I started off today by knocking out the small 1-ply BID layup that sits just inside the swoosh tip on each end of the canard.  The Roncz canard plans states to create a flox corner around the perimeter of the foam and then layup the glass.

Personally, I would have preferred to have this “mini root rib” set back a little bit somewhat like the front inboard rib of the wing, with a little bit of an edge with the vertical wall of this layup sunk back from the edge, say a 1/2″ or so.  The problem is that this adds a little more time to the layup, and since I’m not sure if I would be adding to some kind of drag here or something else negative, I simply pressed forward with the plans version of this layup.

I cut a little trough around the hinge pin tube since there wasn’t a lot of meat or mass holding them into place on either side.   Also, once I put the flox in the corners, there was about 1.5 square inches of foam left so I simply finished out the tiny bit of flox I had left by using it to surface prep the foam vs. spending the time to mix up micro.  I KNOW!  The weight I added by such reckless building should be noted!  (Read: sarcasm!)

Next I focused on the elevator weights.  But before I actually installed any weights I weighed them to better match them up for total weight on each side.  All told there was a difference of 13 grams from one side to the other.  The blue tags on each weight is the actual weight in grams of that lead piece.

I mocked up the right elevator to get all the parts synched up, and then started cutting the tough 6 lb. yellow foam.

I put tape over the jigs to keep them clean and also enable removal of the weight assembly once it’s floxed to the LE of the elevator.

I then prepped the elevator by giving it an extra good sanding in the area that will get the 2-ply strip of UNI holding on the outboard elevator weight.

Once all the prep was complete, I floxed the elevator weight in place (I surrendered my 5-minute glue here in Virginia when I moved to Germany and never seem to get around to picking up another bottle).

While the elevator weight flox was curing, I traced the remaining Vortilons onto the 4-BID sheet I had just laid up.  I then used a jig saw to cut them out (last time I did it by hand with a coping saw).  When I traced them I used a Sharpie to make thick lines, so they’re cut just a hair oversized.  I’ll dial in the exact shape when I go to install them.

I then went back to work on the hinge pins.  The right pin needed to be cut shorter since I had already made the notch for set screw and didn’t like the way that every time I moved the elevator in a distinct up or down fashion the flat tip flagged out past the canard tip glass into the airstream.  I went back and looked at the plans again, and what I had looked pretty darn close to the diagram.  However, to be fair the plans do say to keep the tip out of the airstream.  So I simply cut it shorter & redrilled the 1/16″ hole more inboard.

Regardless, here are the two functional hinge pins.  I still have to clean them up to beautify them, but besides their need for a surface makeover they work as designed.

Also, here’s a shot of inboard swoosh tip layup after I knife trimmed it.   The other side looks pretty much the same.

As I was working on other stuff, I noted that this was the first time I had seen the canard in this state: elevators removed and the hinge tabs showing.  Something different so I snapped a pic.

The plan for tomorrow is to simply finish all the number of little jobs that will get Chapters 10 & 11 into the history books.  I’ll finish adding the elevator weights and cut the slots into the canard for the outboard elevator weights, glass those slots, etc.

I started out today sanding the right side canard swoosh tip to shape.  Besides ensuring that you have a minimum of 0.4″ of glass to glass contact, the Roncz canard plans doesn’t really go into detail on glassing the bottom glass to the top.  So besides the glass to glass contact, I made a little trough all along where the two glass edges meet.  On the foam inside edge I ran a narrow bead of flox all along the edge to give it some strength before glassing it.

The actually sanding and shaping went a heck of lot quicker than the topside since there’s only so much you can do with the bottom side.  I tried out some 1/4″ OD Nylaflow and the 3/16″ ID seamed to work perfectly for the hinge pin conduit through the swoosh tip, so I cut a small piece, filled it with twisted Saran (plastic) wrap to keep the gunk out, and installed into the hole made by the original hinge pin.

The picture on the left shows the initial glassed swoosh tip, and the next two are a few hours later after I added dry micro to the edge after knife trimming the glass in its “green” stage (still tacky but definitely well on its way to curing).

In the evening after it had cured, I marked the hinge pin conduit and cut it out.

I drilled out the saran wrap and cleaned out the conduit with a 3/16″ drill bit.  I used a laser to make sure the conduit was clear.

Below are some random pics I took of the right-side canard swoosh tip with the canard in the normal upright position.

Here’s some better pics of they Nylaflow that I used for the hinge pin conduit.  This was right before I inserted it into the foam as I was glassing the lower left side canard swoosh tip.

Since I had the hinge pins out for glassing the lower swoosh tips, I grabbed one to work on the outboard end of it.  I shaped it with the Dremel tool, then I drilled a 1/16″ hole in it to allow for its removal later on with something like a scribe.

And here’s the lower left canard swoosh tip after I razor trimmed it and added dry micro.

Since I had used some leftover epoxy yesterday to make a set of Vortilons, today I wrote it into the work plan to finish the set for both wings.  Here’s they 4-ply BID layup for two more sets of Vortilons.

And here are the initial two that I cut from the glass I laid up yesterday.  These are the largest of the 3 sets of Vortilons.

