So one of the things I was educated on as I was querying my posse of canardian buddies on what might possibly be the optimal “modern” O-320 baffle-to-top cowling gap size, was a throwback feature right out of the plans that was implemented by a few of them:
The top cowling 4-ply rib baffle that creates a mini-baffle hanging down from the top cowl just inside-adjacent to the cylinder baffles.  Intuitively I would think that these ribs are no longer needed, but I know the Long-EZs that these are installed in and they tend to have great cooling… so I’m adding these rib baffles to the mix.

I started by reaching up into the cowling and marking a line along the edge of the left cylinder baffles onto the underside of the top cowl.  I’ll do the right side as well after the side baffles get cut and installed.

I then used my contour checker to create a template on cardboard that looks suspiciously like the one right out of the plans (for a different top cowling of course).

I then test fit the template and did a few rounds of trimming it for a good fit against the top cowling.

With the top cowl installed, I then tried using tape to secure it to the inside of the top cowling, but that wasn’t working well.  I decided to follow the plans even more specifically and make a wood version of these rib baffle templates and then hot glue them to the top cowl for a better fit.  I’ll probably make these up tomorrow.

Back on the baffles, I added a bit of height to the right side baffles to target about a 1/2″ gap between baffle top edge and inside top cowling.

After the right side cylinder baffle heights were tweaked —with a few rounds of top cowl on and off— I then started filling in the baffle-to-cowl gaps along the right front baffle template segments.

After feeling good about the gaps I marked and trimmed the right side cylinder baffles and mounted them.

And then followed suite on the inboard right front wall baffle segment: trimming it and mounting it.

I’ll note that in following the VAN’s baffle kit plans I cut a 7/8″ length off an aluminum tube included in the kit to mount the inboard right front wall baffle segment to a hole in the engine flange 2-3″ inches below the right top engine mount bolt.  This spacer seemed about 1/8″ short, so I’ll reassess what the required length/gap here needs to be.

With the right inboard front wall and right cylinder side baffle segments in place and fitting well under the installed top cowl, I then mounted the final front baffle wall piece on the front outboard side with clecos… along and just forward of cylinder #3.  I then marked it for trimming as well.

Here we have the last baffle segment for the front baffle wall, adjacent to cylinder #3, marked for trimming.

I then removed, trimmed and remounted the outboard front wall baffle segment.  I checked its fit by remounting the top cowling and although it needs some height tweaking —as all these right side baffle segments do— it fit fine.

Here we have the front, left and right engine baffles mounted and trimmed to fit under the installed top cowling.  Again, although the baffle heights and gaps between them and the top cowl need to be tweaked and refined, there aren’t any baffle top edges touching the inside of the top cowling, nor are there any egregiously wide gaps that will need to be filled.

With the initial baffle mounting out of the way, I then got to work on the left side bottom cowl intake inboard wall and air inlet ramps.  I taped them in place to mock them up… I could see the outline of a plane/bird so I took a minute to have some fun with that.

Here are the inside inlet ramps taped into place.   These cardboard mockups clearly include the top angled portion for each ramp, which I have yet to make out of aluminum (although I did already trace out the ramp top sections on scraps I cut from the baffles). In fact, I won’t cut these aluminum top pieces of the ramps out until I have thoroughly mocked up each side and determined the final configuration for each ramp.

This shot through the armpit inlet gives you a really good idea of what this “inboard wall” and “air inlet ramps” business is all about.  The wall keeps the incoming air wrangled to channel it through the ramps: the front/top ramp sends air up through the front cylinder (#3 here) while the air that passes underneath the front/top ramp then gets to the aft/bottom ramp that sends air up into the aft cylinder (#1 here).

Again, this is how Mike Melvill configured his air intake ramps and he got some really good cooling numbers with this design (remember, Melvill was working with Dave Ronneberg who was advising him on how to implement Berkut-style armpit cooling on a Long-EZ… something that had never been done before).

I tried to install the bottom cowling with the left inlet mocked up as you see above, but it just wouldn’t go on.  I had to disassemble the mockup and reassemble it once the bottom cowling was on.

That being said, understandably I can’t just simply implement Mike Melvill’s configuration on my bird.  With my cold air induction pipe locations and in-cowl setup somewhat different than Mike M’s, I’ll need to tweak the ramp positions a bit… not much, but probably in positions within 1/2″ of his.

Although I did some trimming on the inboard wall cardboard template, my main task was simply “observing” how the air would flow into the intake and down the chute.  I spent a good half hour just looking at and assessing my air intake flow and realized something pretty cool:  the position of the top ramp captures the air and directs it into the front cylinders before the air hits the front round cold air intake tube, thus pretty much negating any blockage of airflow from the front intake tube.  Plus, a round shape is horrible in creating turbulent air.  Even better, downstream the same thing holds true for the relationship between the aft/bottom air ramp and the aft cold air intake tube.  The aft/bottom ramp blankets the air flow that would normally hit the aft round air intake tube and directs it up into the aft cylinder.

Satisfied with my recon and intel collection on the air intake inboard walls and ramps, I then started assessing my aft engine baffle areas.  I have yet to straighten out the angle on the right aft baffle “shelf,” but at least I’m getting a BEFORE picture of it here.

BTW, here is an underside shot of the aft right baffle section.  Part of my assessment as I gear up to make an entire cylinder baffle kit out of CF is whether I’ll use the baked-in lower cylinder baffle tabs… obviously integrated into these aluminum baffles.

I then grabbed a scrap piece of cardboard to make a mockup to test out my aft right baffle Melvill “shelf” bracket configuration.  On Mike Melvill’s diagram he has the distance between the 2 screw holes as ~4″ where in reality the actual specific dimension is 3.88″.   Also not depicted on Mike M’s bracket diagram was the giant engine bolt that protrudes through the bracket that needs to be accounted for.

