Chapter 13/18 – Canopy shenanigans!

Today was mainly about the canopy . . . and yes, I went over on my allotted airplane building time!  (Oh, well . . . )

I started by spending a couple of hours cutting, shaping and sanding the blue foam blocks for the aft canopy structure, or the “turtleback” as some folks call it, while I’ve also heard it referred to the “D-Deck” as well since it looks like a capital “D” fell over on its back.

Of course there are a myriad of angles going on with each one of these blocks, but since I already have my GIB headrest installed I can’t just stuff this area full of big blocks of blue foam and then hack it down afterwards.  Of course there’s nothing wrong with that way at all, and I’m sure it’s definitely easier than this method.

Here’s a shot from the aft end with the blue foam pieces peeking up above the perimeter edge of the firewall.  To be clear, the foam at this stage has been configured, but not installed in place yet.

After I got the “turtleback’s” blue foam blocks cut and sanded to a pleasing shape (ha… had to throw that in there!), I then set them aside to tape up the GIB headrest structure a little better to protect it from any nasty stuff.

I also taped the longerons, leaving the aft ends exposed since that’s where the canopy structure that will remain on the aircraft side will get secured to.  Again, obviously I’m not doing my aft canopy area as per plans, and that includes the width of the canopy side aft structure, which will be a bit wider/longer than normal, while the structure coming off the firewall will be narrower than typical.  As a reminder, my aft canopy structure is patterned quite a bit after Wayne Blackler’s… although my canopy is way oversized compared to his more stock canopy size.

Since I was using spray foam in between the foam blocks, I decided to protect the aft edge of the canopy where glass will eventually get attached to.  The spray foam has a significantly strong hold and I didn’t want to have to be sanding it off of the aft canopy edge.

Now, I hate to point this out, but it’s another one of those “Sins of the Past” deals in that since my fuselage is a little off-balance symmetry wise, then it makes the canopy –which is following the curvature of the longerons– stick out about an 1/8″ more on the left side and pulls the right side over just a hair as well.  This IS noticeable from the aft side, especially with no engine or cowlings in place.

To mitigate this unsymmetrical dilemma as much as I could, I removed the spacer from the left side of the aft canopy spreader and pulled the canopy’s foam “frame” inboard to align the inside edge of the foam more with the inside edge of the longeron.  I then slathered it a bit with Bondo.

On the right side I simply tried wedging in a razor blade first, to split the glue seam and see if it did anything to get the right aft canopy to move outboard a bit.  It did, so I wedged in a mixing stick, etc. to get the very aft right side canopy to move outboard about 0.1″.  I included both pics since the top one shows the canopy spreader setup.

I then prepped for my craft project of assembling all the blue foam pieces between the aft canopy edge and the firewall to create a D-Deck/Turtleback, et al.  I had in my notes on the canopy build a little tidbit from CP 35 (shown below), and then just recently Mike Beasley also reminded me about using “pour-in-place” foam to secure the foam pieces together.  I should clarify that I used this foam just between the sides [“sides” here defined as actually top & bottom of each piece] of the foam pieces and still used micro on the aft canopy edge and around the perimeter of the firewall front face.

Here’s a screen shot of the first part of the CP 35 Builder Hint regarding using the “pour-in-place” foam.

Ahh, and then here’s the bias a lot companies have against us homebuilders! Basterds…ha!

I wanted to get this knocked out, so I used fast hardener in my epoxy.  It’s HOT here so man did I have to move out to get ‘er done!  But I did, and the micro was starting to get a bit gummy just as I was finishing up!

Here’s a wider angle shot of the freshly added “turtleback” blue foam along with the existing canopy foam along the right side.

And here are shots of the freshly added blue foam to create the “turtleback” on the aft end of the canopy.  I have to say that I was really impressed with that spray foam, and I think it will do well.  To be clear, with the amount & type of glass that is getting laid up in this area, I have zero concerns about using this spray foam.

Another aft shot from the firewall.

And finally a shot from above of the newly micro’d and foamed-in “D-Deck”.

It’s a bit hard to see (at least for the camera since I could see it plain as day), but peaking from under the front of the canopy I could see the seams between the blue foam pieces were pretty solid and by using this method I will have way, way less to carve to prep the interior surfaces for glass.

I knew that I was going to have to refigure, remark and re-tape my front canopy edge line since I added more height to the Aft Nose Cover on the back side of the cover…. using strips of 1/8″ thick Balsa wood.  I was going to have to readjust this line anyway, I just wanted to double check with the new Balsa wood in place.

