Hi Folks,

Buff-out update: The right wing, canopy, top cowling and aft nose/avionics cover are all at Phil’s shop for buffing out over the next week to 10 days.

The vortilons are all painted (minor touchups required) and ready for install on the wings. 

My main task currently is completing the Trailing Edge Fences so that they can be installed on the wings along with the vortilons and N-numbers prior to the wings getting ceramic coated.

As I get time, I’ll work the instrument panel and electronics install on the fuselage, before doing the final engine configuration.

Still pressing forward… getting exponentially closer to finish every day now!

Ok, but with a little touchup required…

First, here is a shot of the 3-ply carbon fiber layup, peel plied and taped, that makes up the left rudder lock (pic 1).  After an overnight cure, I then removed the tape and peel ply to reveal the actual rudder gust lock in raw form (pic 2).

I then cleaned it up and rough trimmed it a little bit before placing it back into position.  It still needs some final trimming and cleanup, and is a slightly rougher version than the right side, but it should clean up nicely.

I then pulled the tape and got busy prepping the left vortilons for the final front swath of blue paint.  I tried a tip using a certain glass cleaner as the degreaser prior to paint, and found it to be a bit too aggressive, as you can see some of the gray primer pulled off with the paint.  After a bit of sanding and cleanup with my old degreaser it was ready for paint.

I then first shot a coat of sealer, let that flash and then shot 2 coats of blue paint.  Voila!  The left, and now all, vortilons are painted.  Again, with a few touchups required.

I thought I had gotten pics of the left wing trailing edge fence mounting flange base layups after I laid them up, but apparently not.  Anyway, this is the next day after those cured… removed and peel ply pulled.

I then set the trailing edge fences’ mounting flange bases back into place, taped them to secure them in place, and then started checking fit of my posterboard mockups to then transfer those to the 1/4″ PVC foam to cut them out, first the inboard fence (pic 1) and then the middle fence (pic 2).

It was a bit later in the evening and I had to get out the door, so I’ll do the final outboard fence foam core cutting tomorrow.

I did want to note that I grabbed a pic of my N number graphics to send to my DAR to ensure they meet specs before I apply them to the winglets, especially since they’ll get ceramic coated along with the remainder of the winglet.

Still pressing forward to get this bird completed!

This post covers the past few days.

First off, I had a rub mark on the front edge of the right wing at the junction where it meets the strake that I needed to clean up and add a little paint.  My fault in that in my haste I should have protected it better.  Then the leading edge near the light needed another touch up after Phil did some sanding.

Of course I ended up chatting with Phil for a good bit, so about a 4 hour total op there given the flash times for sealer and paint, even for that small amount.

But, as you can see, the outboard top of the wing is about 70-80% finished with another few rounds of buffing out to do.  The middle has just been sanded and it’s already showing a decent shiny reflection.  And the inboard wasn’t touched at all as Phil waited for me to do my edge paint touchup.

Back in my shop I pulled the tape off the left vortilons (pic 1), taped up the front swoosh where the blue will go and then shot the middle stripe with black paint (pic 2).

I then spent a few hours updating my electrical system diagrams, making & applying wire/cable labels, and installing the magnetometer “pack” in the outboard rib pocket of the left strake.

Here we have the magnetometers’ final install with cables connected and secured.

Another shot of the cables secured and a better shot of where they exit this outboard strake rib area on their way/all the way to the instrument panel via the CS spar.

As I get the vortilons and wing trailing edge fences constructed and painted to install before finalizing the paint finish/ceramic coating on the wings, I’m also trying to knock out small component installs and wiring… from the aft and outboard parts of the bird moving forward.  The major wiring and installs in the nose and panel are coming soon.  So, with that, I called it a night.

Pressing forward!

After last night’s crazy push to get the right wing trailing edge fences’ mounting flange bases glassed and the foam fence bodies micro’d to the bases, I then left them to cure overnight.

Today it was time to pop the fences —now combined with their respective mounting flange bases— off the wing, clean the tape off the wings and get it to Phil at his shop for sanding and buffing of the paint.

