My goal today was to no-kidding finalize the integration of the aft canopy into the longeron, shoulder corner and D-deck.  I have some very strange contours going on here, and thought I had it a couple of days ago, but just above the corner canopy curve on each side I had about a 2.5″ strip where the canopy lip was much prouder (by about 0.1″) than the D-deck surface… so I added micro to those areas.

Today I started by actually removing the top cowling, sanding the aft perimeter edge/lip of the D-deck, shoulders and strake, as well as cleaned up the front CAMLOC/screw flange of the top cowling.  I then remounted the top cowling with all its hardware for this final sanding, which I spent nearly 2 hours doing.

All looked good except a low spot on the D-deck in comparison to the top cowl front lip, at about the left 10 O’ clock position, and mirrored at the 2 O’ clock position on the right.  I guess I should feel good that my refills are proving to be symmetrical on both the left and right sides (some building humor there!).

I did have one more problem area and that was the top center of the top cowling, about an inch to either side… this edge is low compare to the D-deck, and the D-deck profile looks good to me.  So I added a bit more micro at this spot on the top cowl and will blend it in to match the D-deck.

When I added micro to the D-deck vs canopy lip low spots yesterday, I also hit a couple of divots on the added front edge lip of the aft nose/avionics cover.  Well, I sanded that down as well today, and I think I’m looking pretty good on this new, added front lip.  This is in an effort to get the front nose micro’d up . . .

Speaking of micro finishing the front nose: a big issue is the recent addition of the latch internal spring plunger —that is critical for the nose hatch latch to operate as designed— is pushing up on the inside of the nose hatch door.  My original 1/32″ rubber seal is definitely not the right thickness for the job (if it ever was… I never did a final test on it).  A few days ago I ordered some 2″ wide 1/8″ foam sealant (note roll top left corner of pic), which just arrived, and I cut off 4 squares to do an initial check on the nose door sealing.

I have to say it looks very promising.  I’ll add some more squares including centerline front and aft tomorrow to assess further.  If this seal is the one, I should be slathering up the nose within the next few days and finalizing the micro finish on that area.

My final task of the evening, which also took a decent little bit of time, was sanding down all the filled divots and larger pin holes on the top surfaces of the elevators.  I then finished the job with a very thin epoxy wipe on each elevator top.

Tomorrow I’ll wet sand the top surfaces, and then epoxy wipe the bottom surface of each elevator.

A big note on this airplane build: Since it’s the middle of April, and Jess and are getting married the end of May, from here on out until the wedding I’ll be limiting myself to about 3 hours a day on the build. Clearly I think I’ll continue to make significant progress as well, but I need to get a bunch done on the house as I have wedding visitors coming in during the last week of May.

Still, pressing forward.

Although I did some sanding and touch-up micro on the aft nose cover, around the D-deck/longerons and on the elevators, my main push today was to finish off the install of the canopy latch external lock, by filling in the area around the lock assembly internal to the wall.

With the micro fill aft of the lock assembly good, I then made up a dam/form made out of clear plastic to protect the pivoting lock catch on the inboard side, as well as the slot inside the sidewall that the lock catch pivots into when unlocked.

I then mixed up and added some pour foam in this little pocket and let it cure.

I thought it was a bit more cured than it was when I went to remove the big blob of exuding foam, and drug some of the foam from inside the wall that I was trying to fill. No big deal, so I cleaned it up a bit and added a layer of micro (about 0.2″) on top of the foam and filled any voids too.  Here’s how that looked.

The plastic dam had a bit of springiness to it, and wanted to come off the outboard face of the pivoting lock catch, so I pinned them together with a Cleco clamp, just as I did when I added the pour foam.

A few hours later, when the micro had pretty much cured.  I sanded it down and cleaned up the internal area of the lock, mainly around the pivoting lock latch.  It took a little bit of digging and a few iterations to clean it all up and ensure the lock had freedom of movement in its lock/unlock positions.

I’ve been planning on making a video on my completed canopy latch, and I did just that for the last few hours of this late evening.

Pressing forward!