Since it had been well over 24 hours since I had added the Balsa wood strips, I removed the securing tape.

I then took the long sanding board and did a good amount of fairing in on the added Balsa wood.

I then put a straight edge on the top of the newly added Balsa wood and marked the line on the canopy.  With the angle of the nose curving up as it goes aft, it meant that I was going to have to move the line up to 0.9″ on the front canopy edge, up from 0.4″.

I pulled the tape off from around the front of the canopy and then marked the front edge of the canopy with hash marks at 0.9″ from the edge.  In the pic below you can actually see the strip of unsanded canopy above the original sanded strip.  After I re-taped the canopy edge I of course re-sanded the entire edge using 220 grit sandpaper.

I then spent almost 2 more hours getting 2 foam block pieces shaped and micro’d in place on each forward side of the canopy.

Here we have a wider angle shot showing the newly added foam pieces at the front of the canopy and the newly added 1/8″ thick Balsa wood plate on the Aft Nose Cover.

And a head on view of above.

I will reiterate that I do plan on getting a good bit of the canopy completed… at least to the point it’s strong enough to travel down to North Carolina on the back of the trailer when I haul the fuselage down there at the end of July.  However, I will make it a priority to start working on the house more since I got such a big chunk of the canopy (and Aft nose cover) both figured out to a more granular level and nearly completed.

Again, being a bit of a geek, my total calculated completion of foam on the canopy frame is at 91%.  But of course we all know that last 10% –the canopy/nose cover interface– will take a fair bit of time and effort to dial in!

 

Chapter 13 – New Tank-EZ!

I’ll explain the “Tank-EZ” comment a bit below, I just wanted to note that it’s amazing how happy one can feel just by having the right build materials on hand, especially when that includes BID fiberglass!  So nice to have it back in stock in my cutting table box!

I started off today by pulling peel ply and trimming up the overhanging glass on the top interior nose layups I did last night.  These layups really helped to reinforce the nose hatch flange and made the overhanging flanges stiff & strong.

I then took a few minutes to do a quick clean up job on the nose hatch flange itself.

Although this pic is a bit out of sequence, note the glassed nose hatch still fits like a charm.

So one thing I’m not overly pleased with on the current nose shape is that the ends of the F28 bulkhead protrude at the middle of the aft nose cover.  As I deduced the issue down I realized that it wasn’t that these front fuselage “corners” weren’t shaped with enough ferocity to remove a good amount of material, but rather that the aft top surface of the aft nose/avionics top deck cover was simple deflated a bit in posture and was not at the contour height that it should be.

After mulling it around in my brain these past few days, trying to decide if I was simply going to live with it (it wasn’t a show stopper to be certain) or if I was going to contend with this issue . . . but how?  I contemplated using some type of foam, be it pour foam or some standard build foam, but then with no narrow stock in abundant supply, I would have to order some or do a lot of sanding.  Yuk on both of these options.

Since I only needed about 1/8″ added thickness, but uniformly added across the top, I again turned to lightweight strips of wood.  Only this time just about the lightest wood you can get: Balsa wood.  I figured that would be close in weight to say, 1/8″ Divinycell if I had gone that route, and I simply wasn’t going to mess around with urethane foam or pour foam.

I will also point out that my decision to add some thickness and fill in the aft top section of the cover meant that the canopy build would be delayed a day or so as well as I contended with this cover addition.  The delay in the canopy build is simply due to the canopy skirt in the front interfacing with the aft nose cover, which must be completed first as a prerequisite task to dealing with the canopy’s front skirt configuration.

So while I was out running some errands I picked up some 1/8″ thick x 4″ wide Balsa wood strips. Upon returning back home I cut them up and set the strips in place on the top of the existing aft nose cover.

To help with the transition from the 1/8″ to the front side of the cover, I added a step using 1/16″ pieces of wood along the front edge of the 1/8″ thick strips.

My reference to “Tank-EZ” in the blog title is just a little blip on a term I have used in joking with Marco about how his Long-EZ would turn out heavy if he added an extra ply of BID or Kevlar to his aircraft structure.  I was thinking about that today, since I did add a layer of glass for these wood strips to lay upon, but as a transition piece of fresh epoxied glass, and also as form of filler to help fill in the lower point across the aft side of the cover. Regardless, it was extra glass, as will be the top piece of glass that will go over all this. Although it’s not a ton of added weight, it is some . . . so I noted to myself that perhaps my Long-EZ is at risk of becoming a Tank-EZ!

