Today I started out spending about 30-45 minutes per wing shaping the leading edge light pocket and also trimming down the light lenses on the top and bottom edges to get the respective lenses to sit flush within the wing light pocket/lens cutout.  I wasn’t overly thrilled about having to take the Fein saw to the lenses again, but it was the only way to get them to fit flush without making the light pockets deeper than they already were.

I started on the right wing (pic 1) and finished up on the left (pic 2).

I ran string across the back of rudders to create a reference line 90° to the centerline of the plane.  Then, using a large T-square up against the string, I marked parallel to that line to obtain the aft pocket wall, again 90° perpendicular to aircraft centerline (on green tape).

By shaping and aligning the light pocket internal aft wall this way, then by mounting the light parallel to the internal aft wall automatically gets you a straight, forward facing light.  That being said, I’ll still probably angle the light in a few degrees in the aim (literally, pardon the pun!) to get the beams to touch 150-200′ in front of the plane.

Again, I did this on both the right (pic 1) and left (pic 2) wings [you can just barely see the string at the top of pic #1].

I then dug the foam out of the right wing leading edge light pocket and shaped it in prep for glass.  Note that the dark spot in inboard corner is the wing cable conduit, and this will be the spot where this wing leading edge light’s wires will enter the cable conduit.  I’ll note that being forward of and leaving the vast majority of the wing cable conduit hidden is NOT how Nick Ugolini does his version of these wing lights, but rather he makes the pocket deeper and exposes the entire cable conduit and runs the cables behind the light bracket.  This results in a hole on each side wall of the pocket where the conduit enters one side, and exits the other (or obviously vise versa, you get my point).

This little inboard corner conduit access/not exposing the majority of the conduit trick is one I picked up from the Cozy Girrrls during our discussion.  I’ll further note that it does make the placement of the 3 light bracket standoffs a little trickier, since that conduit needs to be avoided… so some educated guessing comes into play to not block off that cable conduit whilst installing the light bracket!

To verify my wing light pocket aft wall during foam removal and shaping, I simply used the tip of my LED shop light to shine it through the fiberglass wing skin and Voila… reference position known!

I then repeated the process on the left wing leading edge light pocket.  Now, I’ll again note that I’m clearing the foam out of these light pockets by hand using a cheap box cutting razor knife (narrow long blade) and a hacksaw blade.  I’m almost “shaving” the surface of the foam by scraping it as to have no major chunks break out past the dimensions, and to not overshoot my pocket dimensions.  Needless to say, it took a good little bit of time on both sides to clear these pockets.  And again, you can see the cable conduit peaking out in the inboard corner of the pocket.

I also again employed my shop LED light tip trick to verify the aft wall depth as compared to my 90°-to-AC-centerline reference line up top on the green tape.

Besides annotating a bunch of notes regarding upcoming tasks regarding these wing leading edge lights, my last official act of the evening was simply getting a visual on how the actual light assemble will look once mounted inside my left wing leading edge light pocket.  I think we’re getting there!

…. slowly but surely.  Pushing onward!

For what seems like should be a rather straightforward sub-project has had many twists and turns in the methodology, tasks and requirements to get it done.  In my notes from discussing the installation and creation of the wing leading edge lights with Nick Ugolini, he reiterated the importance of using an angled wood block jig for drilling the holes into the back wall of the wing LE light pocket to then install the 3-legged light bracket.

Now, I have a picture of this wood block jig, so I have a good idea of its overall size, angles and dimensions.  I also have a diagram of the light pocket that Nick sent me… the problem I was having was reconciling the two together in my mind to make it work. And as I tried for nearly an hour first thing this morning to cobble it all together in CAD. It just wasn’t working.

So I decided to ask Nick what the deal was… but kind of a funny thing is when I went to text him, I saw that my last text to him nearly a year ago was regarding the wing leading edge lights as well.  His reply was along the lines, of: “It was too long ago for me to remember, ask Randi and Chrissi since they just did it recently!”

Haha… fair enough (and I know how he feels!).  So, I didn’t bug Nick and went straight into an hour+ long consultation with Chrissi and Randi (aka “The Cozy Girrrls”) on the wing leading edge lights.  And I’m glad I did because I confirmed in my mind that the jig was NOT a mandatory, critical component to this task.  And I got a few tips and tricks as well on creating these lights.  Thanks Girrrls!