Today was all about finishing up the canopy external lock install.  Clearly I hacked my way through the physical install of the lock into the fuselage sidewall yesterday, so today was all about getting a slot cut in the CORRECT spot on the bottom surface of the canopy latch handle which is of course what the lock latch is rotating up into to make a physical block from opening the handle.

I used the two 3D printed handles that I’ve been using for years in the canopy handle assembly as test subjects to get the exact position of the canopy external lock interfacing slot in the handle dialed in.

Once I was confident of the required lock latch slot position on the canopy handle, I just need to load up those numbers into my Fusion 360 CAM, post process and get to machining it… right?  Yeah, well, I had niggling issues galore that turned a 30 minute task into a 2+ hour long task in figuring out some very frustrating idiosyncrasies of Fusion 360 in trying to do a 3-tool machining job.  But I powered through and finally came out victorious… yay.

My first task on the mill was to simply clear out some of the material, especially since the 1/8″ end mill that I had planned to use on this 1/8″ wide (or high…) slot was causing all kinds of angst in Fusion 360.  Using a 1/16″ end mill made all the errors and warnings go away inside the CAM program, but I didn’t want to stress this diminutive end mill too much.  Thus the row of 0.118″ diameter clearance holes, prepped for drilling with a center drill (pic 1), then the actually drilling (pic 2).

I then used the 1/16″ end mill to clean out the slot… the whole machining of the slot taking less than 10% of the time to program it all! (sigh)

And here we have the slot.  I did angle the forward (left) end with the Dremel to allow clearance of the incoming and exiting lock latch as it pivots into/out of the slot.

With a number of test runs on the actual canopy handle, installed in place, which did require a minute amount of judicious filing, I was happy with the combined, integrated fit and operation of the lock and handle together.  I removed the handle assemble and created a taped up stir stick dam to contain micro to fill in the aft area that I had opened up in the side wall to mount the canopy external lock.

I then whipped up the micro, filled the aft area and finished off this task with a small piece of peel ply to smooth out the top.

I thought I’d grab a shot of the hole that I made on the inboard sidewall to first allow for using my hex key to install the washers and screw to secure the pivoting latch plate to the lock barrel.  Since I can see it in this pic, I’ll also note that I removed about 0.05″ of the top of the latch plate to flatten it and keep it from travelling too far up into the handle and digging into the forward pivot rod.

Back to the screw… if I had planned well enough ahead, I would have simply drilled out this hole in the inside sidewall wide enough to allow full insertion of the screw.  As it was though, I had literally ground down a good 0.035″ of the head of the screw in my attempt to get enough clearance.  I also used a razor knife to make the hole in the sidewall a big enough diameter to allow the screw to not be pushing on the sidewall AFTER the lock was installed.  My point here is that I made two things ugly (screw and hole) by trying to install this the “right” way… good deeds never go unpunished!

Besides slathering up the front edge of the aft nose cover with micro, I failed to mention (as I often do) that I did a small 3-ply stepped layup on the front face of the left inboard elevator fairing to close up a gap between it and the canard trailing edge (lower right corner of pic).  I then micro’d that when I micro’d the cover’s front edge.  Well, I sanded that front face micro down before installing the cover, and although I don’t have a comparative “before” pic, you can clearly see that the gap is minimal.

Tomorrow I’ll finish filling in the cleared out inside sidewall for the canopy external lock install and then move onto finishing the nose, etc.

I started off today by trimming the newly glassed front edge lip on the aft nose/avionics cover.  I then remounted the cover to assess its fit on with the nose and the canard.

I found that I then needed to do a small layup on the front left corner tab to extend it just a hair more to fill a gap where it marries up with the canard leading edge.  I added a single patch of BID on the inside and also on the outside, respectively, with a very small dab of flox to fill the small edge gap of the new lip.  I then peel plied both sides of this layup.

As this layup cured, I got to work on installing the canopy latch external key lock (below), but to stay on topic I’ll jump ahead a few hours and show the new glassed front lip on the aft nose/avionics cover with it re-micro’d, in prep for final surface finishing.