Somewhat like the recon and assessment I did on the bottom cowling air intake setups, I spent nearly an hour here taking notes and figuring out how I’m going to install the aft lower baffle skirt that needs to wrap around the alternator and starter without intruding on the alternator belt pulley.

My final activity of the night, just out of curiosity, was to find out the difference in weight between using CAMLOCs on my cowlings vs screws.  I thought of this when I picked up my cowling hardware holding card with a full load of CAMLOCs in it.  Well, after weighing all my CAMLOCs and weighing a K1000-3 platenut, a -10 screw and Tinnerman washer and multiplying that weight sum by the number of CAMLOCs I’m using, the grand total difference is about 4.5 oz. more weight with the CAMLOCs.  For those that are interested. 

It was very late so I called it a night and closed up the shop.  On my way back to the house I checked the mail… Lo and behold I got my Eureka CNC canard and elevator templates from Curtiss!  Curtiss was nice enough to send me just these templates since a bunch of my 1/4″ plywood templates got drenched during Hurricane Dorian.

Pressing forward!

Today was all about engine baffles.  I had tried to get to the lower cowling intake ramps and inboard intake wall, but I just ran out of time.

My first task was to evaluate, assess and mark up the bracket that secures the center forward baffle wall to the front centerline engine crankcase bolts.  The issue that I showed previously is that cylinder #4’s stainless steel fuel distro line is in the way of installing this bracket sans modification.

Below are my chicken scratch trim markups.

After a couple rounds of trimming I got to this point below.  Yeah, maybe not the most “normal” looking bracket, but it will certainly work.  The fuel line in the pic looks as if it’s almost touching the bracket, but it is well away from it, and I will certainly ensure that the fuel line is nowhere near this bracket.

I took a bunch of pics of my work on straightening out the slanted left aft intake ramp that would normally be the “floor” of the cowl air intake scoop on an RV tractor aircraft.  But as I was loading up my pics I realized I didn’t have a good “before” shot of what I was working on… so I added these shots from the VAN’s baffle kit install manual.

As far as this intake ramp goes, I want to turn it into the aft shelf (horizontal) & skirt (vertical) that makes up the aft segments of my baffles.  Moreover, I don’t want this part slanting down, but rather straight aft from the angle support bracket that you can see just in front of each cylinder in the drawing above.  Besides adding a bend to this baffle segment, the tractor motor configuration adds in a corner fillet… remove all that and that’s the part I’m dealing with here.

The underside of this piece has the 2 inboard baffles that wrap around the bottom inboard half of cylinder #1.  In the pic below there are really only 3 baffle segments: the left side baffle on the outside of cylinder #1 (with its extended forward wall), the upright flywheel shroud (that has an ‘X’ through it because I’m not using it), and then the part I’m working on: the aft left baffle segment.

And here it is engulfed in wood as I’m using the old school method of straightening out the angled aft portion that the RV bubbas use as their intake ramp.  I will note at this point I had already went another round of shortening the “ramp” portion that extends aft, using my Skil saw outside.

That trimmed portion is peaking out below the 1x2s that I’m using to protect the aluminum as I remove the angle.  My loose-knit plan is to make the shelf out of this existing piece, create a tab on the aft side of the shelf, then make and attach the aft skirt to the shelf tab.

If you look closely you can see a red line across the bottom of the lower section peeking out, about an inch up.  That will get folded over to make the tab…

. . . using the newly assembled metal brake.  The only problem was that I couldn’t get a good throw out of the brake to create a 90° tab because the two curved cylinder baffles were acting like springs and preventing me from creating the full, complete tab.  So back to the vise I went to complete that task as well.

To mock up this aft baffle segment piece I needed to support it.  But as things go when you try to mod a plug ‘n play kit the actual left side support tab was meant to be installed at an angle, so I had to use the right side engine tab here on the left.

The final installed support bracket will be from Mike Beasley’s Baffle templates.

And vice versa on the right side of the engine, where I temporarily have the left support tab in place.

On the right side this temp tab will get replaced with the Melvill style support bracket.

Yeah, she won’t win any beauty contests, but my plan to convert this aft left baffle segment did work.  This is the “shelf” part, and along that front tab hanging down will attach the “skirt” part of the aft baffle wall… that’s if I actually use this part.  I may very well create a whole new one-piece shelf and skirt for each side that meets in the lower middle of the skirt (between the alternator and starter).  I’ll assess and ponder on this more.

And here’s a shot of the lower side of the aft left baffle segment. Hopefully this will make the previous drawings make a bit more sense.  Again, I’m still in the data collection and assessment phase as I am figuring out how I will incorporate the CF baffles, the shelf & skirt final configuration, integration, etc.

Earlier I had taken the aft nose/avionics cover outside to re-shoot the black paint with a couple more coats.  A few hours later it was dry so I brought it back into the shop.

I took a small detour for some arts ‘n craft bit of fun, spending the next half hour pulling the protective tape squares off the cover’s inside panel, and then pulling the vinyl lettering off to expose the red painted characters underneath… again, pretty much as I did on the landing brake.

Now is where the work really begins as I’ll need to take 2-3 hours to manually touch up all the edges of the white, black and red paint.  After all the touchups I’ll then clearcoat this painted panel.  For now I’m going to let this thing cure a good 48 hours before I do anything else on it.

I then did yet another round of height trimming on the left side baffles: mainly the front corner and a few spots along the front wall.

After trimming the pieces and cleaning all the dust off, I then remounted the left-side baffles.  Finally, after a number of rounds of baffle trimming, I had enough clearance to allow me get the top cowling fully mounted back in place.

I then used the paperclip trick to determine the final height.  Since I could only round up a few paperclips, I did the front side first (pic 1), and then the back side (pic 2).

Again, although not elegant in appearance, the paperclips did allow me to determine the gap height and thus the required amount to trim off the baffles.