Ok, so a few hours of my day was gone… lost to information gathering.  But always better to have good intel in hand, so no major worries.

In the shop I grabbed a shot of my wing leading edge light lens and pocket perimeter cutout template.  This is for the left wing.  Clearly if you simply flip it around it works for the right wing.

I then spent about 5 minutes removing the initial exposed foam out of the wing leading edge light pockets.  And then a good 45 minutes more doing some initial edge sanding on the pocket edges and writing out notes from my assessments.

It’s “funny” in building a Long-EZ how a “simple” task can still be simple, but can take so long to get it done.  Well, that was the case with getting the layups done on the wing leading edge light pockets’ carbon fiber flanges.

I started with cutting the carbon fiber: 2 whole plies, a ply of maybe 2 pieces, and then a 4th ply (buried in the middle) of cobbled together wide edge strips (think picture frame). I also cut a piece of peel ply to cover both sides of these layups.  And let’s note forget the plastic sheets for pre-pregging all this!  [“Poor man’s pre-preg” I’ll remind you all…]

I then again spent way longer than I expected removing the cotton material from inside the splashes and taping up the inside —first with blue painters tape, then 2 plies of black gorilla duct tape, and then topped off with clear packing tape for a nice mold release.

I then wetted out the 4 plies of carbon fiber and after they were good to go, opened up the prepregs and added the peel ply.  Once all was nice and wetted out (of course not too wet!) I trimmed the edges and laid each layup in its respective splash.

I left the inside plastic on until I got a good squeegee in on all the flange carbon fiber surfaces, making sure it was settled in nicely to the splash.  Because the weather is cooler, I set a couple of heat lamps up off just a bit away enough to keep the ambient temp nice and warm for a good cure.  Then I left them to cure overnight.

Again, I had planned on doing a lot more than just these flange layups, but man were these things a time bust!  Regardless, they are done and curing now, so another task off the list.

And no major worries, as I’ve said countless times: I’ll just keep pressing forward!

I started off today using my laser crosshairs to verify the vertical cut lines on the leading edge light pockets (I did this on the right side as well).

I started on the left side by making up a tape outline of the lens cutout.  I then placed lens blank #1 over the tape outline, traced it onto the lens with a non-permanent whiteboard marker and cut the lens to the shape.

I discovered that, unfortunately, if you don’t thoroughly tape up the lens that you may get a small crack as I did on the left (inboard) side of this lens.

So lens #2 got all sorts of taped up on both the interior and exterior surfaces before I started cutting with the Fein saw (pic 1), and this time it cut without any unwanted cracks (pic 2).  This is exactly why I made at least 2 lenses for each side!

Here we have uncracked lens #2 with the tape peeled off (pic 1), and back in place for a test fit (pic 2).  Then, after I retaped the lens and cleaned up the edges, I used this lens to do a final outline on the wing leading edge to cut out the perimeter of the light pocket.

Here we have the perimeter of the light pocket marked for cutout (pic 1) and after cutout doing a quick check fit of the taped lens (pic 2).  Not surprisingly a bit more refinement will be required on the perimeter cut for the lens to fit just right.

And here we have a wider angle shot of the left wing light pocket —with all the protective tape removed— initial cut on the leading edge.

I then did pretty much the same thing on the right side with both lenses.  Here we have lens #1 taped in place (pic 1) and the initial perimeter cut made on the lens (pic 2).  I’ll note that I made a copy of the lens outline of the left side, flipped it and applied it to the right side… so both sides’ lens size and shape are very close to each other.

I then cut out lens #2 and set it back in place after the final cuts (pic 1), and then removed it to show the green lens template (that I copied/mirrored from the left wing) underneath (pic 2).  [Note: in my haste to get this done, I labeled lens #2: “Lens #1 red” and lens #1: “Lens #2 blue” to denote the color of ink I was using to outline each lens on the leading edge to assess my final cut line].

I then used the Fein saw to cut out the lens perimeter on the right wing leading edge for the light pocket.

I then test fit both lenses back in the right wing leading edge light pocket cutout.

And just as the left wing, here we have all the protective tape pulled and the right wing leading edge light pocket ready for further install tasks.

My primary goal for tomorrow will be to convert the splashes by adding tape to the insides of those and using them to layup 3-ply carbon fiber flanges that will go just inside the wing skin and provide a mounting surface to secure the lenses in place on the wings… nice and flush with the wing surface.