If you’ll remember, the right wing was the one that overnight collected dew on the top of the wing after it was painted, which dulled the paint.  As with the strake tops, I fully expect Phil to be able to buff the wing out to a near-mirror finish.

Here’s another shot of the right wing trailing edge fences, ready to be shaped and final glassed (or carbon fiber) after they are pulled off the wing.

Which I did next with no drama.  Once the tape was removed that secured the mounting flange bases to the wing, the newly combined mounting flanges and foam fence bodies slid right off.

More out of curiosity, once I removed the tape and cleaned up the wing, I test fit the trailing edge fences back into place.  Looking good! (IMO)

Guy Williams arrived just in time to help me load up the wing into the trailer and after wrapping each end with a moving blanket, we secured it in place.  Not shown is that we put the wing dolly into the back of my truck for Phil to use at his shop.

And with that, Guy and I delivered the right wing to Phil’s shop.  It was very late afternoon by the time we were done, after which I did some administrivia stuff on the electrical system, but really didn’t get much else done on the build.

I started out this morning testing the left wing trailing edge fence angle templates which I printed 2 of last night, and one this morning.

Here’s the inboard angle template.

And the two outboard templates.

I then finalized my CAD drawings for the trailing edge fences, based on Klaus Savier’s dimensions that he recommends.

I then prepped the plasma cutting table to temporarily convert it to a plotting table.

And plotted out the 3 wing trailing edge fences.

I then cut out the trailing edge fences.  These will be used to check fit and cutout the actual 1/4″ PVC foam fences for each wing.

From this point on I focused on the right wing, since I’m taking it to Phil’s shop tomorrow for him to sand and buff out.

It was time for the test fit on the right the wing.  Here are the outboard foamboard mockups.

And the inboard foam trailing edge fence mockup (pic 1), and all of them together in a group shot (pic 2).

The foamboard mockups really helped in marking the bottom side of the wing where the mounting base flanges will get laid up.  I then taped up the fence locations on the trailing edge —on both top and bottom of the wing— in prep for layups.

Since I’m a cheap scrounge, and I want these things as light as I can possibly make them, I’m using one ply of UNI (from scraps) and one ply of BID (off the roll) for my mounting base layups.  After “pre-pregging” the layups in plastic, I then laid them up first on the inboard side (pic 1) and the outboard side (pic 2).

Since the layups are one piece at an angle, there is an overhang at the trailing edge on the inboard side, which I clamped with clothespins.

A few hours later (I used fast hardener + heat lamps) they were cured.  So I pulled the peel ply and pulled the mounting bases off the wing.  Here we have all of them (pic 1) and the outboard side (pic 2).

And a closer up shot of the inboard side.

A big reason I wanted to glass the mounting bases by themselves starting out, was to not have any struggle removing them after they cured…. since my wings are painted I don’t want to have to pry to get these darn things off as I most certainly would if I had glassed the fences in situ with the bases.

I then cut the excess trailing edge overhang off before taping the mounting flange bases back onto the wing, again both top and bottom.

I did a final check with with posterboard mockups, annotating any gaps or angles that needed fine tuning as these will be used as the templates to cut out the 1/4″ PVC foam fences (BTW, I weighed a square inch piece of foam and it didn’t move the scale up even to 1 gram!).

Checking the inboard posterboard fence mockup…

I then cut out all the right wing trailing edge fences out of 1/4″ PVC foam sheet and test fitted them into place on the wing.

Here we have the outboard two fences.

And the final test fit of the inboard TE fence (pic 1) before I micro’d it into place (pic 2).

And the same on the outboard fences, test fitted first (pic 1) and then micro’d into place (I used a dab of 5 min glue on all the tips to secure them into place both to ensure their placement and to eliminate any minor gaps).

I then spent a good 45 minutes getting them aligned as vertically as possible (as in 90° to the trailing edge) which proved a bit challenging because pulling the top or bottom over to vertical could result in the entire fence being pulled in that direction.  But a slight bit of patience and persistence won out.