I didn’t use paperclips on the front wall, but rather peeked in the back of the cowling and through the oil check door hatch to determine the required trim line.

Since the Long-EZ plans describe the process for installing baffles for an O-235 engine, I wanted to do a final crosscheck on the gap required between the aluminum baffles and the inside of the top cowling.  I sent out a flurry of text messages to a bunch of my canardian crew to figure out the best gap.  Well, I found out a few key pieces of actionable intel, but not a definitive answer on the gap.

I decided instead of the 3/4″ that the plan calls out (in general), that I would narrow the gap to 1/2″ (which is what is in the VAN’s instruction manual).  Clearly it’s just a matter of time to hack off another 1/4″, but adding a 1/4″ back on is a little problematic!

Here we have the “final”-trimmed left engine baffles.

And the requisite inside shot as well.

And let’s not forget from the front!

Ok, too much thinking today… and more tasks added to my list, that I’ll discuss over the next few days.  For now, I’m calling it a night!

I started off today with marking and trimming the left front baffle wall at the outside corner since it was preventing the top cowling from seating in place.

I then clecoed the front baffle wall to the forward left baffle segment (for cylinder #3) and marked the corner of the side baffle for trimming.

After trimming the left front side baffle as well, I then remounted all the left side baffles.

I should note that I also trimmed the inboard mounting tab and expanded the bolt hole aft a bit to allow me to install a mounting bolt in the tab.

I’m sure inside my house there is a 10-24 screw in the hardware bag included with the VAN’s baffle kit, but I keep forgetting to grab the hardware… this long 10-24 screw was the only one I could scrounge up in the shop so I used some larger nuts as a spacer to secure the lower outboard front left baffle in place.

I did one more round of marking and trimming the front left baffle corner and a couple spots along the top edge of the front left baffle.  Although much closer, I’m still not able to mount the top cowl fully in place.  I’m thinking the next round of trimming will be the one to do the trick.  BTW, I’m actually following the VAN’s baffle kit install manual in that it says to “be patient” when at this point of trimming the baffle height down to fit <wink>.  Again, it’s an iterative process!

I will note that I will most certainly have to extend the front wall baffle top center area up a few inches since the VAN’s front (rear in tractor aircraft) baffles are too short for the Mike Melvill CF Long-EZ cowlings.

Finally, I received the HTR-212 high temperature epoxy resin that I ordered from ACS for making the CF inter-cylinder baffles.  Moreover, I talked to my contact about getting the molds for these inter-cylinder baffles and he should be sending them to me at the beginning of next week.

Again, today was a short build day since Jess and I went to a concert tonight.  I was still able to get a couple of rounds of baffle trimming in, so the day wasn’t a total loss build wise.  Tomorrow I plan to press forward with both the engine baffles and the bottom cowling intake inboard walls and ramps.

I started out today sanding the razor trimmed edges of the top aft center 1-ply CF layup on the bottom cowling.  I used flox in spots around the edges (as well as micro) in “flox” corners I made around the perimeter of the foam to secure the ply of CF.  Some of that flox and micro squeezed out and that is the light stuff around the edge of the end piece… it’s smooth to the touch but looks like the corner edge has small divots in it.  But it doesn’t.

Here’s another shot.  Obviously I put the spinner flow guide in place to take these shots to see the relationship and clearance between the two.

I then got busy back on the left side baffles.  I did a number of iterations, tweaks, additions and trimming of the tape and cardboard templates, replete with iterations of top cowling on and off, to dial in the height of these left-side baffles.

After a good bit of tweaking, and satisfied with the heights for the left side baffles, I took off first the side baffle templates and marked up the actual VAN’s baffle segments for trimming.  I will note that to get the side baffle segments into place I had to do some judicious trimming and filing (interestingly) on the interfacing edges of the top doubler plates… maybe 0.050″ to allow the baffles to seat properly and the mounting screw holes to align.

After marking both left side and front baffle segments for trimming I dove in with my Dremel tool and trimmed ’em down.  I then remounted the actual left-side baffles in place.

Here we have the initially trimmed left side baffles in place… note all the securing mounting screws are installed.

An inside shot of the baffles.  Clearly, most likely the center baffle area height is just a hair low on these VAN’s baffles, so I may be adding more on the top center edge.  I’ll of course wait until I have the exact height dialed in for the front left and right baffle segments.

Here is the front left corner of the left-side trimmed baffles.  The fact that the corner aligns between front and side baffles is great to see, as denoted by the Clecos securing the adjoining rivet holes with just a minor alignment in the top hole using a scribe.

Besides the rivets at the corner and the mid-engine angled bracket that secures the forward baffle segment in place, there are 3 screw positions as well:  1) near the engine mount bolt (that I drilled out & tapped), 2) at the forward bottom side of cylinder #3 (behind the second from bottom Cleco) and 3) the bracket arm (behind the oil dipstick tube), that I attached with rivets.

The first two screws went into place nice and EZ, but this latter bracket screw point needs some fine trimming (no pic) to allow it to sit flush with the engine side and for me to get a screw into the mounting hole.

I then spent a couple of hours assessing and working the armpit intake ramps.  My initial task was to take the template that Mike Melvill included with the cowlings that is used to configure and construct the inboard wall of the intake scoop.  Mike M. had a traditional oil sump and intake tubes on his IO-360, so his setup sat a bit higher up than my cold air induction tubes.

I used regular cardboard to construct my inboard intake wall template since clearly I couldn’t just use Mike M’s template as plug-n-play.  After a half-dozen iterations of trimming and cutting, I finally got a decent initial fit.

But then I ran into another issue.  You see, on the corners of the inlet ramp (baffle) templates there is an annotated measurement.  A note on the armpit inlet template page states that those measurements are from the forward cowl trim line.  However, on a diagram in the cowling install instructions it shows these measurements as taken from the front face of the armpit inlet.