Now, the installation of the canopy latch key lock was an adventure in and of itself, which I wholeheartedly expected it to be.  The 2 main issues were 1) the depth (too much) of the lock barrel with the pivoting latch plate installed (mainly the securing washers + screw head) and 2) getting the pivoting latch plate installed which had to occur AFTER the large ~1″ diameter lock assembly securing nut was threaded onto the barrel.

To gain a bit more depth clearance, I thinned down the pivoting latch plate from about 0.085″ thick to half that thickness where it got secured to the end of the lock barrel.  This gave me just a skooch more room depth-wise, but I was still not able to mount the external lock assembly fully flat against the outside surface of the sidewall in my one of many, many trial installs.

I ended up drilling a small hole on the cockpit side to allow me to get a small hex wrench through to allow me to attach the pivoting latch plate AFTER the big lock securing nut was threaded on just enough where it was ready to be fully installed after the pivoting latch plate, washer, star washer and screw were all in place.  After I did finally get everything together and installed, the screw head was pressing against the inboard sidewall a hair more than I wanted.  So I loaded up a new blade in a razor knife and simply cut around the screw edge to allow it to protrude through the interior sidewall.  This provided the relief necessary for the inboard wall to return to its original position.

I’ll also note that I used blue Locktite on all threads as I installed this lock.

So…. after a few hours of false starts and changing up my install plan a few times, I finally got it!

Here’s a short video showing the basic operation of the canopy latch external key lock:

Tomorrow I’ll finish cleaning up the install with some judicious application of pour foam and micro going inside the sidewall around the key lock barrel and pivoting latch plate.  I also plan on working the interfacing slot on the handle that the latch plate will pivot up into to keep the canopy latch handle from being pushed inward… to prevent opening the canopy.  That, and more work to get the nose finished in micro.

Pressing forward, step by step.

Another 2-day update here.

I started out by doing the final trimming (Fein saw) and sanding of the instrument panel leg hole reinforcement flanges and wire troughs.  As you can see, I also drilled a hole in each one to allow for a wire-securing zip tie.

Here’s a front side view (you can see I’m getting close to finishing the nose hatch latch pull handle safety guard as well).

I’ve been scratching my head the last few days to finalize the solution of the issue where the front flange of the aft nose cover scrapes the aft top corner edge of the nose as the cover is opened and closed.  Clearly if I left it as is and continued on to paint, the paint on the top aft edge of the nose would be worn away in a few weeks.  I had to remove this clearance issue either through repositioning the front flange of the nose cover (further aft), or knocking down the edge of the aft nose corner.  But both of those solutions had pros and cons and helped create other issues of sorts.

Moving the nose cover flange aft appeared the best solution on the surface, but the geometry of the CAMLOCs is already set and it would have been a fairly in-depth and lengthy modification.  Radiusing the aft top edge of the nose would be fairly easy, but then I would have a distinctly curved edge at the seam between nose and cover.

What to do?  How about a little of both, with an added lip on the front edge of the nose cover to hide the overtly radiused edge?

I started by aggressively sanding the nose top aft edge (pic 1), for a good 5 rounds, mounting the aft nose cover and checking the clearance between the nose corner edge and nose cover flange before each round of sanding.  Here we have the final sanded corner edge (pic 2).

I also did a few iterations of skimming some surface material off the front flange face of the aft nose cover.  Here I have it marked for trimming (pic 1), and after I used the Dremel tool to reduce the surface, at which point I sanded it aggressively with 36 grit sandpaper (pic 2).

I also spent another hour knocking down the latest micro addition to the aft lower corner interfaces with the canopy, and around the turtledeck.  Although I still need to do the very final sanding with the top cowl in place, I went ahead and cut the excess fuel tank vent tubing off each side.  I have to say I’m very pleased with the outcome.

It was very late at night, and I was getting ready to close up shop for the evening when I started thinking about the top side paint scheme.  I grabbed some electrical tape and ran it down the side to simulate the top black stripe.  Above/inside that will be all blue.  I think it will look perfectly acceptable!