And with that, I left them to cure overnight.  I’ll shape and glass (probably carbon fiber) them later, I just wanted to get this initial step done so I can finish them off the wing, then paint them, and get them mounted on the wing before Phil and team ceramic coats it (obviously after sanding and buffing out).

Needless to say, it was a long day and night as I didn’t finish until 3am in the morning.  But it had to be done to get this wing delivered to Phil ASAP.

Pressing forward!

Well, as much work as it takes to get these little guys all blinged up, the right vortilons are painted.  A couple touch ups may be required here and there, but they came out how I wanted them.

Since I had some leftover white paint, I went ahead and shot that first on the left vortilons after taping them up.

I also cleaned off the tape on the glare shield to reveal the just-attached aft edge seal that I RTV’d in place.  There’s some blushing that occurred in the matte clear coat, which may require some wet sanding, but I’ll figure that out later since it’s smooth and glare free currently.

As well as the Turtledeck’s canopy lip edge seal that also got RTV’d into place as well.  Both edge seals are looking good.

I spent a good bit of the day in front of the laptop finalizing my research on the Trailing Edge Fences to ensure I didn’t miss any key Intel on installing those, and also in CAD creating angle templates for the right wing fences… a HUGE shoutout to Dave Berenholtz for doing all the math to get these angle numbers locked down.  Makes it super EZ to just plug them in and go.

I started with the 77.51° inboard template where the fence is just next to the inboard edge of the aileron, at an angle of course (compared to the outboard aileron edge, which I modified for its fence).  With my superior armchair engineering degree I could tell Dave’s numbers were spot on after eyeballing it!

I then copied and converted the template above to the outboard 78.64° version, and quickly realized that my 50/50 chance of what side to place the angle worked fine for the outermost of the 3 fences, nearest the winglet.

But I had to whip up a reverse version of that one for the outboard aileron since obviously there is no trailing edge to use as a reference where the aileron goes.  Again, I cut the outboard edge of both ailerons at this angle specifically with this fence in mind versus 90° to the trailing edge as called for in the plans.  I’ll make just a hair of a flange on the inboard side so that the trailing edge fence is parallel and almost directly adjacent to the aileron’s edge.

And yes, those are both 78.64°… they just look different with size and width of the templates.

I did a fair amount of administrivia for my electrical system as well, creating labels and updating some reference docs and electrical system diagrams.

Besides my planned shooting of the black stripes on the left vortilons, tomorrow will be all about the trailing edge fences.

First thing out of the gate this morning was to tape up (about a 45 min. task after cutting the tape and applying it) and paint the right vortilons with the last of their 3 colors: white.

With the final color shot on the right vortilons I then got to work on the left vortilons.  I’ll make a note here that my priority is everything on the right wing first as that is the one that is going to Phil’s shop first to get sanded and buffed out… near the end of this week.

I sanded the epoxy wiped left vortilons (pic 1) and prepped them for primer, which I shot 2 coats of next (pic 2).  I then set the left vortilons aside to cure for a good day or two.

One of my many blue paint touch up tasks at Phil’s shop pre-ceramic coating was to finish the triangular patch on the bottom of the nose, which besides being covered with epoxy, the blue was at least an inch shy of the nose tip heated pitot tube opening. As you can see, that task was completed (pic 1).

I left the green tape on side of the blue patch so that it couldn’t get ceramic coated since I needed to also re-paint the black border lines.  I taped up the right side of the blue and painted that border line tonight (pic 2).

The temp dropped off to fairly chilly as the night wore on, so I stopped any painting or composite work and knocked out a few minor mechanical tasks, the main one being my converting a rather large computer mouse pad to be used as a strake-protecting pad during refueling ops.

Here it is set in place.

I had measured the opening of the fuel cap probably a month ago, and confirmed it tonight to be 2.5″ in diameter.  To cut the hole cleanly I taped up 2 scrap pieces of wood and clamped them tightly on each side of the protective pad.  I then used my 2.5″ hole saw to make the cut.