To be clear: I’m knocking out these wing leading edge lights now to clean up all the collateral install “damage” so that these light installs will be complete and clean prior to primer and paint.

If you find him, or know of one, can you tell him that I’m looking for him?!  Haha

I started off today by pulling the left wing splash off the wing, cleaning it up and trimming it around the edges.

I then did the same thing on the right wing leading edge light splash.

I deferred working any more on the splashes until later in evening, and got to work doing the final sanding on the left strake leading edge RAM air intake.  I sanded the epoxy-wiped internal expansion tube first with 100 grit, then 120 and finally wet sanded it with 150 grit.  That whole process took well over 30 minutes.

Then I spent about another 30 minutes using the orbital sander to knock down the added micro fill on both strakes’ lower leading edges.  My goal was to get them to a state where I could re-epoxy wipe them and be done with them, but I think the contouring of these lower leading edges is a bit more nuanced than I want to deal with upside down. In short, I think there is a fuselage flip coming up in the near future (for a number of different reasons).

I then re-drilled the top cowling’s right shoulder CAMLOC hole and remounted the top cowl.  I am very happy to report that my oil-canning issue on this right shoulder has been eliminated.  There is no depression of the cowl lip as I install the CAMLOC, and it is rock solid.  However, since the cowl lip is much higher now than when I put micro on the right shoulder, I will need to add micro to match the strake shoulder to cowling edge for final contour finishing.

I had also sanded down the edge of the micro-fill on the strake side of the top cowl-strake intersection seam, but there is still just a tad too much material in the way for the top cowl right corner to sit flat against the flange.  Thus, one more cowl OFF will be required before I get a “final” sand on the right side horizontal transition fill of the top cowl.

With the top cowl back on the bird, I then used my sanding blocks to knock down even more of the micro fill on the top center spline and aft lip areas.  With 80 grit on the orbital sander I also hit the open areas of the carbon fiber skin to rough that up for some upcoming epoxy wipes.

I took 45 minutes to do yet another round of sweeping and vacuuming the shop floor around the bird, slowly trying to clean up all the micro dust as most of my micro fill jobs are on a much smaller scale now and the cleanup more manageable… although the entire shop is still covered in a fine layer of micro dust.  I try to knock out a significant cleanup round once a day in the shop…. bit by bit.

Back in the house I configured the splashes for some plexiglass lens-making by finding an old white T-shirt, ironing it to remove any wrinkles, cutting out a piece for each splash and taping the cotton material into place (see 2nd-to-last pic below).

With 3 of my previous lenses that I made and discussed in a post (there were 4, one is hiding somewhere in that shop) I did a test to see if I could heat them up, flatten them back into essentially raw plexiglass stock again and start over.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that was indeed the case and not overly difficult to do… one just has to watch the heat exposure and time, as is always the case during any shaping of plexiglass.

I tried out my new “retread” process on the 2 throw-away scrap lenses first, and those worked fairly well with some minor tweaks to the process.  Lens #3 was a viable good candidate I had made months ago, and fortunately I was able to flatten it, heat it up to temp (300° F) and form it in the left wing splash.  I then test fit on the left wing leading edge (below).  I then used a brand new piece of 8″ x 8″ plexiglass and made a pretty decent lens for the right side, which is sitting on the left wing top below…

… and which I then test fit on the right wing leading edge light location.  I taped the lenses in place (in case the squirrels decided to do something even crazier) and closed up the shop for the night, as it was getting late in the evening.

Back in the house I used fresh new plexiglass stock for another left and right side leading edge light lens, respectively.  I started with the left side, where the heating and timing were about perfect.  It went in the splash nicely and I formed it around to ensure it cooled pressed as flush into the splash as possible.

However, as it started to cool I could feel 2 very minor bumps in the center leading edge curve.  Once cooled, sure enough when I pulled it from the splash I had a couple ripples, or bumps, in the center leading edge.  Not huge, but definitely noticeable if this were mounted on the bird.  So, my new plexiglass lens immediately became a “retread” as I heated it back up (in my kitchen oven, due to its height) and then remolded it in the splash once to temp.  Thankfully round 2 went fine and I got a good left lens out of it.  Even more thankfully is that I didn’t have any issues with forming another right side lens in the right splash.