The front right corner of the aft nose cover was flared out a bit too much and need to be brought in closer to the nose, just forward of the right canard leading edge, at it’s root. I cut the inside of the nose cover with 3 grooves using the Fein saw, to allow me to curve the corner inwards.  I then put flox in the grooves and laid up a small 2-ply patch of BID over it before setting the cover back into place on the nose.  I then duct taped the corner to suck it inward to position while it cured.

Here’s another shot of that… I used the screw driver as a spacer to push inboard a bit more.  Also note the micro along the front edge of the aft nose cover has been sanded off.

Yep, I sanded down the aft “wings” of the aft nose cover to have them better align with the surface of the sidewall in the area under the front canopy lip.  While cleaning up the aft nose cover, I also sanded the micro away to get back down glass to allow me to add a lip to the front edge of the nose cover.  This will allow me to hide the aggressively rounded top aft corner edge of the nose, and create a tight seam betwixt nose cover and nose.

After taping up the round nose corner edge, I laid up 1 ply BID on the underside of the aft nose cover existing lip and peel plied it.  I then mounted the aft nose cover on the bird and installed all the hardware.  After filling in the small gap with micro along the front edge, I then laid up 2 plies of BID across the front edge of the nose cover, over the original single ply of BID from before (pic 1).  This gives me a 3 ply added lip, which will have micro over it… I think this should be plenty strong for an added 0.3″ wide lip.

After it cured, I removed all the tape and peel ply, and then marked the new front lip for trimming (pic 2).

Starting tomorrow I plan on working the final fit of the nose hatch door and start preparing for micro finishing the nose.  I also plan on doing the very final sanding and touchups on the D-deck, longerons and lower aft canopy corner interfaces.

Today I finished the instrument panel leg holes reinforcement flange/cable channel layups.

Starting on the left, I pulled the peel ply and did a rough razor trim of the 3 ply interior carbon fiber layup.  Notice this layup is pretty much a 3-ply “U-channel” in that it’s attached to the forward face of the composite instrument panel, and then the floor and front wall of the channel. (pic 2 shows a peak of Version 4 nose hatch latch handle safety guard).

On the right side side, I used the slightly smaller 3D printed form and laid up 2 plies of carbon fiber on the outside of the form as I did on the left side.  Also like the left side, I had peel ply on the inside (over the taped up form, or mold) and also on the outside of the layup (pic 1).  I used MGS 335 epoxy with fast hardener, so a few hours later this sucker was cured… and off came the clamps (pic 2).

I pulled the 3D printed form out and then cleaned up the inside of the layup in prep for first a strip of Lantor Soric that I laid in on the bottom (after a fillet along the corner of the panel and the carbon fiber… pic 1).  I then laid up the 3 plies of carbon fiber (all scraps for these layups I’ll note!) on the inside and peel plied the layup (pic 2).  I then left it to cure overnight.

Back on the canard fit into the nose and sidewall after a good half dozen rounds of sanding and dialing in the fit (about 1.5 hours worth of work), here we have the left side: first a look at the leading edge (pic 1), and then the underside (pic 2).  All fitting nicely.

And pretty much the same thing on the right side.

I also worked a good bit on the canopy perimeter fit and of course the turtledeck, with the requisite micro to fill in a few uneven spots and divots (yes, unfortunately I’m playing THAT game).

Moving forward…

I started off today taking the epoxy-wiped left elevator outside and sanding it with the orbital sander with 80 grit paper.  I then spent another 15 minutes handing sanding it with 150 grit.  I grabbed the right elevator and hand sanded it with 150 grit as well.

Next steps on the elevator is to West-410 fill about a half dozen minor divots on each one, then sand those, local epoxy wipes on the divot fills, before wet sanding both elevators with 150 grit.  Overall I’m pleased with how the elevators are turning out.

I turned my attention to the canard left end where I micro’d in a sleeve for the elevator hinge pin.  I had removed the hinge pin last night before locking up the shop and here is the cured sleeve as I found it this AM (pic 1).  I then used the Dremel tool to rough trim the edges flush before smoothing up the edges with a file (pic 2).  Task complete.

I taped up the underside and leading edge of the canard where it meets the fuselage/ nose sidewall, laid down a thin layer of flox and then mounted the canard.  Here we have the left side with the flox fill at the front leading edge (pic 1) —which was the main goal of this exercise— and along the underside seam as well (pic 2).