Here are a couple of shots with the new aft side wood pieces micro’d and glassed (bottom side) into place.

So I will work for a few hours tomorrow on the canopy, but it will not be an all day affair.  I must transition into house prep mode, and that starts tomorrow.

 

Chapter 13/18 – Gotta nose for it!

I had actually planned on getting some of today’s tasks completed yesterday after I returned home from North Carolina, but on the way back from NC I stopped off at fellow Long-EZ builder Chris Seats’ shop to check out his build, and of course didn’t end up leaving until 3 hours later!

I figured I would put in a couple of honest days to give the nose & canopy builds a solid shot in the arm since they do need to be done for the upcoming fuselage haul down to NC in about a month.  After that I’ll resort to the light build schedule.

Today I started out in pretty much pure research mode since I felt that before I could glass in the interior skin of the nose hatch I needed to have a good understanding of what was getting attached to it both hinge and latch wise.

After checking out a myriad of other builders’ blogs, etc, I headed down to the shop with some ideas to test out.  One idea in particular is that Nate Mullins is using a spring-loaded hinge that was designed for a cowling oil dipstick access door, but he repurposed it for the nose hatch.

I have one of those hinges that I bought for the cowling oil dipstick access door, but for the nose hatch I liked the idea of having a narrow depth on the hinge and getting it out of the way.  I tested it out a bit and realized that there was just no way it was going to work since my configuration is much different at the front of the nose hatch than what Nate has…. so I went back to the traditional hatch door hinge that we tend to use a lot in the canard world.  I have a template that I traced from a hinge template that Beagle sent me, that –like the nose hatch– is actually for a Berkut.  This hinge design is significantly smaller than the ones the Cozy Girrrls sell, which I have BTW and will be using on the aft nose cover.

After messing around with the configuration and testing different scaled sizes of this hinge, I finally came to the conclusion that the hinge pivot point must be as far forward as I can get it in the battery compartment, and the best size is the original size that I have from the template.  Moreover, with that knowledge in hand I now know that I will have to do some major rework on my interior top nose structure to get the hinges mounted in there, so I’m going to let ideas of just how to install the hinge pivot points germinate in my brain a bit.

After confirming the position of the nose hatch aft latch, I then got to work on doing a final shaping of the nose hatch interior foam.

I then glassed the interior nose hatch skin.

After laying up a ply of BID in the aft latch depression and across the front for more strength for the nose hatch securing components, I then laid up a ply of UNI followed by a ply of BID.

I then peel plied a good majority of the layup.

As the nose hatch cured, I then got busy on the top interior nose side walls, where the aft nose hatch perimeter flange is micro’d to the top of the side walls.  The angle between the bottom existing sidewalls and the new nose hatch perimeter flange piece added in is a bit sharper than I wanted, especially on the left side.

I Dremeled away all the excess micro and then sanded the inboard protruding intersection of the nose hatch perimeter flange with the top nose sidewalls.

NOTE: I won’t be messing around with the aft flange edge of the nose hatch since I need to prep the intermediate bulkhead area for securing the aft nose cover.  I’ll wait until all the urethane foam in-between F28 and the intermediate bulkhead –that I used as a mold/plug for the aft nose cover– is removed and access that area from the F22 area of the nose.

As I said before, since I broke through the glass on the right side about 4-5″ while I was extracting the aft hatch from the perimeter flange, I added a ply of BID for a total of 3 plies on the right hand side of the nose.  This BID will connect the existing nose sidewall to the added perimeter flange piece, and specifically add more plies to the flange itself.  On the left side I’m simply using 2 plies of BID in the BID tape.  Also, as you can see I prepregged the BID.

I then laid up the prepregged BID tapes on both the left and right side top nose sidewalls. I then peel plied the layups.

Here’s a shot of the glass peaking out from under the aft side nose hatch perimeter flange on both the left and right sides.

With the top interior nose wall layups completed, I then checked the nose hatch layup. The glass was cured about 80-90%, which was perfect for pulling peel ply and then razor trimming the edges of the layup.

The interior nose skin layup looked good and I didn’t see any issues with it!

Tomorrow I’ll be focusing on the canopy all day and would like to get the canopy frame to a point where I can glass it within the next day or two (I ordered 15 yards of BID that was delivered yesterday).

 

Moving the Build to NC

Just a quick update on the move since now it involves the Long-EZ project in large part. In fact, I’d say that about 70% of this haul down to North Carolina was Long-EZ related components, as you can tell in the pic below with all the boxes labeled with “LEZ” in large block red letters.