Here we have another right side lens (#2) pulled from its splash after it cooled.

Tomorrow I’ll finalize the shape and angle of the leading edge light opening on the wings, make sure they match and are symmetrical, and then trace that opening onto all the lenses I’ve made.  I’ll then cut the lenses to shape, clean up the edges and use the best lens from each side as the template for the final markup on the wing leading edge to then cut out the light pocket.

Once my leading edge light lenses look squared away, and the light pockets cut out, I’ll then pull the cotton material out of the splashes and tape them up to use as a mold for a 3-ply carbon fiber layup for the leading edge light mounting flanges.  Clearly one for each side.

Get ‘er done!

Late yesterday afternoon when I walked into the shop I realized I had been the victim of yet another squirrel assault in that they took out 3 light bars by gnawing through the wires.  I spent about 20 minutes assessing what damage they did, but since I was working on the top cowling and had light in the center of the shop, I just left these lights inop for now and didn’t spend time to fix them.

I was met with more of the same today, this time they took down the whole front center bay ring of LED light bars.  Only the old original shop fluorescent light bar was left operational.  I took the time to repair these front bay lights as well as the two light bars next to each other in the first pic above.  Then at some point in the evening, the splice on the nubs they left on the first light gave out and I lost the front bay lights again. I just left them until tomorrow as I finished up my layups (below).

Now, before I ever even went out to the shop, I had brunch with Jess and had a couple of activities somewhat holiday related.  So I again got back home later in the afternoon.

I then took a couple of hours to finalize my research and my build plan for the wings’ outboard leading edge lights.  The big change is I decided that I needed to make splashes, which are a fancy name for molds of the wing LE where the lights will be located.  These splashes will be used to both make the light lenses, as well as the internal flange that each lens will attach to.

To make the splashes, I first applied yellow adhesive film to each wing and marked up my light location and shape.  I then covered my markups with clear plastic packing tape as my mold release.  I then cut 2 plies of BID off the roll for each side, and 2 larger single pieces of UNI from scraps for each side.  I then used some larger scraps of BID and UNI to cobble together another 1.5-2 plies more for each side.  I also gathered up 4 paint stir sticks (2 per side) to use as the splash reinforcement cross piece on both the top and bottom side of the splash.

Here we have the top of the right wing leading edge light splash (pic 1) and the left wing splash (pic 2).

And then bottom side of the right wing splash (pic 1) and the left wing splash (pic 2).  The duct tape is to hold the paint stir sticks tight against the wing and the glass (I repaired the tape on the bottom outboard side of the left wing splash).

I had a lot more on my to-do list for the night of course, but the light issue knocked me back at least an hour.  Tomorrow I’ll fix the front bay lights and get back to finalizing the finishing tasks on the strake bottom leading edges, the top cowling and wing LE lights.

Pressing forward!

As I’m gearing up to install my wing leading edge landing/wig-wag lights I need a quick way to identify 67°, which is of course parallel to aircraft centerline.  It’s also the same angle that we install our vortilons on the wings’ leading edges.  Of course in the Roncz canard plans there is an included outline of a Vortilon Installation Jig, which I made up way back in 2012.  But with it having been drenched in the hurricane/tornado that hit my old hangar, it’s seen better days.

I also wanted something that carried that 67° both up & down vertically, as well as over/ under the wing a bit for easier vertical alignment when I install the vortilons. With vertical tabs of the jig 90° to the horizontal leading edge segment it will also allow me to mark the edges of the wing leading edge light pocket.  So I ginned up a new and improved jig in rather short order in CAD, and 3D printed it out.  Not bad and it works as designed!

I then got around to knocking down the micro’d aft vertical and underside trailing edge of the top cowling on both sides with 80 grit sandpaper on the orbital sander.  I then switched to a sanding board to hand sand the left side (pic 1) and the right (pic 2)… with both sides looking obviously much better than pre-micro.

Another couple shots of the sanded micro on the aft end of the top cowling, on the left side (pic 1) and the right (pic 2).

I’m still getting a slight bit of oil canning on the right side shoulder bump, where the upper cowling is secured to the bird.  So on the CAMLOC flange I added a single ply of BID, 2.5″ wide and peel plied the layup.

On the inside lip of the top cowling I added 2 plies of carbon fiber: the first 2.5″ wide and the next 1.5″ wide.  I then peel plied that layup as well.  Tomorrow I’ll redrill the CAMLOC holes and see if my added glass/CF eliminates the oil canning.