Finally, here’s the hinge pin hole from the left side swoosh tip.  Since the glass was still in the green stage, I took the opportunity to razor cut the whole for the hinge pin conduit.  You can still see the quite tacky micro in the lower photo.

Next I’ll continue working on the swoosh tips and the elevators to get the entire canard & elevator combo completed.  There are no major tasks left after the swoosh tips were glassed, but there sure are a myriad of small tasks that need to be accomplished before I can call these officially done.

I started out early this morning carving the “swoosh” tips out of the blue foam that I micro’d to the canard last night.  This is one of those very distinctive exciting steps in building a canard aircraft since, obviously, these swoosh tips make a stylistic statement about the bird.  Also, since Roncz canards are all built with the same plans there’s not that big of a difference in the “I’m cool” department . . . the scenario is more along the lines of, “Hey, check out all these nice turned up tipped Roncz canards here, and mine look like crap!” Ha!  That’s what I’m trying to avoid!

Thus, I did exactly what the plans stated and started out slowly.  BTW, I grouped all the pics in a series per the angle of the camera shot so you can see a progression of the foam taking shape.

I think the biggest Aha! moment was realizing that the toughest part of this whole carving exercise is the first 3-4″ on the LE side.  Wow!  What a head-scratcher as far as, “What the heck do I do here?  And what do I really what this thing to look like?”  I went back upstairs at this point (after having carved away on the front side) to look at the large pics in the Roncz plans and check out a half dozen websites where I knew I could find some pics of Roncz canard tips.  Talk about one area that I never gave much thought to, even as I started carving!  Another crazy thing is that you really don’t know exactly how good the top swoosh tip contour is going to look until after the bottom is finished.

Oh, well.  After getting a better mental picture I went back to carving.  I will say that if I had known what I know now, I would have had a better plan for that front area.  I’m happy with how it turned out, but I would have gone in just a slightly different direction if I hadn’t starting carving without an idea of what the front LE area transition should look like.

After doing my best to make sure that I had a smooth surface with good transitions, I pulled the trigger and glassed the top skin of the right swoosh tip with 2-plies of UNI biased in the typical 30° to each other.

Some rear views . . .

And some top views . . .

A number of hours later after I knife-trimmed it with the Fein saw, and then sanded the edges.

To show you my original thinking, take a look at the template to the right in the pic below. That’s how I had originally envisioned the nose of the swoosh tip.  That quickly transitioned into an insane template that would have been better described using a NASA 3D modeling program.  I thought maybe a working knowledge of geometry may come in handy here . . . oh, no, folks!  We’re talking calculus & quantum physics for this project!

Why?!  Well, in Burt’s sadistic command, “form to a pleasing shape” I can see where it may not be a big deal.  Except in this case you have to make a mirror of that which you just free formed into a “pleasing shape!”

So here’s round two of “forming into a pleasing shape.”  Obviously side 2 is all about replicating side 1 . . . some heavy stuff here my friends!

I started in quickly and got the left side canard tip to pic #1 in about 5 minutes, and to pic #4 in about 20 minutes.  But after I got the basic shape, I then kept going back and forth from one side of the canard to other measuring distance, elevation, slope, etc. to get this side as close to the other side as possible.  I guess the saving grace is that these sit about 11 feet apart from each other on opposite ends of the canard, so it obscures any slight differences.

Nonetheless, at the end of another 20 minutes or so, I felt like I had a good mirror replica of the right side swoosh tip.

I prepped the left side canard swoosh tip for glassing.  One thing of note is that the back to top corner was a little dinged up, so I added a small buttress to keep the aft skin layup straight.

I then laid up the top of the left side canard swoosh tip with 2-plies of UNI just like the right side.  I will say that after I was finished I had an issue with the shape of the left canard tip. You see, after I put the wood support piece in place I needed to finish sanding the outboard top edge to a fine point to get the shape to match the other side (this was before the layup).  Well, I used my Perma-Grit half moon sanding toold which–unbeknownst to me at the time– caused a much sharper radius in the foam right at where it made it’s final turn up at the edge.  It’s basically like comparing the curve of a “C” like I had on the right side compared to the shape of a “U” which I had now on the left side.  Again, this was all occurring in the very outboard upturn, and all within about 3/4″ of an inch from the edge.

After I glassed it, I compare it to the right side and that outboard upturn was staring me in the face.  Since I hadn’t feathered that final removal of foam for the sharp edged upturn, it was showing up much more prominently after glassing.  To be clear, if this was the way both sides looked, it would be fine and not something that looks like a mistake.  It was simply a different style, or look, than what I had on the right side.

After a couple more double takes, and comparing it to the other side again, I couldn’t take it.  I peeled back the UNI, grabbed the 2″ diameter PVC tube sander (that I had made for shaping the swoosh tips) and simply feathered the micro-covered foam down to “a pleasing shape!”  I then made sure it was what I wanted and matched the other side, and simply laid the UNI back into place and squeegeed it flat.  It all took maybe 5 minutes and I was then infinitely happier with the outcome of the left side swoosh tip layup since it flowed with a nice gradual curve from base to tip just like the right side.

