies of mine is that my unofficial ratio is that for about every hour worth of glassing I do, it seems like I have about 8 hours of actual prep (NOT researching & studying the plans, etc.).  On this layup it took about an 1-1/2 hours just to finish prepping all the foam with micro.

I used fresh epoxy to wet out the LE, spar cap, TE glass.  [Note:  I think it’s worth reiterating that glass surfaces always get a coating of epoxy (normally) or flox (occasionally), which are structural, but never micro–which is not structural–in between the layers of glass].

I glassed 1 long single ply of UNI, a 4-piece layer of BID, and then 2 more long single plies of UNI… with 2 small holes in the middle for the antenna leads ~ 5.5″ & 4.0″ Left of CL.

I used toothpicks to the hold antenna leads straight while glassing the individual skin plies, and then used a makeshift taped Popsicle stick contraption to hold it at the right angle after all the top skin was glassed and the antenna lead area was peel plied.

I also specifically peel plied the Left Outboard LE area that was damaged by the foam being removed.  It’s a slight flat spot that’s about 5 inches long, which I will just add a 2-3 ply glass patch and then shape it afterwards after this main glassing is completed.

I checked the layup about an 1-1/2 hours after I finished and found a bubble a little over 1 inch long & about 1/2″ wide right over the edge of the spar cap, on the Left side about 6″ Inboard from the seam with the 11″ tip extension.  It looked like it might be internal air off-gassing through the seam of both the spar cap and maybe even up through the top of the internal shear web.  I “popped” the bubble with my scribe, added just a dab of wet epoxy and re-squeegeed out the bubble.

Another area that I wasn’t overly happy with was the contour of the TE, after using the contour checking template.  Although I had built to plans, there was a trough/depression running down the entire length of the TE, not unlike the TEs of the main wings or winglets. So, while not called for in the plans, I filled in the TE trough with dry micro while the glass was still tacky and not yet cured.

Today I spent a lot of time ensuring the canard was straight and level.  I used strings, I used the aluminum straight ‘board’, I used the contour checker, I used the 6 ft carpenter’s level and I used a laser level kit.  I checked, leveled, shimmed, re-checked, re-leveled and re-shimmed countless times.  Obviously this is my final time for ensuring the canard is straight, twist-free & level before the spar cap and especially the top skin is glassed (this warning is explicitly spelled out in the plans as well).

There was a very slight twist to the canard which I remedied through shimming.  One thing that kept perplexing me, until I finally cracked the code was that the top middle of the canard dipped down a bit, but then the bottom of the canard was slightly crowned.  I realized after finally working the problem with both sides together, that my canard was slightly hourglass shaped.  Well, at least it was symmetrical!  I took a long look at it, and concluded that a good amount of the narrowest part of the hourglass shape will be stuffed away in the middle of the fuselage.  Apparently this was the shape as it came out of the hotwire cutting process.  There would be some narrowing (thickness, not width) towards the Inboard canard area to contend with, but it wasn’t extreme enough to start over or panic.  It looked like there will just be less micro filler towards the Outboard canard ends and just a tad thicker micro fill towards the Inboard areas.

I moved on to getting the spar cap layup knocked out.  I sanded the shear web/spar cap trough.  I did also sanded down and shaved a little off the Outboard 11″ canard tips to match the rest of the canard shape.   I taped the edge & added plastic around the entire perimeter of the spar cap trough.

I micro’d the edges of the spar cap trough.  I cut & laid up the 3″ UNI tape, and ended up using 9 pieces in the following order:  108″, 92″, 103″, 70″, 81″, 50″, 60″, 30″, 18″.  I then peel plied the entire spar cap layup.

About an hour after I finished, I removed the tape & plastic from around the newly glassed spar cap.

Today I made the 2 canard antennas that will be mounted under the top skin.  I’m using the antenna kit from RST Engineering and following the guidance & instructions of Jim Weir.

I made the VOR antenna first, with each leg (or “ear”) of the dipole measuring 22.8 inches in length.  I’m also using 50 Ohm RG-58 stranded antenna cable.