In addition to the strake leading edge kit, I also wrapped up and included the lower cowling among the components that were transported down to NC.  Also, the box on the very left of the pic above are the upper and lower winglets.

Moreover, since I had space in the trailer, and since it just barely fit (after trimming off about 3/8″ of the wing end rudder cable conduit), I strapped the right wing into place and hauled it down to NC as well.

This leaves the fuselage, left wing, canard and upper engine cowling as the last of the large aircraft components left up in Virginia.

If all goes according to plan, by the end of July pretty much the entire aircraft project will be down in NC.

 

Chapter 23 – Exhaust Pipes

Of course I have no significant progress to report on the build today, but I did finally get around to cracking open the box that contained my exhaust pipes after all these years. Yes, I should have been more diligent and checked them much earlier, but I’m happy to report upon initial inspection that they look good.  And with that, they will be on their way to NC tomorrow!

Also, as I was getting ready to pack up a bunch of the Long-EZ stuff to go in this haul down to North Carolina, during a break I decided that I would detail the build areas that I’m “authorized” to build on from here on out until I am established down in NC and back up & running on the build.

If you’re curious at all, here are those areas:

  1. Canopy frame
  2. Nose hatch glassing & securing hinges/hardware
  3. Aft nose cover securing hinges/tabs/hardware
  4. Wheel pants hardware
  5. Baggage pods initial glass prep
  6. Cutting out ailerons/glassing aileron pocket shearweb

A very minor adjunct to that list is that I pulled 3 of the fuel tank ribs from the Feather Light strake leading edge kit to seal the ribs’ mouse hole edges with micro.

As you can see, half the items on the list are nothing more than facilitating hauling the fuselage down to NC with canopy, aft nose cover and nose hatch in place.  The other stuff is just for those occasions when I need to take a moment for some “me” time and spend a an hour or two feeling productive on the plane build <wink>.

So if whatever I look at build-wise is not on that list above, it simply gets packed up for the haul south.

Ok, report over…. back to packing!

Chapter 13 – By a nose…

Today was all about packing up for my next load down to North Carolina, but I of course had to see how the nose turned out.

I spent about 15 minutes pulling peel ply and cleaning up the nose.  The layups looked good without any issues.

I then carefully cut the perimeter of the aft side of the nose hatch door, but apparently not as carefully as the front half because I broke through on about 4″ on the right side.  When I glass the underside BID tapes on the right I’ll simply add a ply and extend up underneath the flange.  In fact, although I won’t add an extra ply, I’ll do the same on the aft side and the left side.

I then marked up the raw glass flange for a trim.

And then trimmed the aft side flange up with the Fein saw.  I may not have pointed it out when I discussed the flange layup on the aft half of the nose hatch door, but part of that layup was an extension of the flange across the Napster bulkhead forward.  These flange extensions turned out nicely, and later I’ll bridge the aft flange extensions to the forward side flange to make it all one solid flange around the entire perimeter of the nose hatch opening.

I then grabbed a quick side view.  A few hours later I went down to the shop to grab something, and decided to take about 15 minutes to clean up the peel ply boogers and edges from the battery compartment BID tape layups, so those are all clean and spiffy now as well.

I don’t have any other major build actions scheduled although tomorrow I do plan on at least roughly cutting out the remaining blue foam for the canopy.  I have quite a bit on hand and want to get a decent idea of what to leave behind since the rest is going down to NC.

 

Chapter 13 – Nose Tidbits

Since I didn’t have enough BID on hand to glass the canopy, I made today all about finishing up as much as I could on the nose.

I will say that –except for 1 external ply of BID (or perhaps 2 plies of UNI) and 3 BID tapes– the nose structure is FINISHED!

I started off the day with a quick check to see how the battery fit inside the nose compartment.  It fit like a champ and the only issue is the fact that to put the battery in or take it out I’ll have to remove the tool box.  No biggie really.

I then got to work on the nose hatch and the adjacent foam structure on the aft end that in reality is part of the nose structure of the aircraft, not the hatch’s.

I started off by identifying where the hatch outline was and then started cutting and digging out foam.

I got the hatch door cover side of the foam removed and the hatch outline door/opening line exposed, and some of the aft door foam shaped to match the front half foam.  Note that I trimmed down the little mini-bulkhead that had been in place as a sort of a template atop Napster’s head.

