I started off today by removing the aft heat shield on the left wing, then pulled the peel ply and razor trimmed the top and bottom mounting tab glass.

Here’s a shot of the somewhat narrow and tall phenolic bottom tab, secured with flox and 3 plies of BID on the aft side.  I’ll probably add a single ply of BID on the front side.

I then reconfigured my plasma cutting table again as a plotter, and printed out the left wing root forward heat shield mockup on thick stock paper.

After which, I cut out the paper mockup and set it in place in the left wing root.

I should note that I ran downtown for a few hours to run some errands, and during that time picked up two different sizes of plastic grommets for the aileron control tube thru-hole.   This grommet I’m testing below has an inside diameter of 1.0 inch.

In addition, by looking at some bends in the stock paper, you can tell that I need to trim a little more around the edges here and there.  So I’ll tweak the drawing in CAD, reprint and test fit again.

I then made a slew of measurements and constructed an initial cardboard mockup of the right front wing root heat shield.  You can see I’ve already moved the rudder cable transit thru-hole down from its initial position (presence of the green tape).

After getting the rudder cable thru-hole position set, I then opened up the diameter of the aileron control tube thru-hole.  Then, as I did on the left side, I ensured that there was good clearance through the entire control tube range of motion with full left and right aileron deployment.  Full right aileron is shown in pic 1, while the widest part of this aileron control tube is actually a rivet head when the stick is a little past center towards the left (pic 2).

As I mentioned before, I got 2 sizes of plastic grommets while I was out: 1″ ID and 7/8″ ID.  Here I’m testing out the 7/8″ ID grommet, which I assessed didn’t provide enough clearance.

Reading the Canard Pusher and Central States Newsletters, I’ve read a few stories of first flight issues with controls snagging on nearby structures (or thru-holes) with clearances not as big as they should have been to allow for various stresses and pressures during flight.  Thus, my standard for this 1/2″ control tube is 1/4″ all around it. I tried the 7/8″ grommet mostly out of curiosity, and I think it proved my initial minimum 1/4″ clearance requirement was good.

It was getting later in the evening, but I wanted to at least get the initial right wing root cardboard mockup imported into CAD… which as you can see below, I did.  This stuff often takes much longer than expected, and I’m clearly wanting to get it done and in the books to get this bird in the air.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to get these forward heat shields plasma cut and installed.

Pressing forward!

I started off today by taking off the aft right heat shield, pulling the peel ply off the new cured upper and lower tabs, and then trimming them with the Fein saw.

Here’s another look at the new upper and lower 90° tabs in the right wing root that will secure the forward heat shield.

I then got to work sanding the current problem areas on the right fuselage sidewall, and some micro fill along the aft right longeron. I sanded all the areas and re-epoxy wiped the aft right longeron and a few spots on the nose, but for the sidewall it needed yet another application of micro, which I mixed up and applied.

Part of my sanding and epoxying wiping tasks was the second round of micro I applied inside the slots across the aft nose substructure just in front of the instrument panel where the 4 tabs on the aft nose/avionics cover drop into to be secured by CAMLOCs thru and around the top of the instrument panel.

I then worked on the aft wheel pants, sanding the epoxy wipes down and then wet sanding them with 150 grit.  I have one small area that needs further work on one side of those (again, no pics).

I then removed the left rudder since when I installed it last I didn’t hook up the actual rudder cable to the bellhorn.  With the cable attached to the rudder bellhorn, I then mounted the oil cooler since the end of the rudder cable bracket is secured to the oil cooler bracket.

With that all in place, and the rudder cable connectors joined, I then simply added a clamp to the nose rudder cable to pull it taut. This provided me the no kidding thru-hole position I needed in the left wing root forward heat shield, which was a good bit different than my original swag.

I then evaluated the position of the other heat shield thru-hole for the aileron control tube with the stick in the full left position/hard left turn (pic 1) and then fully opposite in a hard right turn (pic 2).  As with many things on this plane, the control tube has a lateral movement pivoting aft and slightly down when in a left turn, and forward and slightly up in a right turn.

The next 2 hours were all about setting up, prepping and laying up the upper and lower 90° tabs inside the left wing root, pretty much like I did on the right side.  The big difference that you’ll see when I post next is the bottom tab, which is about half the width of the other tabs since there is a CAMLOC receptacle which I had to avoid just on the edge of the flange.

Thus, for the bottom tab I used about a 1/2″ wide by 1.5″ high 1/16″ piece of phenolic standing on end, which I floxed in place.  I then used 3 plies of BID on the aft side of the phenolic tab that overlapped rearwards onto the wing root surface.  The front of that tab abuts the inside face of the aft heat shield as installed.

I then laid up the top 90° tab the same as I did on the right side, with 6 plies of BID.

I prepped the right wingroot area for creating the right forward heat shield by removing the AP roll servo (after marking the outboard edge which the heat shield flange will have to be notched to avoid), and installing the right rudder cable bracket and cable.  I then removed the right rudder and connected up the rudder cable to the internal bellhorn and reinstalled the rudder.

It was getting fairly late, so I called it a night.  Tomorrow I plan on finalizing both left and right forward heat shields, plotting out templates on the plasma cutting table to ensure they fit correctly in each side, and then plasma cutting them out and bending them on the metal brake for final install.

Again, once the forward heat shields are configured and installed, I am then cleared hot to remove the wings to finish the bottom-side wing-to-winglet fairings and micro finish the outboard bottom wings for primer and paint.