The following pictures show the general steps I take to make an antenna using Jim Weir’s design.  I will say that going back and reviewing the instructions on how to make these antennas, I should have probably cut the leads a little shorter that attach to the copper foil. Of course I think the antennas will still work fine, they’re probably just not as optimized as they should be for Tx & Rx.

I made the ILS antenna next, with dipole legs measuring 7.5 inches.

I then mocked it up on the canard as well to figure out the best placement for both the VOR & ILS antennas.

The picture below shows the 3 Ferrite Toroids that are placed on the RG-58 Antenna cable close to the dipoles on about a 1/4″ spacing.  The ferrite toroids strip off any reflected power from the antenna (technically the outside of the coax braid) before it can get into the electrical system.  Using 3 ferrites eliminates about 99.9% of the reflected signal.

These 2 antennas make up the last of the copper foil antennas that will get embedded into the skin of the flying surfaces.  Here is a summary of all my copper foil antennas:

COM1 – Left Upper Winglet
COM2 – Right Upper Winglet
VOR1 – Left Wing
VOR2 – Canard
ILS – Canard
FM Radio – Right Wing

Today I slowly pulled the elevators off the workbench & checked for straightness, etc. They both looked good . . . besides the fact they look like they have chicken-pox from the bondo blobs.

Early this morning I razor cut the edges of both the Left & Right elevators.  I used my long carpenter’s level and it work well.

I left the Right elevator bondo’d to the table to ensure it cures thoroughly & straight.

I then removed the Left elevator from the workbench.  Unfortunately, some micro had seeped under the Inboard edge and tore out a chunk of the elevator foam, which remained securely fastened to the workbench.  I carefully removed the chunk of foam from the table, then set it aside with the elevator.  I then removed all the remaining blobs of 5-min glue & small bits of foam (that typically come off of a foam surface when it’s 5-min glued down) to finish prepping for the Left-side elevator’s final layup.

I sanded the Left elevator LE & used the Dremel tool to remove ~0.4″ of foam & dead micro from the TE.

I then bondo’d the Left elevator down to the workbench right-side up.

I then cleaned up & micro’d the extracted piece back into place.

I then glassed the top side of the Left elevator, peel plied the LE, and then dry micro’d & peel plied the TE.

I trimmed the overhanging glass back within 1/4 inch.

After the Left elevator’s last layup was in the books, I went to my downstairs shop & cut 4 pieces of BID 13.5″ wide at 45° for the Canard top skin.

The Right elevator seemed to be curing a little bit slower than normal, so I had thrown a heater on it and that seemed to do the trick.  I pried it off the table, hit the front round edge of the glass with a hard sanding block to prep a transition for the topside glass layup that would overlap onto the bottom glass for glass-to-glass continuity.

I then removed about 0.4 inches of TE foam & sanded down the newly visible glass for glass-to-glass continuity at the TE as well.  I then bondo’d the Right elevator right-side up to the workbench.

With both elevators now affixed to the workbench, I proceeded to layup the top side of the Right elevator & the bottom of the Left elevator.

I peel plied the LE of the Right elevator, and after the epoxy had cured a bit & the glass was still tacky, I micro’d in the channel on the TE of the Right elevator & covered it with peel ply.

Just before I glassed the elevators, I had finished cutting all the H100 6# high density foam inserts and their respective positions in the canard (L&R of CL: 9.7″, 34.1″ & 59″).

I micro’d in the high density foam pieces into place.

I spent an hour or so researching and planning the torque offsets configuration & hinge placement.

I rounded up my block of 6# high density foam.

I “designed” my insert with a scrap of blue foam and once I had it locked in & test fitted into the canard, I used it as a template for the high density foam inserts.

I test fitted 2 of the inserts and they fit well, but I didn’t micro them in place yet.  This foam is tough stuff!

I turned my focus back onto the elevators and 5-min glued the Left elevator upside down to the workbench for glassing.

I then cut 3 sets of elevator glass: 1 set for the Left elevator bottom side, and 2 sets for the top sides of the elevators.