Tonight is a date night with Jess, and having gotten a late start on the bird this afternoon, I wanted to get some epoxy curing… so my next and final task for the evening was whipping up some micro/West 410 and applying it all along the underside of the strake leading edge, both on the right strake here and the left as well.

I then closed up shop and headed for a nice evening out with Jess.

Rock n’ roll!

I started out the first half of the day today at the airport helping Guy Williams fix his right main gear, which had the wheel leaning inboard a bit too much; which was allowing the brake disc to rub against the heat shield, and eventually a bit on the gear leg as well (not too bad though).  Was this a result of some other heat causing issue?  Or was this THE heat causing issue?

Kind of a chicken vs egg scenario here on what the initial heat issue was, but the bottom line as you can see from the looks of the normal left gear leg (pic 1) versus the right gear leg (pic 2)… there was a definite need for some intervention.

With a couple of hair dryers and laser thermometer in hand, we essentially heat soaked the right gear leg just above the axle and got it up to about 177° F max temp.  Most temp readings were in the 150-160° F range.  I had Guy buy a rather robust steel pipe, about 2′ long, which we slid over the axle.  This helped not only provide weighted pressure to help motivate the axle/gear leg to pivot back inboard, but also gave us an indicator as to if and how much movement was actually occurring.

It took about 2 hours total of heating, watching and assessing, but the bottom gear leg definitely pivoted very slowly back very close to its original position.  By using a level and taking some measurements after we had it setting fully on both gear legs, I estimate that if we had spent another 45-60 minutes we may have been able to get the last 1/4″ back to get much closer to exactly matching the left gear.  But our initial assessment showed it was definitely very close to good as we left out to go to lunch and let the gear leg cool down to ambient temperature.

The bottom line is that Guy is happy and we both are very confident that this dog will hunt!

Now, back in my shop I knocked out the sanding of the round 2 application of micro inside the left strake RAM air scoop tube… which was a little rough inside.  With the micro sanded to a nice smooth tube shape, I then epoxy wiped the sanded micro/inside tube over the remainder of the evening.  I got 3 epoxy wipe coats in total.

I had already cheese grated the micro I had added to the top cowling, and tonight I prepped and mounted the top cowling back on the bird.  I will note that just prior to installing the cowling, I sanded down the wing seam areas that interface with the cowling side edges.

I then gave the micro’d areas a thorough initial sanding using my orbital sander with an 80 grit disc.

Now, as I was installing the cowling, I put the majority of the left side CAMLOCs in first, and didn’t realize that the front right corner of the top cowling was not seating well with the wing & strake edges.  So I didn’t sand the front right side of the top cowling tonight, and will work that tomorrow.

I did tape up and prep the bottom side trailing edges and aft vertical ‘walls’ of the top cowling in prep for micro.

And then whipped up some micro/West 410 and slathered it on both sides of the top cowling.  Again, I’ll note that except for a few minor adds or fills, this pretty much completes the major micro filling for the top cowling.  In addition, I will be adding phenolic “washers” at the CAMLOC mounting hole positions to ensure the holes don’t break down or crack over time due to use (as SO many composite aircraft cowlings do).

I also spent a good bit of time both inside the house and at the plane assessing and attempting to finalize my wing leading edge landing/wig-wag lights install plan.  Here’s a quick teaser of where the left wing leading edge light pocket will get installed.

And with that, I called it a night.  And yes…
still pressing forward!

I had a good, in-depth discussion with Shane Banquer yesterday regarding my baggage pods that he has to make molds from, as well as a number of other various points regarding painting.

We discussed the pros and cons of painting the aileron and rudder hinges, at which time I told Shane I was thinking about crafting an insert that would slide into the hinge notches to protect both the hinge pin holes and interfacing edges from getting paint applied in or on.  Well, here is the result of that discussion: a test insert for painting the hinges, IF I decide to go that route.

I then spent a good bit of time sanding the epoxy wiped right wing leading edge, first with 80 grit on my orbital to knock it down a good bit.  Then I used a 30″ board to wet sand it with 150 grit.  I’m happy to report at this point, that besides a final scuffing and cleanup, the right wing/aileron (top) and winglet/rudder is ready for primer and paint.