There were a good amount of fibers on the edge to be sure, so I used a lighter to burn those away.

Here’s the result of my hole created in the strake protective refueling pad.  Not bad, if I do say so myself.

And this gives you the idea of exactly why I have this, since I’ve noted a lot of chips out of the paint just forward of the gas cap on a fair number of canard aircraft from the cap hitting the paint.  Not to mention if you clamp onto the securing cable/chain with the fuel ground clamp, which can definitely scratch/chip the paint as well.

After this arts and craft task, I called it a night.  I’ll continue my push to finish tomorrow!

I started out today by peeling all the tape off the right wing vortilons with the front tips painted blue, and then taped them all up but for the black stripe in the center exposed.

I then shot the right vortilons with black paint for the center stripes.

I then sanded down the micro on the left vortilons and epoxy wiped those.

After sanding the blemishes off a couple of the wing bolt hole covers, I then shot those with white paint.

As well as the right rudder gust lock.

With my rudders back from Phil’s shop, I mounted the left rudder into the winglet (pic 1) and then taped it up (pic 2) for glassing the left rudder gust lock… hopefully tomorrow.

On the aft nose/avionics cover glare shield I trimmed the rubber edge seal and RTV’d it into place on the glare shield’s aft lip.

And then did pretty much the same on the Turtledeck’s lip, RTV’ing the edge seal into place and securing it with tape while it cures overnight.

And with that, I called it a night.  I’ll continue to press forward on a lot of final glassing of “minor” (read: non-airframe) components and painting in prep for the wings getting buffed out and ceramic coated.

I met Guy at Phil’s shop early this afternoon to load up the fuselage and bring it back to my shop.

After some discussion and introducing Guy to the crew, we checked out the bird (again, for me).

One last look before flipping it around to go onto the trailer . . .

With the fuselage a bit heavier than it was when I hauled it before, plus with nothing else in the trailer towards the front, I had to be careful of it fishtailing.  Plus, there’s no way it will fit on my trailer pointing forwards with the engine mounted, so time to start putting it on tail end first.

And a straight on shot from the aft side.

Of course a ton of BS’ing ensued between all of us long after the fuselage, elevators, rudders, aileron (other needs buffing out) and nose hatch door were all ready to transport.

Guy helped me unload the fuselage and all the parts back at my shop.

I then gave Guy a project update, so another couple of hours total there as well… and with a promised date night with my wife, Jess, I didn’t really get anything else done (other than catching up with blog posts, etc.).

Again, next up for final finishing is the canopy, canard, wings and cowlings, loosely in that order.

Marco had sent me this screenshot when we were discussing his StarLink antenna install and use on his trip to Rough River.  I then forwarded it to Guy as it was just one of many things we discussed about my bird, and Long-EZs in general.

Obviously you can see the level of detail in weather reporting that can be had by having real time Internet in the cockpit.  Kind of exciting really… at least IMO.

Tomorrow I’ll jump back onto the vortilons and some other composite and paint stuff while the weather is half-way warm and decent this week to support such activities.

Today was all about working on the right vortilons.

I started by sanding the epoxy wipes first with 120 grit paper, then wet sanding up 240 grit.

I then set the vortilons on rolls of duct tape and shot them with gray primer.

Yes, I want some bling on my vortilons (call me crazy… again!), so as the primer cured I worked out the vortilon color scheme on the templates.  These will also be cut up to serve as the tape templates to paint the vortilons.

Which I did next.  With the tape in place I then shot the vortilons with 2K sealer coat.

Which I also did to the wing bolt hole covers after sanding down the primer (pic 1), and then shooting the 2K sealer (pic 2).  I had planned on shooting these white but 2 of the 4 covers had dust (or bugs?) in the paint, so need to be sanded before painting.

But the vortilons looked good, so I shot them with 2 coats of blue.

Tomorrow I’ll be picking up the fuselage, and then plan to press forward on the vortilons.