Of course I did the same thing on the right side.  Again, my main goal here was to get the front “corner” of the canard gap at the leading edge filled where it intersects both the sidewall/ nose and the aft nose/avionics cover.

Here’s what the nose side looked like after I removed the canard a couple of hours later.  I had some irregularities on the wall side along the bottom of the canard previously, thus why added a thin layer of flox to “clean” that up… which of course requires still more fill and cleaning up.  I knew this going into this task, but didn’t want to pile up the flox and have it ooze out all over the place.  Better to keep it clean and simply add another step, since this is a seal after all and not structural.

I’ll jump ahead and show you how it turned out after adding some extra flox, made up from the leftover epoxy from the layups I did below on the canopy lock reinforcement and the panel left leg hole flange.

As an aside, I’ll note that (not surprisingly) I’ve been working a safety latch for my nose hatch latch pull handle.  The new pop-up spring on the nose hatch latch works great, but the issue is the pull required is only maybe 1/4″, so I want to ensure I don’t snag the handle by accident with an electrical cable or whatever and pop my nose hatch open during flight!

After pondering it a while now, I decided to simply make a pivot block that wraps around the big cable nut.  I’ll use RTV to secure it to the nut when I have my final version ready to deploy.   I did about 3 fit test prints before I started actually designing the pivot block.  This is version 2 with the pivot hole nubs on the sides, at the vertical center of the block.  With the curve of the wheel well cover on the inboard side, there’s no clearance for the safety latch pivot arm, so I had to move the hole nubs up higher.

Which I did here.  This is Version 3 with pivot “nub” holes up a bit higher, and you can see my initial inside measurement for the arm was just a hair short, so I’ll retweak that as well.  Again, this is a sideline task that I may spend 5-10 minutes on when I go in the house to hit the bathroom or grab a drink.  I can then kick off a 3D print and head straight back out to the shop.

I wanted to start nailing down my external canopy lock, so I cleaned out the inside of the wall to allow clearance for not just the lock barrel, but also the large securing nut and also the 90º pivoting catch that will rotate down into the wall when unlocked (pic 1).

Which way does the catch pivot you ask?  Good question, since I got the two locks (if you remember, I had another lock I was testing out) confused and cleared out the aft side of pocket for the catch to pivot into… uh, oops.  Actually I needed to clear out the foam towards the front side, since it rotates forward to unlock.  It’s foam, so no big deal on refilling it.  That being said, I used the Dremel tool to trim the catch to about half its original length.

I was already planning on reinforcing the inside of the exterior wall where the lock will mount, but especially after I chewed up the top edge of the wall a bit trying to clear out the foam and micro, it definitely needed some help.  I laid up 2 plies of BID on the inside of the external wall, and of course peel plied it (pic 2).

Back to another CAD part that I designed and 3D printed: this is a mold for the instrument panel left leg hole to add a reinforcement flange to essentially make the panel thicker (by about an inch) just in case (God forbid!) you have a crash and you want to keep the thin panel from acting like a guillotine.  It also doubles as a wire tray to help corral and hid the wire’s crossing the bottom edge of the panel (pic 1).  I taped it up in prep for the layup (pic 2).

After measuring and cutting 2 plies of carbon fiber, I then wetted out peel ply onto the taped plastic mold (inside peel ply).  I then laid up the 2 plies of carbon fiber and peel plied the outside.  The carbon fiber plies extended beyond the bottom edge of the mold going aft about 1/2 inch, which overlapped onto the bottom edge of left leg opening. With the layup and form in position, I then simply clamped it in place.

While I was laying up the left side panel leg hole above, I had the right side mold (slightly shorter and narrower) 3D printing inside the house.  I plan on laying that up tomorrow.  In addition, I’ll add a ply of Lantor Soric plus 3 more plies of carbon fiber on the inside of these initial 2-ply layups.

My final build task of the evening was cleaning out the cured micro from the seams between the longeron/turtledeck and canopy.  I also did a fairly thorough initial sanding of the added micro.  Tomorrow I’ll do the final fine sanding and plan on being done with all the micro additions and tweaks to the canopy-to-fuselage perimeter interfaces.