I really had some thinking to do and some decisions to make regarding the nose hatch, and specifically the adjacent foam structure…. as you can see, I didn’t leave myself much space at all to work with.  I knew this going in after I had mounted the nose sidewall pieces into place in the area between the intermediate bulkhead and Napster, but I thought it would be tight, but workable.

I considered cutting the bottom of the nose sidewalls to allow me to have a flatter approach on the nose side of the foam adjacent to the hatch door.  But then I asked myself why?

A few mental walk-throughs with the hatch assembly in hand told me that the only operational impact that having steep sides adjacent to the nose hatch door was that it looked different than the convention.  I could still make the steeper sides work, and I wasn’t impinging on anything within my nose.  Not to be Mr. Snarky, but I realized the only thing I would be impinging on is the standard that I’ve seen on a lot of canard nose hatches.  So, I pressed forward!

Now, the edge of the hatch opening on nose side in the few inches just forward of the rounded corner is fairly narrow, around 0.2″.  So I decided that instead of laying up the glass in an “L” shape coming off the sidewall, and trying to get a good glass-to-glass bond at the inside corner of the “L” shape, that I would just layup 2 flat strips of BID first with the edge of the glass nice and snug up to the edge of the foam.  Then I laid up 2 plies of BID coming off the foam side wall in a standard “L” shape.  Along the aft side of the nose hatch I went the standard 3 plies of BID and then in the corners I added an extra ply that overlapped quite a bit both inwards and forwards, giving the narrow edge areas an extra ply.

I then of course peel plied the layups since these edges will get BID tapes to secure them to the interior walls of the nose.

A number of hours later, I pulled the peel ply and cleaned up the layup.  The layup looked good and I felt confident that it was cured enough to get reinstalled into the nose.

However, to give the glassed nose hatch assembly just a little bit more time to cure, I then got to work laying up the BID tapes in the nose battery compartment.  As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, knocking these out would knock one more structure to-do item off the list in getting the nose pert near done.

Here’s some before shots of each side inside the nose battery compartment.

I then cut some glass and set up some prepreg assemblies for the BID tapes.  I then mixed up some epoxy and wetted out the glass.

After applying flox fillets in the corners and filling some gaps in the seams, I then laid up the BID tapes.  I then peel plied the BID tapes and left the layups alone to cure.

After finishing up with the BID tapes, it was time to micro, flox and glass the nose hatch and adjacent structure back into place in the nose.  I used micro on the foam and flox in the small seam on each side of the hatch on the aft side of what would be Napster’s ears.

I then laid up a 1-ply BID tape on the top and each side of the hatch door adjacent structure (plug) that had been removed along with the nose hatch door . . . the layups overlapping onto the nose skin of course.  I then peel plied the layup in preparation for the one final layup that the nose will get.

Tomorrow I’ll cut out the nose hatch door to check how everything looks inside, but that’s pretty much it since I’ll be in full on packing mode for the next haul down to NC (I did a bit of prep today, but no real packing . . . so gotta get on it!)

 

 

Chapter 13 – Bait & switch

As I was having my morning coffee I was thinking about the tasks that lie ahead of me for the canopy build today.  I realized that for the very front of the canopy, the front skirt, that if I didn’t have the Aft nose/avionics top deck cover glassed that the skirt on the front underside would be off a bit.  But then I reasoned, “How much?”  I mean, we’re seriously only talking 2 plies of BID more [so I thought at the time] for the final glassing of the aft nose cover/glare shield . . . that’s not a huge thickness to contend with.

Ahh, but then I thought about accessibility.  You see, I need the aft nose cover in place to glass in the canopy front skirt.  Conversely however, if I don’t finish the cover first and then proceed with the canopy, then I’m locked out of working on the nose cover since the aft end of it would be covered by the canopy front skirt!

A pickle to be sure, but both issues resolved by simply knocking out glassing the final layup on the exterior of the aft canopy cover.  Plus, since around 41 hours had passed since I finished the initial construction/glassing of nose cover, I figured it was plenty cured.

So that’s what I did.

I started by pulling all the tape off that had done its job admirably in holding the thin plies of wood in place and in alignment atop the aft nose structure.

I then got to work cleaning it all up.  I pulled all the peel ply right away and then gave the exposed glass parts a good sanding.

I then grabbed the long sanding board and went to work.  Since the aft nose cover was due to get 2 more plies of BID, as was the forward nose (1 ply for the entire nose, and 1 extra just for the nose hatch door… which I was going to extend aft) I then gave the intersection line –the now buried but visible intermediate bulkhead– a good working over to get the surfaces aligned with each other.