Today I started building the elevators.  Not because I simply got bored with the canard, but there are foam hard mounts that get inserted into the blue canard foam near the trailing edge before it gets glassed.  These foam hard points hold the elevator hinge brackets (with a little help from a lot of flox) into the underside of the canard, allowing the elevator torque tubes to pivot around the hinge brackets . . . which are spaced at various points along the canard, matching up of course to the hinge insert slots that I riveted into the elevator torque tubes.

I started off the elevator build by assembling the elevator torque tubes.  I inserted the elevator torque tube hinge inserts (NC-2) into the elevator torque tubes, drilled the holes, chamfered the holes, and then riveted the hinge inserts into the torque tubes.

[NOTE:  I’m using the Cozy Girrrl’s Torque Tube Offsets, which were developed for the Cozy… pretty much a wide-bodied LEZ.  These offsets allow the side hole in the fuselage walls to be made with a much tighter tolerance (read: smaller) and therefore less undesirable air (read: cold!) makes it through the elevator fuselage slots/holes.  The result of all this is that I only require 4 each hinge inserts (NC-2) vs the 5 required for a stock Long-EZ build.]

I then pulled out the foam elevator cores.  The actual elevator cores didn’t come out quite so easily, so there was a lot of razor cutting (and admittedly cussing…) and a fair amount of work to extricate the cores from the foam block.

I cleaned up the foam elevator cores & test fitted the elevator torque tubes into the round opening at the front of the foam cores.

I then installed the triangular hinge jigs (NC-7) into the hinge inserts & held them in place with the stainless steel hinge pins.  I started with the Right torque tube & inserted it into the Right elevator core with micro to secure it in place.  Since I only had 2 hinge jigs (NC-7), I let the Right elevator assembly cure before moving onto the Left torque tube (in pictures #2-4 of the Left torque tube below it appears that the foam elevator core is attached to the torque tube, but they were only mocked up before I actually micro’d them together AFTER the Right elevator torque tube and foam core were bonded together).

As the Left elevator core was curing to the torque tube, I went to my downstairs shop and cut the 2-plies of UNI at ± 30° for the Right elevator.

I attached the Right torque tube/foam elevator assembly bottom side up to the work bench using 5-min glue, while the Left elevator torque tube/foam core assembly micro bond was curing.

I then microslurried the foam on the Right elevator bottom-side and glassed the 2-ply UNI layup, alternating the orientation by 30° for the 2 plies.

I checked the canard to ensure everything was good with the layup from yesterday.  All was good except for the LE foam damage.

I pulled the 2″ peel ply off the front LE & around the mounting tabs and took a few minutes to clean up the peel ply boogers.

I then “Fein” sawed/razor cut each of the canard ends so the glass was flush with the foam.  I also clamped a straightedge onto the trailing edge (TE) and cut it as well.

I had looked high & low for weeks to find a 130″ long pipe that would work as the TE alignment pipe.  I even borrowed a pipe from the Civil Engineers on base, but it wasn’t straight when I checked it out at the house. So I went to Praktiker & bought a 2000 mm (~78-3/4″) and 1500 mm (~59″) 1″ water pipe.  I used a 3/4″ threaded connector to help keep the 2 pipe pieces together & straight.  I cleaned the pipes with acetone & then Simple Green and then mounted them together.

I then bondo’d the whole assembly to the TE lip of the canard, using my aluminum straight “board” to make sure it was all straight.

I trial fit, and then cut crescents in the wood support boards, that would hold up the canard when it was flipped over right side up.

After I got the 4 support boards prepped, I bondo’d them to the bottom canard surface on one side and the metal pipe on the other.

I then flipped the canard right side up & secured the end wood supports to the original wood canard jig base.

I cut off the fishtail at the topside TE.

Once I got the fishtail foam removed, I then removed all the tacks and peel ply from the TE.

I used the top contour checking template to finish sanding the remaining foam off the TE area left by removing the fishtail.

Before the final mounting of the canard to the original base, I took it out of the garage and flipped it around end-to-end so that I could work on the LE with it at the front edge of the table, facing both the lighting and closest to the epoxy table. Then I spent about 2-1/2 hours using straight edges, string, and a laser level kit to get the canard as perfectly aligned as possible.  I had about a 0.15 inch drop at each end, so I shimmied the each end support strut with a couple of stirring sticks, which seemed to do the trick.