I spent another good hour working primarily the left aileron’s middle hinge configuration and internal hinge clearance, which once completed eliminated that awful middle hinge squawking.

As I assessed the final left aileron install and configuration, I decided I wasn’t happen with the middle hinge gap with the wing notch it sits in… it was too big forward of the hinge and wasn’t tight like all the other (at this point) hinge notch gaps (sorry, no ‘before’ pic).  I realized if I didn’t fix it now that I would regret it later on… so I removed the aileron, temporarily attached a taped-up stir stick to the underside edge of the notch, and slathered on some flox that I whipped up using MGS 285 epoxy (pic 1).  A few hours later I removed the taped stir stick to reveal the floxed edge on its own (pic 2).

I did essentially this same process on the left aileron inboard hinge notch and the left rudder bottom hinge notch as well, but didn’t document either of those… so I thought I would show you what I’m up to here.  I did a rough sand of the added flox to knock down the high spots (pic 1) and then marked the “cut to” line just a hair aft of the actual edge line I want (pic 2).

I cut the flox edge up to the marked line using the “Fein” saw (pic 1) before finalizing the sanding and shaping of the left aileron middle hinge added flox edge (pic 2).

A little while later I reinstalled the left aileron, and here’s what it looks like.  Much, much better… albeit I still may add a scooch of micro now on the inboard (right) side to close up THAT gap a hair (yes, unending!).

At this point it was finally time to trim the wing-to-winglet fairings respective trailing edges.  To have the TEs perpendicular to aircraft CL I ran a string across the trailing edge of the rudders just where they met the fairing wall aft top edge (I’ll note that the prerequisite task to do this was sanding down the epoxy wiped outboard front corner of the right rudder, then installing the rudder back into place).

I then realized that to get a better cut mark I needed the string to be below the fairing, so repositioned it on each side.  I then marked the left fairing TE for cutting (pic 1) and the right fairing as well (pic 2).

I then took a dinner break to spend a few hours with Jess.

Upon my return to the shop I knocked out cutting the aft edge of the left winglet intersection fairing (pic 1) and the right fairing’s aft edge too (pic 2).

Here we have a couple more representative shots of the cut aft edge of the left winglet intersection fairing.

Again, I’m even more happy to report that the left wing/aileron (top) and winglet/rudder meet my minimum requirements for primer and paint!

Tomorrow I’ll finish up any minor tasks on the wings, winglets and strakes as I press on with the top and bottom cowling paint prep, as well as the centerline fuselage and canopy interface finalization for micro finishing.

I started out today by spending a couple hours at the airport with Guy Williams putting the new wing lift jacks to the test… which they passed splendidly.  I do plan on modifying them with some type of positive stop to not rely solely on the bottle jack for keeping the wing/strake elevated, but that’s a minor issue.

Again, Guy is dealing with a warped main gear leg on the right side, almost certainly caused from braking heat damage.  He’s assessing his options for repairing it.

Back in my shop, I started by knocking down the right winglet LE cured epoxy wipes with an 80 grit disc on the orbital sander.

I then used a long sanding board to sand down another round of micro/West 410 that I had added to the initial added fill to the right wing leading edge.  I’ll note that the LE still isn’t laser straight, but it’s much, much straighter and will be very close to spot on straight once I add a few rounds of primer and sand those down.

With sanding complete, I epoxy wiped the right wing leading edge with 4 rounds.

Along with the right wing leading edge above, I also epoxy wiped the outboard right rudder… which I had sanded down some micro/West 410 (leftover from the wing LE added fill) that I added to this front lower corner on the outboard side of the right rudder.  This very minor add results in this corner matching the surface level of the matching/interfacing corner of the winglet.

I’m also very happy to report that over the last few days I dialed in and finalized the sanding/shaping/contouring in and around the areas of the intersection of the winglet leading edge to the wing… on both left and right sides.  Both of which were recently covered with black guide coat.  I may have some very minor tweaking to do (not surprisingly) after primer is applied, but those areas are looking pretty darn good now.

In between epoxy wipes, I then got around to micro’ing up the top cowling. My main target here was the front outboard corners to allow me to integrate them with the strake micro fill surfaces.  As you can see I also got the center backbone depression and top aft edge micro’d up as well.  I still need to do add micro on the aft vertical areas and the undersides of the “trailing edges.”