Since I had a little bit of pure epoxy left over, I grabbed the BID scrap box and a piece of plastic to make a 4-ply BID sheet, of which I would cut out a Vortilon or two.  I laid the 4 plies of BID into a pre-preg setup and poured all the epoxy into the layup.  After heating up the pre-preg with the heat gun it flowed well enough to wet out all the epoxy.  I then put another plate on top of it and weighed it down with my heavy tool bag (pic below).

Here’s a few shots of the finished top side of the right swoosh tip.

Next will be the shaping and glassing of the bottom sides of the canard swoosh tips.  Then back to working on the elevators to get the weights mounted, etc.

I started today off by checking the elevator travel to ensure it had maintained the 15° up travel that I had before floxing the remaining 4 hinges.  I’m happy to report that not only am I still getting the 15° elevator up travel, but it’s better than when I started installing the elevators.  Success!

I then double checked the TE of the elevators to ensure that they are even across the entire span of both elevators.  They are… so success again!  (It was difficult to get a full shot of this, but I tried).

To better show the TE alignment and to check the difference in elevation (this would be viewing the TE at eye level immediately behind it, looking that both left & right elevators align in the height and are straight across… versus above which is assessing the TE alignment from straight above) I ran a yellow string.  It all looked good.

Here’s another shot of my “stringing” the elevators’ TE.

With the elevators good I started the process of attaching the blue foam canard tips.  Now, when I hot wired the foam tips one came out a little narrow than the other.  With my canard TE just a bit straighter (read: higher), it messed with the 1″ dimension that gets measured up from the TE to the upper side of the foam.  On the narrower blue foam wedge I couldn’t squeak out this 1″, so I ended up grabbing a wood handsaw and cutting another blue foam canard end piece.

I then temporarily attached a blue foam swoosh tip blank on the left side of the canard with the elevator hinge pin sticking out a couple of inches.  I noted that I had over 1″ to work with above the canard TE and ensured that my spacing was good.

One thing that you may notice that is not per plans is that I started my canard swoosh tip attachment endeavor with the canard mounted upside down.  Per plans this step starts by flipping the canard right side up, but since my canard is “bolted” to the table via Bondo, I decided to start with it upside down and then flip after I had micro’d the tips on. This would allow me to see both sides of the micro bond and ensure all is good.

Here’s the right side of the canard where I repeated the same process as the left.

I then confirmed that the dimensions of the blue foam tips would work by marking it up as per plans, only in the upside down configuration.  I also outlined the end profile of the canard to know where to micro the blue foam tip when attaching it to the canard end.

Below are a couple wide angle shots of the canard with the blue foam tips attached.  The first one is the with the canard upside down, and the second pic shows the canard right side up.  I guess you could say the main reason I attached the foam tips to the canard while it was upside down is time.  I wanted to the tips mounted and the micro curing before taking the time to carefully detach the canard from its perch… which I obviously did after the tips were micro’d on.

A long view . . .

Here’s a more close up shot of the tip micro’d in place while the canard was still upside down.

After the micro cured I removed the tape securing the blocks.

I then rounded the front of each blue foam tip in line with my initial plan for the shape of the  swoosh tip.

Tomorrow I plan to get the canard swoosh tips shaped and glassed, at least the top sides.

First thing this morning I checked the elevator up travel to ensure that my floxing in the middle hinge on each side didn’t gum up my good numbers thus far.  The right elevator was now sitting right at 15° . . .

. . . while the left elevator was just a hair over 15°.  So the pattern continues that the left elevator is seeing about a .5 to maybe 1° higher swing than the right.  However, this could be the contour of the canard top where I have the “G” template mounted, or something else entirely.  The bottom line is that the elevators are matched, travel in unison, and the most limiting point in up travel allows a full 15° up, so I’m happy.

Below is a wide-angle shot after I taped up the other 4 hinge slots in prep for flox.

And here’s the busier mid-canard area with the two hinges that connect the respective torque offsets to the elevators and spool tube — taped and ready for flox.

I realized that I hadn’t yet taken a good (or passible in this case) shot of the bolts attaching the elevators to the torque offsets from the front side of the elevator.  Here you can make out the bolt heads at the root of each elevator at each side of the pic.

Next, I floxed in 3 more hinge tabs.  The left Inboard hinge needed just a slight bit of coercive pressure to get it to line up correctly (we’re talking around 20 thou in movement), so I decided to get it set, leave it alone, and work on the other 3 hinges to limit my variables on this round of floxing.

While the 3 floxed hinges were curing I started on some prep for the upcoming steps. First, I gathered up my outboard elevator weight positioning jig (“J” template), sanded the very rough edges smooth and ensured they matched the Roncz canard plans.

Thinking I was finished with the H100 6 lb foam after I build the canard, I sent it off to an EZ building buddy of mine before realizing this past week that I needed it to attach the outboard elevator weights.  Doh!  So I ordered some more from ACS a couple of days ago and it arrived today.

In addition, I traced out the Top Canard Contour Template “E” onto one of the 2×3’s I used for cutting the blue foam swoosh tips and made the first half of the top canard contour sanding block.