I remembered the note on the template page, but pictured the diagram from the instructions (I’m a visual learner/rememberer).  I spent a good 45 minutes chasing my tail because these measurements, and the fit of the ramps compared to the inboard wall (it has the ramp positions marked on the template), just wasn’t jiving.  Finally I went and got the install instructions from the house and realized that the measurements listed are different… obviously since the starting reference points are different.

Mystery solved!  You can see the aft ramp line on the wall aligns with the proper marking [you still see the faint remains of the previous mark about an inch forward (left in pic) that I removed with Acetone].  That being said, required tweaks still remain left to do to get the inboard wall dialed in to fit.  Note specifically that the inboard wall front nose/tip is not intersecting the front corner edge of the bottom cowling in the correct spot.

Here are 3 of the 4 hash marks I made with the CORRECT measurements for the left armpit ramp positions.

It was starting to get late in the evening, and I was mentally spent from the cluster that was my initial outing on the bottom cowl cooling ramps and walls.

Since my right side baffle templates were destroyed during Hurricane Dorian (and the spinoff tornado that hit my hangar) I went ahead and taped the left side baffle templates in place on the right side, since I’m really only looking to dial in the heights at this point.

Clearly I put the front right baffle wall template into place as well.  Again, these thick paper templates are from Mike’s “Beasley Baffles.”

I’ll be attending a concert tomorrow night with Jess, so I suspect I won’t get a ton done on the build.  But I would like to get the initial trim of the right side baffles knocked out and both left and right side baffle heights dialed in enough to allow me to mount the top cowling.  Whatever time I have left I will also press forward with the bottom cowl cooling ramps and walls as well.

Since my top cowling has an increased internal height towards the front end vs the Task cowlings that Mike Beasley has and based his “Beasley Baffles” on, the front wall of my baffles will need to be 2-3″ higher than both Mike’s and what I initially marked onto my VAN’s baffles using his as a template.

The reason this is significant other than just trimming the baffle walls to the correct height, is that just above cylinder #3 & #4 on those baffle segments there are reinforcement stiffeners that cover, in part, an access hole to get a ratchet wrench extension through to remove/install spark plugs (pretty cool actually).  If I leave those reinforcement stiffeners off then I will have to contend with a row of unused rivet holes.  Cleary this wouldn’t even need to be considered if the baffles sides were significantly shorter (ok, maybe 1-2 holes top… covered by the baffle seal material).

In short, I needed to create those stiffeners out of the extrusions provided (pic #1).  Here is my effort in doing just that (pic #2).

I then spent a good 15 minutes playing ‘musical squares’ by pulling the tape off the unpainted squares and covering up the white squares on the interior panel of the aft nose/avionics cover.

I then took the cover outside and shot a few coats of black paint.  This is about an hour later… I’m not overly satisfied with the final look of the black paint, so I’ll wait the requisite 48 hours and hit it with another coat or two.

I then test-fitted the 4 baffle panels from the VAN’s kit that make up the front right half and the right side around cylinders #2 and #4.

Here’s a shot of the untrimmed right side baffles test-fitted in place.

I grabbed a shot to show that these baffles fit well and even have all the mounting screws installed (pic #1), and the front right corner is looking good as well (pic #2).

Here’s a shot from the front looking aft of the right baffles test-fitted in place.

I then took all the VAN’s baffle segments out and put the front left baffle piece in place using the cardboard template from Mike’s “Beasley Baffles.”  I extended the top with cardboard secured by tape in what I estimated would be close to interior top cowling profile.  For the last inch —mimicking baffle seal— I used gray duct tape.

I then mounted the top cowling back in place.  Here’s a shot of the lit up front baffle top edge from the back of the cowling.  I took about a half dozen more shots both from the back cowl opening and through the oil check door to give me a decent idea of what the baffle height and shape needs to be for the next round of trimming and checking.

Before I finalize the final configuration of the “smile” and the top aft center of the bottom cowling, I needed to do a no-kidding final trimming of the bottom cowling aft edge.  It was a little tricky to do because coming inboard on the top cowling, from the flat “shoulder” sections, it starts to angle aft just a bit.

I marked a loose cut line on the taped up aft edge of the bottom cowling and then trimmed it with the Fein saw.  I then used a couple of sanding boards to finish creating the final aft edge of the bottom cowling.

With the bottom cowling aft edge configuration finalized, I could then turn to finishing the top aft center area of the bottom cowling.  I must have looked and stared at it for a good 10 minutes trying to figure out what I wanted it to look like.  The problem is I had no real design goal of what I wanted it to look like, other than removing the “V” that was there previously and creating a round-shaped lip.  Well, I actually did that by glassing in the edge and creating the 3-ply CF “smile.”

After doing some judicious sanding of the curved center area (just above the fin TE) and the sides, I decided that it would take a whole lot of work and more glassing to create something that I didn’t really know what I was creating.  I made a command decision and decided this looks good enough and just to cap it with a ply of CF.

There was just one problem…. I had put duct tape covered with peel ply inside the layup to unearth when I trimmed all the “offending” lower lip structure away to reglass it.  Now I was getting lazy and just laying up a final ply on the end of this structure, as is.

I spent well over half an hour digging out the foam, tape and peel ply before then pouring in a new batch of foam (pic 1).  I pondered using dry micro, more CF, but in the end just put more foam back in this dead space (being a rascal, I thought about leaving it open and telling people that it was a “vent” for some secret engine component… ha!)

After the pour foam cured, I then shaped it for some “flox” corners just prior to laying up a singly ply of CF (pic 2).

Which I did next, using MGS with fast hardener.  I then of course peel plied the layup.