Ok, still working to get this beast done and in the air!

Another 2-day update here…

I started out Day 1 by cleaning up the touchup micro spots on the left elevator, and then epoxy wiped it every hour or so for 3 total coats.  Here are both elevators now microed, sanded and epoxy wiped.

Day 1: I slathered up the left leading edge of the canard with micro, over the “repair” (extra layers of glass over my aggressively sanded LE) [pic 1] and then today I took the canard outside and knocked down the micro a good bit in prep for final sanding (pic 2).

I also sanded down the epoxy wiped right elevator outside for a good 45 minutes… no pic today.  I’ll grab one tomorrow of both elevators after I sand the left elevator epoxy wipes.

I had bit of a break thru in sanding the thin glass on the left front corner of the canard, so I grabbed a thin strip of UNI cut with the fibers at a 45º angle.  I laid that up and peel plied it to knock yet another one of the myriad of to-do tasks off my list.

Over the past 3-4 days —as I’ve been working on the canard— I’ve been pondering a better solution to my outboard canard ends elevator hinge pin holes, since mine are looking pretty rough (see above).  I don’t have the right size Nyla-flo on hand to use, and I spent a little bit thinking about what I could employ to create a nice sleeve in these pin holes.

And then I found it at my local Ma & Pa hardware store: a foot long length of aluminum 7/32″ OD with 0.014″ walls (pic 1).  Very light and perfect for this assignment.  You can see how well the elevator hinge pin fits into this aluminum sleeve (pic 2).

I cut two 2.25″ lengths off the 1-foot stock with my tube cutter (pic 1) and then chamfered out the insides of each end to get them to slide smoothly again over the hinge pin (pic 2).

On the left end of the canard I micro’d in the new sleeve, which fit like a champ.  I then slid the hinge pin into place to ensure the sleeve alignment was correct.  Tomorrow I’ll Dremel the excess sleeve and file it smooth to match the contour of the canard surface.

However, on the right side I must have set the inside of the hinge pin hole with flox or micro, because when I went to drill it out with my 7/32″ bit, it wasn’t having it.  I didn’t want to do any damage, so I’m calling this good for now and will simply do a final clean up of it with micro when I do the final finish on the bottom of the canard.

As is my build life over the last week (will it ever end?!) I spent a good hour sanding around the perimeter of the canopy, with my main focus on the back corners and the top elevation alignment of the D-deck between it and the top aft canopy frame.  Here’s the left side.

And here’s the right side.  Hopefully this is my LAST iteration of micro and sanding around the canopy! (fingers crossed)

Yep, still pressing forward!

Hopefully my work today finally clears out my “sins of the past” task queue . . .

Years ago when I was sanding and micro-finishing the canard —my first experience at micro-finishing a part— I followed a pretty cool looking builder’s tip by Wayne Hicks (Cozy IV builder) on getting a close to perfect profile on the canard.  It involved making correct-profiled sanding blocks using the top and bottom canard templates.

I followed Wayne’s method of finishing the canard surface with a 2×4 for each side, cut out to the shape of the templates, with a bit extra for the thickness of the sandpaper.  However, with the thick 36-grit peel and stick sandpaper, it didn’t do so well conforming to the inside curve at the leading edge on the profiled sanding blocks.

Well, I did some fairly aggressing sanding on the micro that I had apply on the left side of the canard, and when I assessed my work I realized that the un-conformed paper inside the leading edge curve had cut into the leading edge to create a bit of a flat, more angled, edge.  When I inspected it, I couldn’t feel any soft spots or where it had broke through to the core foam, so I figured it was just a bit of an angle on the thick top glass overlap area of the leading edge.  So I summarily slathered it up with micro, and pressed on after fixing my sanding block leading edge configuration issue.

But then I got to the right side of the canard, where my sanding block performed as I had originally hoped.  I noted I had no need to add more micro and I had a nice curved leading edge that was at the proper profile.  I made a note that I should remove the micro and lay in some reinforcement glass on the left leading edge just to ensure I hadn’t hamfistedly sanded away a few too many plies of glass to weaken it in any way.  Especially, as I noted when flying in the back of Marco’s Long-EZ, how much those outer areas of the canard bounce around in flight.