After a good 45 minutes of sanding and prepping, I was ready to start cutting some glass for the layup.  I had been thinking about my layup schedule while I was sanding, so I listed that out and my layup task list in fairly short order.

And then I hit the proverbial brick wall!!  Gasp! Ugh! Dammit! I was very, very close to being out of BID!  I knew I was getting close, but obviously didn’t realize I was THIS close to being out.  The implications on this was significant for today’s tasks specifically since if I had chosen to press forward with the canopy build, I don’t think I would have had enough… well, to do it all cleanly with singly pieces of BID per ply.

I did have enough for one ply to do the aft nose cover, so I simply changed my ply #2 from BID to UNI, so I could still get the cover glassed.  I was planning on peel plying the “final” layup anyway just because in an essentially on-the-fly design like the aft nose cover, there may be some unknown variables that crop up requiring extra glass to be laid up over the existing final glass skin.  Bottom line, if I need to layup more glass on the cover later on I’ll be poised to do so going the peel ply route.

I then rummaged through my extensive spare UNI bin (who uses this stuff anyway?? … haha!) and quickly cobbled together a ply of UNI for the aft nose cover layup.  I chose to run the fibers across the nose to be perpendicular to the grain of the integral Basswood strips that make up the core of the cover.

Then I figured I would just forego the glass and simply varnish the wood… looks nice!   Maybe a bit of stain?!  HA! I jest…

I then undertook what turned out to be quite a considerably in-depth layup (don’t they all! … we Long-EZ builders are suckers!  We always think things are going to get easier… or not take that long! heh)

So many, many hours later I was glad to put the lid on this baby  . . . oh, yeah, forgot the peel ply.

So many, many hours later I was glad to put the lid on this baby  . . . with peel ply!

Backing up pre-peel ply, I would like to point out that to streamline the contour of the aft nose cover to the maximum extent possible, it meant incorporating the “pointiest” part of the entire nose structure –besides the very front– which is still those pesky F28/front longeron ends that I trimmed down as much as I felt I possibly could!

You may have wondered (or could care less!) about the triangular strip of glass with no wood over it, which is in fact the very front corner of the F28 bulkhead and where the longeron ends.  I’m kinda wishing I had taken it down at least another 1/8″, if not 3/16″ on each side.  Still, I think these abrupt shifts in the nose contours are common to Long-EZ’s since you’re taking basically a square box and turning it into a long conical nose.  So, don’t mistake my woulda, shoulda, coulda for displeasure, because I’m more than happy with this nose . . . yep, hind sight is always 20/20 on these builds!

Another front view, this time showing the foam plug around the back half nose hatch marked up.

Before it got too late to make noise, I grabbed my Fein Saw and cut the perimeter of the front nose hatch door –NOT TOO DEEP!!– and then all the way through on the back half foam plug.

I then carefully removed the nose hatch door with the associated & attached foam plug on the back half of this odd piece.  Hmm, this does resemble something? … Oh, yeah, a fingernail!  . . .  just like I predicted!

Here we have the underside of the nose hatch door.  I will essentially create the edge of the back half of the nose hatch as I did the front half.

I then removed the duct tape from the underside edge of the nose front hatch door.  I have to say I’m really happy with how my single larger nose hatch door plan turned out!

And here is the nose hatch in its current state… with the outline of the foam plug on the aft end visible.

I then marked the cut line on the perimeter of the forward nose hatch flange to trim it down to a narrower, workable width.

Again, I grabbed my Fein saw and within a few minutes had a nice trimmed flange for the front half of the nose hatch door.

The aft nose/avionics top deck cover final layup really did take up about 5 hours total from start to finish.  Not to sound like a baby, but today was the hottest day of the year so far… so it was a bit toasty in the garage.  My son had called for Father’s Day, so I knocked off a few hours earlier than I normally would, grabbed a shower, a cold one and some dinner and had a good chat with my kid!

Tomorrow I will do a bit on the build, but I’ll have my eye on what will get loaded up for the move as well.  Tuesday will be full on packing so no build until I get back…  I know I said I wasn’t going to build after I get back from this trip, but due to my SNAFU with BID stock on hand, I will get the canopy done upon returning so that it is at least glassed externally… since I can’t/won’t transport the fuselage down to NC with micro’d-on pieces of foam clinging on for dear life!

 

 

Chapter 18 – It’s bittersweet . . .