In the same fashion as the right rudder above, I finished wet sanding the epoxy wiped added micro to the front lower outboard corner of the left rudder as well, before installing it back on the left winglet.

I then wet sanded both sides of the rudder across the seams onto the winglet as well, to get the surface levels as evenly matched as possible.  Here we have the left rudder final install, micro finished, ready for primer and paint on the outboard side (pic 1) and the inboard side (pic 2). [Final configuration/install of the left winglet top video camera mount coming up soon]

Thankfully the last couple of days have been warmer and I haven’t needed to utilize the Kerosene torpedo heaters, but I wanted to note that I broke out my CO detector to ensure I wasn’t gassing myself with carbon monoxide in the shop by firing up those heaters.  So far so good, and no sign of any CO.  Honestly, I didn’t expect any because the consumption burn rate on Kerosene is reportedly very complete.

My biggest issue at the moment, and my final task of the evening (no pics), is the reinstallation and configuration of the left aileron back onto the left wing.  In my constant rush to get stuff done, I believe that I allowed too much epoxy to fill in the aileron hinge screw holes in the wing during its epoxy wiping.  I figured the surrounding/existing holes would simply allow me to redrill through the cured epoxy and thought nothing of it.

Well, apparently the cured epoxy caused some slight offsets during the redrilling of those hinge screw holes, because I haven’t been able to get the left aileron installed back into its pre-epoxy wipe position… and I’m having some clear squawking from the middle hinge with the aileron installed. Bottom line is it needs some tweaking and TLC to get back to good.

With that said, I’m still getting closer to paint every day… pressing forward!

Today was the first decently warm day we’ve had since Thanksgiving, so I decided it was time to knock out an outdoor task primarily for my Long-EZ buddy, Guy Williams. As I noted, the right main gear strut on his Long-EZ is having some gear issues as a result of heat induced at some point by the brakes.  In essence, the camber of both wheels have the tops both leaning towards the left, when they both should have the wheel tops more outboard than the bottom of the wheels.  Yep, something is askew!

I ran down to Lowe’s hardware and bought a sheet of 3/4″ plywood (buried in pic below) to construct the wing lift jacks, and also picked up the first round of lumber for constructing the in-shop post cure heat room/paint booth.

Back home I unloaded all the other stuff by quickly crossloading it to my nearby utility trailer.

With my 3/4″ sheet of plywood now unburdened by what had been (pic 1), I cut the sheet into 3 pieces: two for the jack uprights and the smaller piece for the jack bases (pic 2).

There are four (4) uprights to each lift jack, which I cut out of each of the 2 larger 3/4″ plywood pieces on the table saw.

With the remaining piece of 3/4″ plywood, I cut 2 bottom bases out of it: about 20″ x 20″ (pic 1), and then 2 smaller top cap pieces 8.5″ x 9″ (pic 2).

I then dug through my scrap pile under the carport to grab two 4x4s and cut those at ~30″ long (pic 1).  I then made all the initial 5″ wide x 12″ high notches in the uprights (upside down in pic 2).

I then marked an angled line on each upright and cut each one with my Skil saw.

Here we have the angled cut lines complete for one set of uprights, with the next set getting cut next.

A couple of hours later, and Voila!  A set of 2 fully functioning and operational wing lift jacks!

I of course tested the height using my Long-EZ as the test subject.  Looks like these dogs will hunt!

I spoke with Guy and we plan on doing a live ops check with these wing lift jacks in a couple days.

I’ll note one other topic that I was remiss in communicating in my last post: a squirrel war report.  Apparently, with the weather having gotten quite cold, the squirrels did another full frontal assault in trying to nest in my shop.  Well, when I dismantled their latest rounds of nest-building they went ballistic!  The last couple of days I’ve walked into downed lights, entire light banks out of commission, speaker wires cut, CAT-5 cables cut, Bluetooth puck cables cut, Wi-Fi router power cable destroyed, etc.  I mean they really wanted some payback for their destroyed nests.

Well, after Day 2 of their rampage I had enough.  I spent over $50 on mothballs and poison rodent food and stuffed the mothball packs into their ingress and egress points, as well as in the 3 nest areas that I know of.  It took me well over an hour to get the lights back online… each day.  The other stuff is still inop, but a couple of days later now and I’ve seen zero signs of the squirrels.

So, lesson learned… keep deploying fresh mothballs every so often to keep those sadistic little bastards out of the shop!