Finally, when I was at Home Depot yesterday I looked at buying a 24″ long piece of 4″ PVC pipe to sand the swoosh tip foam.  They wanted $8 for it and I wasn’t in the mood to spend that much on a one time use thing, so I simply recycled my 2″ OD PVC pipe that I used to Alodine the Spool Tube.  I attached a piece of 36 grit PSA sandpaper to it and plastic wrapped to allow the paper to fully stick to the PVC tube.

I then ripped the other 2×3 to 1.1″ wide, attached the two halves, gave the interior working edge a good sanding to get the surface evenly matched, drilled the lag screw pilot holes and then mounted the lag screw support legs.  As you can see below, the canard top contour sanding block is complete.

I did tweak the TE of the top canard sanding block just a hair so that my sanding of the canard top wouldn’t end up being a “let’s destroy the TE” party.  Last week I traced out the actual-sized profile of the canard from the Roncz plans to double check my progress. And as per my discussion with Mike at Feather Light, you may be able to make out that my TE on the canard is definitely just a tad higher than the Roncz plans outline.

After a few hours of flox cure-time for the 3 hinges, I double checked the positioning and alignment of the elevators, pulled off the protective tape and cleaned up the dead flox goobers around the hinges.

Last hinge… I double checked all the elevators’ positioning and alignment again, and everything looked great.  Since my prep tasks for the immediate upcoming steps were complete, and after floxing the last hinge into place all there was really left to do was let the hinge flox cure completely, I called my buddy Rob and made plans to meet for dinner, have a few beers and watch a movie.  I did one final alignment check and then whipped up some flox, using fast hardener like I had done for the other 5 hinges.  After I finished floxing in the last hinge (the left inboard hinge that attaches to the torque offset) I cleaned up the work area and then took the pic below.  I was just getting ready to turn out the lights and leave the shop when I decide to do one more check on the hinge.

And boy I’m glad I did!

Since I moved the inboard hinges in about .2″ to .3″ from where I originally had planned for them to be installed, I was closer to the edge of the dense foam hard points that I installed before skinning the canard.  Being closer to the inboard edge of the hard point, I gouged an area out into the blue foam to make a small pocket of flox to increase the mass and strength of the hard point to make up for being so off-center in the dense foam insert.

Well, with the right side inboard hinge there was no issue.  But on the left side, the only hinge I did this with, I started off by filling up the hinge slot with wet flox right up to the lower line of the hinge slot opening in the canard.  I then added some some more duct tape to make a tape “dam” about a 1/4″ higher than the bottom of the hinge slot bottom edge.  I then thickened the flox just a tad and then poured it in, filling up the rest of the hinge slot.

Due to my using fast hardener, at some point the extra mass of epoxy in that blue foam pocket, or perhaps there was an air bubble, or whatever it was . . . resulted in the a volcanic eruption of the flox back out of the hinge slot!  This occurred as I was cleaning up and I had no idea that it had happened.  There was enough flox that came out of that hinge slot (think baby spitting up!) that it enveloped the gap between the spool tube & canard, the connecting bolt & canard, and even some of the actual hinge & canard.  If I had walked out without cleaning that up I would have had an absolute catastrophe on my hands upon returning a few hours later!

At first I thought it was merely an air pocket that had burped for some weird reason, but as I was scooping all the flox back into place, I could feel that there was definitely some heat being generated.  Somewhere in the bowels of my hinge slot there was a exotherm event taking place.  I quickly grabbed my IR thermometer and checked the surface temp around the hinge slot.  The hottest reading I could find was just over 120° F, so I doubt if any foam damage occurred since at the moment it happened, while my back was turned, it puked out at least 50% of the flox that was in the hole and certainly allowed for a lot of heat to vent out at that point.  Moreover, the timeframe between it being good to then going spastic, to me scooping up flox puke was 2 minutes at most.

After getting the majority of the flox back into the hinge slot, I went upstairs to grab a very quick shower and change.  When I came back down to the shop less than 10 minutes later I was getting a temp reading around 88° and no more signs of disruption.  I cleaned up a little more around the hinge and took off.

When I returned, all still looked good and no issues.  It definitely made for an exciting time on that final hinge floxing.  I looked all around the hinge area & underneath on the top of the canard for any discoloration or burn marks from the heat but thankfully couldn’t find any.  Thus, I’m closing the case of the volcanic hinge slot.

Once the hinges are fully cured I’ll double check the elevator alignment, gap and travel to ensure it’s all still good.  Then I’ll flip the canard and start working on the attaching, shaping and glassing the canard swoosh tips.

There are a number of major tasks in building a Long-EZ that remind me of that aged old question: “How do you eat an elephant?”  And of course the answer is: “One bite at a time!”  Ahhh, true words in the realm of airplane building.  Thus it is so with mounting the elevators onto the canard.

My first task today was to review the plans and my notes.  I then went out to the garage and assessed how the elevators were looking in their mocked-upped state on the canard. It was immediately clear to me that the bottom edge of each of the elevator hinge bracket slots would have to be lowered.  These are the slots that I cut into the foam hard points on the canard last night.