I say bittersweet because my good friend Todd Silver, who I think just about every Canardian knew or knew of, had never actually installed a canopy on a Long-EZ even though he produced so many of them.  He made me promise that when I built my canopy that he could come help . . . well, this one’s for you Todd! (miss you buddy . . . )

I started out today cutting off the myriad of layers of protective plastic that was on the canopy to expose just the bottom and aft edges.

Once the edge was exposed, I used some . . . wha…? Yep, YELLOW painters tape. Supposedly the edge seals much better than the blue to guard against any epoxy wicking up the edges of the tape.  That was of course after I marked the appropriate width of the exposed canopy edge to be mounted into the canopy frame.

However, I suspected that just like the blue painters tape, the yellow probably doesn’t stand up to epoxy any better . . . so I covered the painters tape with duct tape for added security.

I then got to work sanding the edges of the canopy with 220 grit sandpaper, just as per plans.  I honestly planned on using the Dremel Tool like most other builders, but I literally happened upon a fresh piece of 220 grit sitting on my workbench.  Curiosity got the best of me and then I realized it really wasn’t that bad, so I just finished the entire canopy edge using the Ol Skool plans method.

You can see the sanded edge on each side in the pic below, whereas the middle section hadn’t been sanded yet.

Here we have the entire edge sanded with 220 grit sandpaper.

I also taped off and sanded a few key spots on the inside edge that would get hot glued to secure the canopy in place.  I also went ahead and taped and sanded the very aft inside edge because it gets micro’d directly to the foam back there… also so that if the micro decided to run at all, it would be on the tape vs bare canopy.

I then trimmed the front canopy positioning blocks to length (ok, the wrong length, but who’s counting!) and hot glued them in place on each side of the front canopy edge.

I then spent a little bit constructing the aft canopy spreader to keep the sides of the canopy splayed out into position, straight and at the proper elevation.  The canopy spreader sides are the wood pieces I glued up last week, with 0.4″ spacers along the top edge.  These spacers will drive the canopy further outboard so that they sit in the original position for a Long-EZ with standard width longerons…. remember, my longerons are 0.4″ wider from the pilot’s seat aft so this allows me to push the aft canopy sides out further and provides more of internal edge for aft canopy rail support.

I used ACS shipping dunnage cut to length for the internal spacers, and press fit everything together.  Then I hit all the joints with the hot glue gun.

A side shot of the canopy spreader assembly.  Now, I will note that I did have to adjust the front side of the entire assembly up about 1/4″ as I was setting the canopy in its final position on the fuselage.

I also added a 3/16″ spacer on each side on the very back to push the canopy –which really wanted to curl inward on the very aft edge– out just a hair.

Adding the 3/16″ spacer on each side as shown above also dropped the center aft top of the canopy right into perfect position so that it just barely kissed the extended cowling line angle template that I have taped to the top of the headrest.  I know the angle for the aft canopy edge and the turtleback is simply terrible, and it’s one of those things that I’m just going to have to bite the bullet on (and probably 2-3 knots!) since A) this is the only canopy I have, and B) it’s getting installed now!

The next bunch of pics all show the canopy set and hot glued into it’s final position on the fuselage.

I then started cutting out and shaping the blue foam blocks that run along the side of the canopy were it intersects the fuselage at the longerons.

A bit later I decided since it was late and that I was done cutting blue foam pieces, especially since the more intricate pieces at the front and very aft were next and I wanted to be a lot sharper than I was this late at night to undertake those beasts.  However, I didn’t want to call it a night without having something cooking in the proverbial oven!  So I whipped up some micro and set these babies in place… woo-hoo!

Here are the blue foam canopy rail pieces micro’d in place on the right side.

And here are the blue foam canopy rail pieces micro’d in place on the left side.  BTW, for fun I calculated the total edge length of the canopy and as I head off for the evening I know that I am literally 63% finished with the canopy frame… ha!

I’ll also report that I took a break from the canopy in the afternoon and pulled the peel ply off the nose and then cleaned it up.

Then just before turning out the lights in the shop, I did an initial markup of nose hatch just out of curiosity.  Here it is:

Tomorrow will be more canopy of course, and my goal is to get the external glass layups knocked out on the canopy frame by late tomorrow evening.  Get ‘er done!

 

 

Chapter 13 – Noseless no more!!!

That’s right folks, the nose is glassed!

At least the initial round…. with another round or two of glassing to follow.

I started off the day by taking a piece of paper and drawing a line down the center horizontally to create 2 panels.  On the top I drew out my front nose layup and all the associated tasks for completing that layup.  On the bottom I drew out the aft nose cover layup/construction and all the associated tasks for that endeavor.  Then, with it on a clip board downstairs I added a a few more points to watch out for and another few tasks as I was thinking about my upcoming layups as I cleaned and organized the shop.