One cool thing about the VAN’s baffle (besides NOT having to cut out all the raw aluminum) is at each mounting screw hole they designed in a reinforcing doubler plate to help protect and secure the thin aluminum baffle panel.  The downside to this cool feature is that you, the builder, have to rivet all these doubler plates into place… after deburring and countersinking (or dimpling) the inside of the rivet holes.

As you can see, here are the 2 doublers for the cylinder #4 baffle segment, Clecoed in place for final rivet hole drillouts with a #40 drill bit.

And here is the cylinder #4 baffle segment with the doublers riveted in place.

Following the VAN’s baffle install manual, the next section up was the front left baffle wall.  This segment got one triangular doubler and one mounting bracket riveted onto it.

Then the doubler-adding for the left side Cylinder #3 baffle segment.

And finally, the aft side cylinders baffle segments’ doublers.  Here is the right side cylinder #2 baffle segment doublers.

I figured I would include a shot of the interior side of these baffle doubler plates riveted into place… here is the same cylinder #2 baffle segment with the doublers riveted into place.

And finally, the cylinder #1 baffle segment with the doubler plates riveted into place.  This is the one odd duck since the forward doubler plate has to be trimmed by about a third to fit into place and only gets 2 (vs 3) rivets.

All told, riveting on the baffle doubler plates took over 2.5 hours.

After taking a break and cleaning up a bit, the aft ply CF layup on the bottom cowl was cured well enough to get razor trimmed.  And even cured enough for the peel ply to pull off without any issues.

So here is the new look of my center aft top of the bottom cowling.  I kind of like the blunted look and again, couldn’t think of anything better that didn’t involve a ton of work… so I’m leaving it like this and moving on to get this plane in the air!  Tomorrow I’ll be starting the internal baffles and ramp installs for the lower cowling.  I’m sure I’ll be doing some more baffle work as well.

‘Cuz I sure did create a nice smile on the aft cowl of my bird!  But more on that in a bit…

Today was a cool but nice day with no rain.  So I wanted to get some painting done, albeit for about 10 total minutes worth.  The painted panel that I’m making up at the inside top (when open, aft when closed) of the aft nose/avionics cover measures 9″ high by 18″ wide.  I wanted to copy close to what I have on the landing brake with the red lettered “Long-EZ” and “N916WP” over a black and white checkerboard pattern.

With the 9″ x 18″ panel, my checkerboard squares are 2.25″ x 2.25″ (funny how that just happened to work out that way!).  I had to run out and buy some wider painters tape, as well as some more drill bits for my little baffle snag (below).  I then spent literally a couple of hours cutting and applying the blue tape squares.  One thing to keep in mind is that this surface is not flat, and this is also merely fun bling, so the checkerboard won’t be perfect . . . just, good enough!

After getting the tape squares on and firmly pressed in place, I then took the aft nose/ avionics cover outside and shot it with a few rounds of white paint.  Now, clearly I had already sprayed on a couple coats of white paint, so why the squares over the white paint now?

Well, white needs a good few coats to cover well, and I didn’t want a really thick build up of white, to then cover those coats with more black paint.  I wanted to keep it as thin (and light) as possible for the base coats, then add more white just where the white squares are… then clearly the black over just the couple light coats of white.  If that makes any sense.

I then moved into baffle mode… for a bit longer than I wanted or planned.  I test fitted the left front VAN’s baffle panel to see how it fit.  It took a bit of finagling at first for me to figure out how to put it on, but then I got the gist of it.  Once on (see below) it fit near perfectly… except one issue.  Which has nothing do to with the VAN’s baffle kit, but rather my engine.

The 1/4″ mounting hole for the baffle was plugged.  I’m not sure exactly how or why, but it was a flush plug that was barely visible with the engine painted (sorry, forgot to grab a shot). I hit it with a small drill bit, hoping it was something along the lines of Bondo or a cured filler, but nope, it was a flush metal plug.

I spent nearly an hour trying to get in there at different angles to drill it out, but I just didn’t have the right drill bits to do it.  My cobalt drills bits were working great, but again the angle was off and I just couldn’t get to it with the fuel spider and lines in the way (I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth now with you all screaming about that’s why it shouldn’t be up top!).

I bought some Titanium bits with the hex chuck-side fittings at Harbor Freight while I was out running errands today, and when I got back to the shop I used my flexible drill bit holder to finally get the hole drilled out and metal filler plug removed.

I then had to tap new 1/4-20 threads, but didn’t even have room for the smallest of my tap handles to fit in there with the space so tight.  I ended up having to use just a crescent wrench and the bare tap to create the threads.

But my perseverance paid off and it worked! Here is the new drilled, tapped and threaded hole below (pic #1).  I then grabbed a 1/4-20 bolt and threaded it in… it worked a treat! (pic#2)

With that, I then set the forward left VAN’s baffle segment back in place for another test fit.  As you can see, the mounting hole on the baffle piece lined up perfectly and the bolt hole worked as advertised.

The only minor issue that I could find with the left front VAN’s baffle segment is that it is a little close at the outside bottom corner to the MAP line to cylinder #3.  I’ll watch this and trim/adjust as necessary.  Other than that the baffle segment fit great!

Here’s another shot of the front left baffle segment.

Uh, Houston, we just found baffle problem #2 for the day!

As I was checking out the baffle fit above I mentally noted that with the stainless steel spider fuel line (Yup!) that runs out to cylinder #4 in its current (and for now permanent) position, that the forward brace that secures the forward baffle wall in place to the engine bolts will not fit.

Luckily I’ll be cleaning up and bringing my plasma cutting table back online soon to cut out the firewall.  With the plasma table up and running I can simply whip up a new bracket design in Fusion 360 CAD and cut it out on the table in a few minutes.

With my baffle tasks done for the day I finally got to work on the top aft center of the bottom cowling.  I assessed how I wanted the new curved aft edge to look and how I was going to go about making it.

I then made up a cardboard dam for pour foam and taped it into place.