After dropping the aft edge of each hinge slot, ensuring that I had a glass surface in the bottom of each slot, cleaning up the foam bits, and vacuuming the holes out, I remounted the elevator assembly to take a look.  Ah, much better!  The elevators were aligning much better and the gap between the elevators and the canard looked good, at least initially.  I stole a page from my good friend Dave Berenholtz’s build book by using shims to lock the hinges in place so I was free to play with the elevator movement and really get a good idea of my elevator travel situation.

I checked the alignment between the two elevators to see if I had any issues.  Sighting down the TE of the elevators I was quite pleased that it looked like the TE was on rails as far as the alignment between the left & right elevator.  I tried to get a shot of it as best I could, thus the 2 pics below:

Before I went any further I gave Mike at Feather Light a call about the Canard TE and the interface gap between the canard and elevators.  Since Feather Light cut my canard & elevator cores, I wanted to discuss my slightly high TE as compared to the template in the Roncz canard plans.  My TE is just angled slightly less downward as it slopes aft, which makes the ENTIRE TE measure about 0.07″ higher than the diagram in the Roncz canard plans.  Since the fishtail on any aerodynamic surface is glassed first, this wouldn’t be an issue of my doing since I merely glassed the bottom of the canard first, which included the already shaped TE fishtail.  After a good talk with Mike I felt comfortable in keeping my gap wedges at 0.23″ thick, since this would: A) put the bottom of the elevators ever so slightly toward their original position as per plans, and more importantly B) still give me an appropriate gap, especially once the finish and paint is complete.  So, I pulled the trigger & moved on!

I then mounted the elevator angle template to see how I was doing on the elevator travel angles.  Of course the long pole in the tent when mounting the elevators is to ensure there’s enough up-elevator travel… otherwise known as the “ever-elusive 15° up travel,” or something clever like that!

As you can see from the pics below I was getting somewhere around a 13.5°± up travel. Of course this is already within specs as 12.5° up travel is the bare minimum, but since I was just starting out, I figured I could easily squeeze another degree from somewhere & get this thing close to 15°!

And to be clear, getting the max 15° travel really isn’t a pride issue.  I’m seriously just trying to be proactive since once the finish & paint go on, as well as the 2 plies of UNI for the outboard elevator weight, who knows how much that will reduce my up elevator travel.  So I want all I can get from the start.

I found the culprit at the very inboard edge of the right elevator.  I locked the elevators in the up position by placing a sandbag on the torque offset arm (you can see it in the pic below) and then started sanding away with some 36 grit.

After a bit of sanding I tried the up travel again and only saw a slight improvement.  So I checked the gaps and position of the elevator assemblies, and then pinpointed the exact spot that was causing the issue.  I took a Sharpie and marked the offending area and hit it with another round of 36 grit, as you can see in the second pic below.

I figured while I had the elevator locked in the “up” position (of course it’s really in the down position) I would grab a couple shots.

Clearly I have no issue with my down elevator travel!

And now I’m good on my up elevator travel!  I always say that there’s no problem in this world that can’t be fixed with 36-grit sandpaper . . .  ha!

I moved the elevator degree template over to the other side and am still getting about 14.7° up travel.  Not sure why the difference since I rechecked my gaps, my “L” template spacings, and left/right elevator TE alignment.  Could just be a combination of factors, but since everything else is lining up well, I’m calling this good.

A thought I had on the inboard problem area causing the limit in up elevator travel is that if I go with a decent fairing at the elevator root then I could simply eliminate the problem area. I’ll keep that in my back pocket in case I need it later on.

Here I’m simply comparing the “Zero” elevator in trail on the degree template vs. the zero trail on the “L” template.  I already knew there was a very slight gap on the “L” templates towards the TE of the elevators when I checked them against the Roncz canard plans diagrams, but I was curious how these matched up.  They’re only slightly different, but close enough to get the kinks worked out when I rig the elevator control system later on.

And here’s a wide-angle shot of the elevators in the up position.

I spent about 45 minutes checking the elevators and spool tube assembly for alignment.  I took out my über gut German aluminum straight board to check the TE alignment.  My right elevator was just a tad off with the inboard more aft than the outboard end.  When I checked my “L” template alignments, I realized that perhaps working the elevator up & down had caused the right inboard hinge point to be off.  So I went back and rechecked every gap spacer and “L” template for elevator vs canard spacing, and then did a TE check again.  I checked my elevator travel again and it all looked great.

I stole yet another play out of Dave Berenholtz’s playbook and instead of floxing all the hinges at the same time, I wanted to ensure that I install the elevators in one calculated step at a time.  Thus, I taped the areas around each of the two middle hinges of the left and right elevators, respectively as you can see below.  This gives me a midpoint fulcrum, if you will, to ensure that the the outboard and inboard hinge areas are perfectly set when I flox them into place.