Down in the shop, I started by laying out my thin Basswood and Birch plywood strips in an organized manner off to the side.

Like I mentioned above, I then spent about 30 minutes cleaning and organizing of the shop.  Wanna start fresh, right?!

With the glass cutting table cleared off I then cut all the BID required for the foundational underlayment for the wood strips above that will make up the aft nose/avionics top deck cover.  As a point of note, the glare shield structure will get another ply of fresh BID to tie it into the wood strips/cover structure that will get laid in over the fresh BID.

I then laid up all the glass on top of the protective duct tape barrier/mold releases I taped up last night.

Now, here I should have been a bit better on the uptake QA (Quality Assurance) wise and even noted my error in my blog last night when I was discussing getting the tape applied only 1 ply thick where I could.  My plan –that I did not follow for some reason– all along was to apply at least 3 plies of tape on the sides of the fuselage where I made the depressions.  So, I’m thinking the cover is going to fit a bit too snugly when I put it back in place once remove it… nothing that some sanding won’t remedy, but shows what lack of foresight and not following your own plan gets you: wasted time.  Still, better to be a bit too tight in this scenario than too loose!

Nonetheless, as hairy going as it went for a while (with me thinking ‘who’s crazy idea was this to put all these damn wood strips on here?!’) herding cats with all the wood strips going off in different directions, I finally wrangled them all into some semblance of order and strapped them down like nobody’s business!

A bit of irony is that I would have used the thick Gorilla duct tape (as I had mentally planned to do) on the sidewall depressions for added thickness on the mold release, but I ran out of it using the really long strips I needed for more holding (“clamping”) pressure of the tape to keep the considerable pressure I needed on the wood strips –especially at the corners– in place.  The 3M duct tape worked good for the 2 spots that I used it, but I’m thinking had it had to carry the entire load of keeping the wood structure in place, this would be an entirely different report altogether!

Here’s a shot of both the freshly re-glassed glare shield and the aft edge of all the wood strips, that when combined together collectively make up the cover-side raised break line interface with canopy skirt.

With the aft nose cover curing I then set my sights on the front half of the nose.  I spent some time assessing the nose hatch and the required components that would be mounted in, near and around it.  I realized that with the nose hatch latch installed, along with the hinge mounts for the aft nose/avionics top deck cover, that I just didn’t have enough nose real estate on the aft side of the hatch.  In short, the hatch was just too long and was eating up too much precious real estate on the inside of the nose in the area between the hatch and the aft cover.  I simply had to shorten the hatch length.

I spent another 10 minutes assessing the space required, and then ascertained that if I lop of 1.2″ off the aft end of the hatch that I could most likely squeeze all I needed to in the area between aft cover and front nose hatch.

I then got busy glassing the front side of the nose.

After the requisite sanding down the edges of the existing glass for smoother glass transition, and angling the sides of Napster just a hair, I then micro’d/floxed the battery compartment/front hatch structure into place.

It’s always a point of amusement, or at least interesting I guess, that the majority of the glassing process is applying the micro to the foam surface!  It’s amazing how long it takes compared to the actual process of putting the glass in place and wetting it out . . .

Nonetheless, rest assured micro was applied to all bare foam and then I laid up 1 ply of BID on the entire forward nose structure, overlapping onto the existing glass the requisite 1 inch.

I grabbed these shots from both the left and right sides of the front nose vs aft nose cover intersection.  This will be the one visible line that traverses across the nose other than the nose hatch door outline.

I then peel plied the entire forward nose layup.  Earlier I had considered laying up the 2 plies of BID prior to cutting out the nose hatch, but then decided against it since that would then require using only BID tapes to re-secure the aft nose hatch structure when I glass it back into the nose after creating the interior nose hatch perimeter on the underside/interior of the nose structure.  Nope, as much as I don’t like splitting up layups, the nose was getting only 1 ply of BID at this point…. so peel ply it is.

A couple more side shots of the peel plied forward nose layup.

And a wide angle shot showing the profile of the nose.  I really am loving the shape of this nose, and it’s incredible how long and narrow it looks without the canard installed to break it up.

As I let the glass cure on both the front and aft sides of the nose, tomorrow I will be focused solely on the canopy and will try to knock as much as that out as I can over the next couple of days.  Monday I go back into packing mode to prep for hauling another load of stuff (a BUNCH more airplane stuff this time around) down to NC.