And then whipped up a small amount of pour foam and poured it into the small space created by the taped cardboard dam.

My new pour foam is a bit finicky (I guess as the old stuff was too) and it seemed to take nearly 30 minutes total to cure.  After about 10 minutes I realized it needed some more time [hopefully, since I didn’t want to have to rip it out and repour it].

While I was waiting for the pour foam to cure, I went ahead and spent about half an hour assembling my “new” (bought a year or so back) Harbor Freight metal brake.  It went together easily enough and should make bending up baffle panels much easier than using 2x4s, clamps and a hammer!

Thankfully the pour foam finally cured and I trimmed off the overflowing excess.  Here’s a shot of that:

WARNING!  The following is for mature audiences only! Please ensure children and small pets are nowhere in the vicinity as you view the following content:

Haha!

As I was taking these pics of my bottom cowl aft edge “smile” creation, I realized they look a bit racy!  Here we have the pour foam shaped and taped up.  I then wetted out the prepregged 3-ply CF layup and also added and wetted out a G-strin… er, uh, some peel ply before laying in the CF plies.

This artwork is called “woman in yoga pants” … ha!  Or rather, the 3 plies of CF laid up and ready for peel ply.

Which I did next.

Sorry for all the risqué pics… it had to be done!  But as I stated in the opening of this post, note the new smile I created on the aft top center of the bottom cowling.  I think it looks much, much better.  Next I’ll have to finalize the design of the area beneath this new cowl lip AFTER I trim the bottom cowl aft edge to its final length to match the top cowl aft edge.

I then left the layup to cure overnight.

Finally, I’ll note that when I went back into the house I saw that Curtiss from Eureka CNC had sent an email notification that he shipped my spiffy canard and elevator templates to me… which I’ll use for the very final finish of these components pre-paint.

Inching forward…

My intent today was to knock out the top center flange on the bottom cowling, to get it cleaned up and glassed (CF) with a more pleasing rounded shape.  But that didn’t happen.  With multiple communications with different canardians regarding baffles going on throughout the day, that only served to spawn more questions, and more curiosity, on various specifics regarding my baffles.  In short, it ended up being another baffle oriented day, albeit unintentional.

My first quick task out of the gate was to simply trim the VAN’s baffle kit oil cooler support bracket that I won’t use in that manner since clearly my oil cooler is not getting mounted to the baffles as it might in some tractor aircraft.

I copied and highlighted the diagram that Mike Melvill hand drew and included in his how-to manual for his cowlings.  The diagram depicts a very basic (no dimensions) overview of the bracket he used to attach to the right side of the engine —just forward of the flywheel/alternator pulley— that supports the aft baffle shelf & skirt.

As you can see with the VAN’s oil cooler mounting bracket, it just has a few extra tabs that prevent it from being used as the Melvill bracket.  Grant it, some subsequent trimming will almost definitely be required, but the basic configuration is baked into this VAN’s bracket.

I marked the cut lines on the VAN’s bracket and lopped off the tabs on 3 sides… and Voila!  A Melvill baffling bracket I now have on hand!

I then grabbed these shots of the top center aft end of the bottom cowling.  You can see the dimple on the right side in the first pic… that snuck in on me as it cured I’m guessing because it looked very symmetrical to me when I laid it up.  Oh, well.

The second pic shows a piece of tape I placed to represent about how I’m going to round off this back end.  I will then lop off all the rest of the top center CF and rebuild it to make it look presentable.

As I started in my efforts to rework the top center of the bottom cowling, I needed to remove the top cowling first.  I figured I would go ahead and get the countersinks drilled to allow me to use CS screws in the 2 screw positions on the top cowling.

Here we have the drilled countersunk screw hole on the left side, with the right side looking the same.  My 3 plies of CF apparently did the trick since you might note that the countersink does NOT go all the way to the inside of the cowling (i.e. making the screw hole bigger than it should be for a #10 screw).

I then spent a few minutes rifling through my Tinnerman-style washers to find the good SS ones… and then threaded in the CS screws.  They look great in my opinion and I have to again thank my buddy Dave B. for a well-deserved nudge!

Here’s where my plan went south.  Remember, I’m having comms with Steve Beert, Marco, Mike Toomey, et al, regarding baffles and baffle seals.  My curiosity got the best of me and I drug some baffle pieces out to the shop.

I didn’t get pics of them, but I also trimmed down the left and right aft VAN’s baffle segments that I plan to use to create the shelf segment of the aft shelf & skirt.

Here we have the VAN’s left side baffle segments in place.  You can clearly see that they are much too tall to fit under the cowling and obviously will need trimmed down a good bit.  That being said, it’s nice to have baffles that without a single cut slide right into place onto the cylinders… hoo-ah!

To get an actual bead on the height required for my side baffles, I then removed the VAN’s baffles and cut screw holes in Mike Beasley’s “Beasley Baffles” poster board cutouts I have… remember, these things went through both a hurricane and a tornado, so they are a little bit beat up and discolored.  BUT, they are working for my purposes here (the right side baffle templates were ruined by excessive water damage).

Using the Long-EZ plans as a guide, I’m looking for 1/2″ to 3/4″ perimeter gaps between baffles and top cowling, except at the cylinders which will be around a 3/4 to 1″ gap.  With that in mind, I peeked up into the aft cowl opening to check out the the cowl gaps with Mike’s “Beasley Baffles” in place [Point of note: Mike has the Task style cowlings, which is considerably different than my Melvill cowlings].

I also peeked at the baffle template mockups through the oil check door, and could tell they were a little short on the aft two-thirds across the left side, and considerable too short on the front third.  I added some tape and after a couple of iterations was able to get the approximate 3/4″ to 1″ gap I was looking for.

Here’s another shot from the aft end with the added and trimmed tape in place.