Also, I noticed that the gap between elevator and canard TE in the middle of each elevator is about 30 thou greater than each end of the elevator.  After looking at this for a bit, I concluded that it’s most likely hot wire drag when they cut the foam cores.  I point this out because I also noticed that if I just added the slightest bit of pressure on top of the elevator (as it sits now) that the gap almost completely closes.  I then tried adding a little weight to the midpoint areas of each elevator and sighting the TE from end to end: no discernible negative affect on TE alignment.  Thus, in each pic below you’ll note that there’s a sandbag next to each middle hinge point as the hinge is getting floxed into the slots on the canard.  And again, we’re talking maybe a total movement of 15-20 thou when all is said and done, so I don’t see the hinge swing geometry getting all wonky either.

Fast forward 5 hours later and here are the two midpoint elevator hinges mounted in the canard, after I cleaned them up.

While the midpoint hinges’ flox cures I attempted to remain productive the rest of the evening by cutting the blue foam wedges for the Roncz canard swoosh tips.  I figured the easiest, cleanest way to cut the blue foam was using the hot wire cutter.

I added a 1/4″ scrap runner to the top of two 17″ long 2×3’s that I cut.  Of course the 2×3’s are, interestingly enough, 2-1/2″ wide.  I then clamped the 2×3’s on each side of the first piece of blue foam and tested it out.

And here’s the result.  Not bad, but the hot wire cutter definitely felt “dull.”

I continued cutting the first blue foam piece to get the swoosh tip piece as per the plans dimensions.

And then I grabbed another piece of foam to make the second blue foam canard swoosh tip wedge piece.

Funny, but if I had started with the first piece of foam, I would have ended up with the two swoosh tips that I needed.  Oh well, now I have a spare!

The next step will be to finalize the floxing in of the elevator hinges into the canard hinge slots.  Since I won’t mess with the elevators or canard for a full 24 hours after I set the hinges, I’ll be working on getting the top canard contour “E” template traced and made into a canard top contour sanding block just as I did for the bottom.  I’ll also find the pieces of UNI for the canard tips, locate and/or procure the plastic tubing for the canard tip elevator hinge pin bracket, etc.

Bottom line is that there is plenty of prep stuff to keep me busy while the elevator hinges flox cures.

I started off today by nailing down the required length of the elevators in order to get the spool tube & offset assembly mounted to the elevators.  In the picture below, the torque offset at each end of the center spool tube assembly needs to be inserted into the inboard elevator tube, drilled and secured with an AN3 bolt on the respective elevators.

To get the two elevators and center spool tube assemble bolted together, I first needed to know what the required length for these individual pieces are when they’re attached as one.  Obviously if it’s all too long then it won’t fit inside the swoosh tip end caps (and the hinge & hinge hard points won’t align), and clearly being too short in length causes problems as well.

I needed to keep account of the 1/16″ minimum clearance between the outboard elevator edge and the not yet glassed swoosh tips.  The Cozy elevator plans say 0.1″ and I’ve also heard a 1/8″ gap bantered around as well.  I started with 1/16″ inch, but then using a popsicle stick ended up with about a .083″ gap (or around 5/64″ of an inch).  With the outboard elevator edges good, I moved inboard to figure out where I needed to cut the actual elevator, and its shape, and then where I would need to cut the actual elevator tube on each side to ensure all these dimensions would synch up.

I’d like to point out, for those that may still be slightly confused as to what I’m doing here with this whole “Spool Tube Assembly” thing that the Long-EZ clearly doesn’t have per plans.  The pic above is perfect for showing the “old” Long-EZ way of installing the elevators, with the longer left elevator tube crossing the fuselage and then both torque offsets getting mounted together within an inch or so of each other on the right side of the fuselage.  Sitting atop the canard in the above pic is the “new” way, or simply installing torque offsets from the Cozy.  Since the Cozy has a control stick on the fuselage (cockpit) sidewall both left and right, then it stands to reason there’s a  torque offset on each side of the fuselage to connect to the control stick linkage.  The “spool tube” merely connects the two torque offsets, and thus the elevators, from one side to the other.  Again, to explain WHY I’m dong this, I’ll quote the part description from the CG Products web site (In short, it turns the banana-shaped hole into a small round hole so you don’t freeze your tootsies off in flight!):

While not a “per plans” part in the Long-EZ, these parts solve the serious draft problem in the Long-EZ where the eccentric moving elevator torque tubes come through the fuselage walls. This is accomplished by shifting a portion of the mechanism to be concentric with the hinge axis.

Once I got the outboard elevator ends figured out, I installed the hinges and marked the locations of the hinge slots on the canard on both sides.

I then removed the elevator, removed the hinges so as not to cut the 3/16″ stainless steel hinge pin by accident.  I transposed the marking on the bottom of the elevator to the top, and checked the accuracy of my marks by drilling a 1/16″ hole straight through the elevator from the bottom to the top . . . right on the line each side!

I then used the Fein saw to cut through the elevator skin & foam.

Here’s the final product:

After trimming the inboard elevator on the other side, I marked up the actual aluminum tube to be trimmed down.

I ended up cutting one elevator tube with the chop saw, and the other side–in trying to conserve more of the elevator’s inboard edge shape–with the Dremel tool, then sanded it to length.

Here are the elevators, each cut to length, mocked up & temporarily attached to center spool tube assembly.  I double checked all the lengths & dimensions, and it all looked good.