Well, today is the day to do that insurance layup on the canard left leading edge, as you can see above.  At the angled edge I added a 1/2″ strip of 1 ply BID and 1 ply UNI, then covered that with a 1.5″ tape of 1 ply BID and 1 ply UNI.  The length was a little over 36″.  I then peel plied the layup.

I then took the micro’d elevators outside and sanded them down: first with the orbital sander with 40 grit, then hand sanding the final stage to get both left and right elevators prepped for epoxy wiping.

Here we have the left elevator, which needed a few micro fills on some divots, so I added those.

Moreover, as I sanded down the top and bottom surfaces of the elevators, I used the Eureka CNC (or new name?) profile templates to ensure I was getting the final shape dialed in correctly.

[I’ll note that I had to redo my elevators years ago and ordered the cores from Eureka CNC, while my original wing and canard cores were from Feather Light.  I can see how the Eureka cores are far superior (CNC cut) than the traditional hot wired cores.  Dialing in the elevator shape was super easy since the core is so perfectly cut… it really felt like I was cheating!]

While the touch-up micro was curing on the left elevator, I set up a hanging contraption off my work bench to epoxy wipe (3 coats) on the right elevator.

Also, as is par for the course over the last week, I also did a fair bit of sanding and micro work on the area around the canopy perimeter throughout the day.  Thankfully, I should have that dialed in within the next day or two.

It was QUITE late in the evening, and I had to drag myself out to the shop for that 3rd epoxy wipe, but I got ‘er done.

Although not really shown in any of the pics below, the last couple of days have been about SANDING, SANDING, SANDING… oh, and more sanding.  Mainly sanding the epoxy wiped areas on the rudders, winglets, inboard wing root edges, cowl shoulders, turtle deck, longerons, and fuselage sidewalls.

Then divot and depression refills with micro, more sanding, more minor touchups and fills… ad nauseum.

As for the glassed inboard ends of the elevators, those layups came out very nicely: I pulled the peel ply, razor cut the edges and then did a quick sanding to clean them up.

With the weather now fairly warm (high 80’s…yeah, all or nothing!) I took the elevators outside and gave them a thorough sanding in prep for micro.

I also took the canard outside (I had already sanded the inboard edges of the canard and micro’d those edges  up) to sand down the new added micro.

Which I did next.  This is to fill the edges that were uncovered by the aft nose/avionics cover.

I couple of years ago I read in the Central States Newsletter that polyester filler glaze is incompatible with composite finishing.  Well, many, many years prior to my reading that, I had followed suit with Nate Mullins as he was just finishing up his Long-EZ build, where he had used Z Grip filler on his bird.

Now, while Z Grip does not claim to be a polyester filler, it is from Evercoat.  And I had a decent amount of Evercoat’s Metal Glaze on hand, which states right out that it is a polyester filler glaze.  Both are a light bluish green in color, and both are applied fairly easily and sand easily (after about a quick 20 minute cure time).

Since my only micro finishing project at the time was the canard, I too employed this type of easy-to-apply/quick curing/EZ sanding filler on the canard (this was my pre-West 410 discovery).

Well, after a quick text chat with Nate today I confirmed that he had had some issues with his Z Grip filler “any application over 1/16″ deep” and again, that’s not even a polyester based filler (that I know of).  My Metal Glaze is a confirmed polyester filler, which its use is again warned about in the Central States newsletter.  With those two data points now converged, it confirmed to me that the Metal Glaze must go… never to be used again! (ok, apparently it’s fine to use over PRIMER, but not before).

Thus, I removed it as you can see below.

My last build task of the evening was to slather up the elevators with micro [in 2 steps: bottom first → nearly cure → then top side]… which took a good half hour per side, so 2+ hours total.

Then even more sanding and re-microing shenanigans on & around the canopy frame… And more sanding and more micro applications coming tomorrow I’m sure (did I mention it’s an iterative process?!).

Pressing forward . . .