With my initial baffling mockups in the bag, and my education on baffles increased exponentially throughout the day, I then did one more quick task before calling it a night… I cracked open the case, a virtual treasure chest if you will, that has my long-ago bought metal brake inside.

I bought the metal brake to use for any metal bending I might need to do on any project, but specifically for bending aluminum baffle pieces for this bird.  I did a quick inventory, grabbed the instruction manual, and then headed into the house.

Tomorrow I do plan on getting back to working the top center lip of the bottom cowl, but I have to say both yesterday and today were very motivational in learning just how doable these baffles are.  Pressing forward!

Today was all about baffles.  As I’m letting the cowling side interfaces get a good multi-day cure, and it being a grey rainy day, I hunkered down and just did a ton of research and planning.

The first half of the day was mainly about the inter-cylinder baffles.  I very likely have access to some molds that will allow me to make all the inter-cylinder baffles out of carbon fiber… not too shabby.

But then comes a requirement for hi-temp epoxy.  It’s not mandatory, and I even found a forum post where Klaus thinks MGS 285 with slow hardener would fit the bill.  But I actually may not have enough MGS 285 to do a project like making a whole set of inter-cylinder baffles.

After talking to Steve Beert and Mike Beasley, and doing a ton more research, I finally pulled the trigger on some HTR-212 high temp epoxy from ACS.  While it is higher temp than MGS 285, it’s not as hi-temp as the Max HTE that Steve recommended.  However, one major advantage that the HTR has is that doesn’t have to be post cured on the mold like Max HTE does.

So as I transitioned into assessing my entire baffle requirements as a whole, I went back and reread the build plans (yes, it is for an O-235), pinged Marco with some questions on his bird (he responded at one point with a link to a great post that covered his baffles), reread Mike Melvill’s cowling install instructions —which includes pics and diagrams regarding his baffles, and did a myriad of searches in the old CSA articles and the newer COBA ones as well.

I then started constructing my plan.  I had brought all the parts from my VAN’s baffle kit into my living room last night (I can do that cuz I’m not married!) and separated them into categories.  Today I then took different parts out to the shop to physically and visually assess how they would fit into my cowls and on my engine.

One of the complaints that I hear Canardians state about the VAN’s baffle kit is that you essentially get 3/4 of a kit: the forward (accessory side), the left and the right.  Since our aft end is their intake end, supposedly the kit doesn’t work for that side and you have to build it all from scratch.

But I disagree.

Mainly because I had an Ace up my sleeve: a cut out version of Mike Beasley’s “Beasley Baffles.”  Using Mike Beasley’s segments for the aft end, where the aft “skirt” drops down to create the aft wall with openings for the alternator, starter, and exhaust pipes (and oil cooler too if you have it on the back baffle wall), I was able to identify how to modify the front inlet segments of the VAN’s baffles to create the top “shelf” of this “skirt” with flanges to mount the lower vertical wall to…

Now, it won’t be as sexy as Mike Toomey’s one-piece aft baffle skirt/wall pictured above, but it will serve the purpose with the least amount of effort, materials and expense to get these baffles done.  Moreover, it allows me to keep the VAN’s cross section parts that butt up to the aft of the cylinders on each side to then be able to have ready available mounting holes for the side pieces, brackets, etc.

After going through the VAN’s install manual page by page, assessing literally every piece to decide whether I could use it or not (I would say I “tossed” about a quarter of the kit), I then got to work on getting some of the parts that needed disassembly (aka cut apart) knocked out.

Here are two 90° extrusions that are actually 3-4 parts apiece after they’re cut up.  Also in the pic is a reinforcement plate for a baffle-securing bolt hole.

After I took the Dremel Tool to the extrusions, I was left with all my usable pieces in the bottom of the pic, while the 2 pieces at the top are excess.

When I get to it I’ll point it out, but there is literally an included bracket in the VANs kit that is used to hold up an oil cooler if you choose to mount it in the aft wall (our forward wall) of the baffles.  Well, this bracket —with a bit of trimming— will work perfectly as a bracket Mike Melvill drew up in his cowling install manual to make up for the baffles.  More significant work avoided! <wink>

Ok, although I didn’t get a lot of physical work done in the shop today, I think I have a pretty darn good grasp on my baffle plan.  And with that folks, I’m calling it a night!

I started off today by pulling the peel ply on the right side ‘final’ CF layup that created the top cowling skin over the inter-cowl-connecting flange.

I then pulled the top cowling, cleaned up the edges of the flanges and the new top cowl added “skins” (both sides) as well as pulled the tape and cleaned up the bottom cowl edges.

I also trimmed and sanded the added CF plies to the top cowl screw holes and redrilled those holes out.

I then remounted the top cowl to check out my interface seam between top and bottom cowling on each side.  Not bad and all… and very workable with a little blemish-hiding micro!

I realize that over the past couple weeks I haven’t really gotten an all-encompassing aft end shot.  I did a good little bit of cleanup around the strakes and wing tops to get a more presentable shot here, clearly with the spinner temporarily in place.  Yes, the spinner is in focus and the cowl opening sides are not, but you can certainly make out the size and shape of the aft cowl openings.  The outer edges of the openings ended up being a hair over 2.5″ high.

Here we have a couple of shots, from both left and right angles, showing the aft cowling opening, the new aft sides and a bit of the interface between top and bottom cowlings.

I’m leaving the ~5/16″ spacers in place between the top cowling and spinner for a good week minimum as the final curing of the side CF takes place to ensure I maintain that gap.  I’ll also be glassing in a cowl stiffener across the aft inside end of the bottom cowling which should not only help keep the newly made outer panels of the lower cowling stiffer, but also help keep the top cowling in its position as well.

These shots focus more on just the aft opening of the cowling, with the interfacing sides of the cowlings.  My next near-final tweak on the cowling will be re-doing the top center lip on the bottom cowling, just below the spinner flow guide, to make it rounder and more symmetrical.