A long view . . .

I then hunted around for a decent sized board–moreover, one that was straight!– to cut for the jig mounting bases for the elevators to sit on while they are bolted to the torque offsets on the end of the center spool tube.  I cut a pine board I had into 6″ lengths and then screwed them to the work bench, all with a 1″ overhang.

I then checked the entire length for straight & level with my German aluminum straight board.  My second and third jig was a little low, so after hunting around a bit for something to fill the gap, I got the idea to recycle a piece of 80-grit PSA sandpaper (sticky backed) to use on the second jig, and on the third jig a piece of 36 grit.  Those did the trick and the mounting jigs were all straight and level!

I then mounted the elevators to the center spool tube assembly & torque offsets.  Since there is a hinge that goes into each torque offset assembly, then the 3/16″ stainless steel hinge pin goes all the way into the torque offset.  This really makes it easy to figure out the angle of torque offset arms because the hinge pin must be installed.  In other words, if I’m off, it won’t be by much at all!

I marked up a popsicle stick with a line at 1.6″ to set the distance between the back edge of each jig to the TE of the elevators.  As I measured each TE gap on the jigs, I weighed down the elevator at that jig.  I then installed the 3/16″ stainless steel hinge pin into each side [NOTE: If I had been thinking more proactively, at this point I would have installed the hinges to avoid having to install them later and thus keep from having to manipulate the entire assembly as one complete unit].

Pardon the fuzzy pic below, but if you look closely at the root of each elevator you’ll see that  I’ve drilled the #12 hole on each side.

Here’s a shot of each side of both the inboard foam edge of the elevator, and the screw I placed right behind the trailing edge of each elevator to keep the elevator from shifting away from the drill bit as I drilled the holes.

And here’s pretty much the same views only this time the bolt holding the elevator to the torque tube end is visible inside the foam.

The next step was to get the elevator hinge slots marked up for cutting.

I then cut the slots for the hinges and dug out the foam down to the top side glass.

After vacuuming out the hinge slots in the foam hard points embedded inside the canard, I pulled off the sandbags.

I then installed all 6 hinges with their associated washers.

I then reset the “L” brackets, secured them in place with sandbags, and remounted the elevator-spool tube-torque tube assembly to the canard.  I slid the hinges into the hinge slots to check their fit, which will definitely need some tweaking.

Next I’ll be working–probably all day long–to get the elevators situated correctly on the canard and then the hinges floxed into place inside the hinge slots.

After attending a work meeting this morning, I started out today by spending a couple of hours finalizing my plan for installing the elevators on the canard after reviewing the Long-EZ plans, the Roncz canard plans, the Cozy elevator install plans, and my notes.

The first task I needed to complete was to mount the two CZNC-12A Torque Tube Offsets to the each end of the Spool Tube.  Of course, to do this I had to know exactly how long the Spool Tube needed to be.  I spent a good hour and a half mocking up the Torque Tube Offsets, the Spool Tube, and canard dimensions.  I really needed to lock down the dimensions of the fuselage in the F22 & F28 area to ensure that the elevators are mounted correctly.

After essentially transcribing the outline of the fuselage onto the canard surface, I checked and double checked the dimensions a few times over.  After confirming the numbers, I came up with a spool tube width of 17.6″.  This is 0.9″ less than I had originally estimated when I worked up the numbers in Germany back in 2013.

Before I started cutting anything I checked a couple more details in the plans & online.  I also gave Chrissi from the Cozy Girrrls a call to verify some of my install steps.  After chatting with Chrissi for about an hour on the elevators install (and a few other things), I was ready to pull the trigger.

I measured the spool tube & marked it with a piece of paper to ensure I would have a square cut (pic below).  I then cut the spool tube on the chop saw just a hair off the line (middle pic).   I then removed the paper and cleaned up the cut with sandpaper (bottom pic).

Now, in real time I showed the pics above out of order.  To cut the spool tube I needed to get the 50-pound bag of play sand off my cutting table.  So, I simply made up six 5-pound sandbags.  I took the leftover sand and dumped it into one of the sandbags I bought along with the bag of sand (the sandbags are the white plastic bags under the sand).

The sandbags I made are shown below placed over each “L” template.

Back on the spool tube: I mocked it up with the torque tube offsets in place & ensured it matched the marks I made up earlier (it did).

I set up a table to mount the torque tube actuators to the spool tube.  I clamped the whole assembly down to the table after ensuring it was all aligned.  To help ensure that all the pieces stayed aligned, I installed the 3/16″ stainless steel hinge pin all the way through from one end to the other.

Below are a couple of shots after I drilled the two holes for the AN3 mounting bolts.

And here’s a couple of shots with the bolts installed (after I deburred all the holes) and the torque tube offsets mounted to the spool tube.

I then spent about another hour making the 0.2″ (actually 0.23″) gap spacers and mocking up the elevators.  Here’s a shot of the Left elevator with 3 gap spacers installed.

And here’s a couple of shots of the elevators loosely mocked up into place.