I spent a good half hour sanding around the vinyl letters I placed on the upper inside panel of the aft nose/avionics cover.  After a good cleanup I then hit it with 2 light coats of primer, followed by 2 light coats of white paint.

I’ll let it cure for a couple of days, tape off my checkerboard pattern and then hit it again with 2 coats of white.  I’ll then pull the checkerboard squares off, cover the white squares and then shoot the black paint.

I’ve also been doing a rather deep dive on my engine baffles.  As a reminder, I have the VANs baffle kit on hand for an O-320 motor.  These baffles take care of the front  (accessory case), left, and right sides, but the prop/exit side will have to be built from scratch.  Also, I’m fairly certain that I’m going to be able to get my hands on some molds for the interior baffles to make them out of CF.  More on that.

And yes, I do have mental plans on how to button up the plane to start sanding and micro-finishing the top areas to finish for paint.

But one step at a time in finishing this bird up!

This morning I started off by pulling the peel ply from the top cowl left/bottom/aft side’s “final” CF layup.  Of course with caveats that I may do a small filler layup in a spot or few.  I then cleaned up the edges and small bits of overhanging CF.  Again, I’ll need to lean on micro to completely clean up the surface, but it looks really good.

Since the pic above seems to make the side of the big aft cowl opening look like it slants outward —just perspective— I grabbed this shot below to show that isn’t the case.

I then pulled the peel ply of the right side’s 3-ply CF layup, and cleaned it up for another round of CF.

I then assessed the surface, measured, made templates and cut out CF plies for the final layup on this right side.

Then, again using MGS 285, I laid up the puzzle that is the final layup on this right side… with the same caveats as the left side of course!

I then peel plied the layup.

I found my next task laced with a bit of irony.  My reasoning for installing a screw on each side of the leading edge of the top and bottom cowlings is based on a recommendation from Wayne Blackler, who himself had lost CAMLOCs due to the pressure from the oncoming air.  Having armpit scoops on the bottom cowling especially, and know that the air flowing over the curved wing shape of top cowling wants to pull the cowlings out, I thought it a good idea to follow Wayne’s advice.  That was Round 1 over 10 years ago.

Circle back around to these screws, and Dave Berenholtz was having a recent conversation with Wayne about mounting depths for various screws.  Wayne noted to Dave that going into composite material it’s 66.7%, so for CF it needs to be 3/2 X countersink depth.  The example Dave gave is that a 3/16″ MS24693 screw has 0.080″ countersink depth, therefore you need 0.120″ thick CF.  The main issue is that the hole grows into a big dish and alignment gets sacrificed.

The thickness of my cowling varies quite along the front edge.  At the screw holes positions one side is right at about 0.070″ and the other is around 0.074″.  I told Dave I’d probably just use button heads at these points to get this bird in the air.  That’s when Dave got ruthless, using intense peer pressure tactics to let me know if I did that, all the other Long-EZ owners would point, sneer and laugh at my bird for looking so dumb… (hahaha! Just kidding!) He did note that it’s better to do a little work now and use countersunk screws for it to look classy vs screws that look like an afterthought.
Big sigh….  Yep, he’s right.

But I did compromise in only adding 3 more plies.  At 0.011″ thick per ply I’m well over 0.1″ on each side now, and to minimize a thicker bump requiring even more micro fill than I’ll require on this bird, I stuck with that configuration: as you see below. If I find the amount of meat is lacking, then I’ll throw another ply over all of these overlapping further onto the cowling.

Here we have the 3 plies CF for the left side screw hole, which I then wetted out.  Yes, I know the layup is a bit wet, as I used the peel ply to soak up the excess epoxy.

I then did the same thing on the left side.  Here are both sides with the 3 plies CF laid up and peel plied.

I then spent the next hour for arts n crafts… gotta have some creativity on these birds!  I used Jess’s Cricut that she has at my house to make up another set of vinyl letters (just like the landing brake) and then spent a good little bit centering them and getting them onto the curved inside surface of the aft nose/avionics cover.  I was going to do a round of painting, but it was getting later in the evening and I need to do a decent bit of sanding and prep before the next round of paint goes on… so I figured starting tomorrow that I would do a bit on this each day until this sideline project is finished.

Instead of doing the next round of painting on the aft nose/avionics cover, I decided to knock out another small task on my list: opening up the buried threaded inserts on the leading edge of each wing for the baggage pods.  I’ll note that all the other threaded screw inserts on the bottom of the wings are open and ready for the baggage pods (I know, a bit out of order but I wanted to install those while the wings were inverted).

Opening up access to the threaded inserts here was really like opening up a time capsule.  You see, early on in my build I learned a great hack from Marco on filling threaded inserts, platenuts, rivnuts, etc. with plastic Saran wrap to keep the epoxy, micro or flox out of the threads.  And since that little hack worked such a treat, I’ve been doing it ever since.  So whenever I drill into a threaded insert, I expect the drill bit to grab a bunch of plastic wrap and to pull a big plug of it out.  It’s satisfying in the same way pulling peel ply is!

But these were finished before I learned that hack.  When I drilled the holes out of the overlying glass, I saw nothing but threads… what the?  Then I remembered I just used a small roundel of duct tape over the hole to protect the threads.  Apparently that worked a treat as well…  the crazy little things in these builds.

I then rounded up some test bolt/screws to thread into the inserts to ensure all was good… perfect.  No issues whatsoever.  Task complete!

Tomorrow my goal is to start back on the exhaust pipe clearance assessment and working the bottom cowling baffles/ramps.  In addition I’ll make another attempt to contact my MIA exhaust pipe welder, James.  I’ll also note that I reviewed the install manual for the VAN’s O-320 engine baffle kit I have and will most likely start playing around with that a bit as well.  Moving forward . . .