Tomorrow I’ll work on tweaking the elevators into their final positions, get the inboard ends of the elevators cut to length and mounted to the torque tube offsets.  I’ll also be installing the stainless steel hinge pins and hinge tabs to allow for marking the hinge locations on the canard.  In addition, I plan to cut the 6 slots for the hinge tabs into the bottom surface of the canard.  Finally, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be floxing the hinge tabs into place.

I started off today by hitting the cured micro on the elevators with my 36-grit sanding board.  After I got the edges somewhat feathered out & the ridges removed, I switched to a piece of 36-grit sandpaper that I simply wrapped around the curve of the front part of the elevators.  I then finished up with a few quick passes of 80 grit.  Below is a pic showing the comparison of the sanded elevator (top) to the other one still needing sanding.  Below that is a shot of both elevators’ sanded top leading edge micro strips.

After sanding the front sides of the elevators, I checked the TE of the Right elevator.  Actually, I was checking the width from front to back along the entire span of the elevator just like I had done with the Left elevator.  Each end of the elevator was a tad thicker at just over 4.6″ wide, while the center of the elevator was 4.583″ wide.  I sanded the elevator on the edge of my long aluminum straight board that has 80 grit sandpaper tacked to it ( I bought this in Germany, and yes, still thinking it’s awesome!).  After a few minutes of some very careful sanding, I had the ends narrowed to 4.589″ on one end and 4.587″ on the other.  I figured that I would stop while I was close and not muck it up by going too far.  Now both my elevator widths are confirmed in specs.

After sanding the elevators, I took a break from sanding to Alodine the elevator spool tube. Although I would have preferred to wait until I cut this spool tube to length before Alodining it, the weather here in northern Virginia is getting cooler by the day.  So, while it was an absolutely warm gorgeous day I figured I would Alodine the tube and get it out of the way.

I had some 1-1/2″ PVC on hand, so the other day I bought two end caps.  I cut the PVC into two 24″ lengths, wrapped an end on each tube with some sealant tape and secured the end caps.  I then deburred one end of the spool tube, gave it a quick wipe down with acetone, and then cleaned it thoroughly with Simple Green.

I grabbed the tube, along with my Alodine & Alumaprep, some thick rubber gloves, the rest of my gear and headed to the back yard.  I will tell you that although I’ve stored my chemicals in a cool dark place it’s very noticeable that my Alodine & Alumaprep are really getting stale.  Instead of the stated 2 minute soak time (personally, I’ve seen 3-4 min ranges normally) in the Alumaprep & Alodine, it took almost 10 minutes each to get a decent clean & color on this spool tube.  No worries, I guess the stuff is still doing it’s job, it just takes a little longer. Kind of like me as I get a little older!  Ha!

Since about 5-6″ of one end of the spool tube will be getting cut off (the side I didn’t deburr), I used this end to handle the tube & tie string to for dunking it into the solutions, and for suspending the tube as it dried.

With the spool tube Alodined, and after a quick project update and Airdog Aircraft Factory tour for my neighbor, my next task was to give the canard’s primer coat a thorough sanding.  When I last sanded it Saturday evening by hand, I could tell the primer was pretty tough stuff.  This time around I wasn’t going to mess around with the time consuming, more exhausting process of hand sanding, so I pulled out the big gun: my DA sander.

I started with 100 grit on the DA sander and hit both L & R sides.  It worked like a charm and took no more than 10 minutes per side.  I then followed that up with 150 grit paper on a pad sander, which I was able to use more effectively on the fishtail TE area.  I realize when looking at the pics that there seems to be a fair amount of coated material in the TE trough area, but I would rather start from a normal application of finish material and have to remove more of it during the elevator mounting process (to meet the .2″ gap requirement) than to assume it shouldn’t be there in the first place and not finish the TE area, as I have seen some other builders do it.  Not calling it right or wrong, just a personally preference.

I vacuumed the canard surface and the surrounding area, and then pulled out the “L” templates for mounting the elevators to the canard.

A shot of the “L” templates mocked up in place.

And a shot of the Alodined spool tube.  [NOTE: As a reminder, this spool tube is not per Long-EZ plans.  This is a cross tube used between the elevator offsets in the Cozy.  These offsets are manufactured by the Cozy Girrrls and provide two distinct advantages over the plans’ Long-EZ offsets:  1) The big advantage is that the configuration of these offsets is one that requires a much, much smaller hole in the sides of the fuselage to manipulate the elevators. Meaning less cold air!  2) With an offset on each side of the fuselage (versus just the right side on the Long-EZ) there are more options to mount direct drive control arms such as pitch trim, autopilot servos, etc.  Lastly, although not necessarily an advantage, I do like that the entire elevator configuration is symmetrical.]

With the bottom surface of the canard now finished to primer, I don’t want to bondo anything (i.e. “L” templates) to the surface of the canard just to have to clean it up later & risk messing up the finish.  For this reason, ala my friend Dave Berenholtz’s method I will simply keep the “L” templates in place by weighing them down.

So as I was out & about tonight I stopped off and got the materials & supplies required to make some sandbags.  When I get those made tomorrow I’ll start on the journey of installing the elevators to the canard!