Here’s a couple of shots of the F1-3 bulkhead (“Napster”) attached to the NG30 nose gear box without the clamps.

After prepping the prepreg setups for the inboard NG30 uprights-to-Napster BID tapes, I then mixed up some more epoxy with fast hardener for laying up the inboard (NG30 uprights) BID tapes.

Below are shots of the flox fillets and the laid up BID tapes for the inboard BID tapes.

Here’s a shot of the final layup for the inboard BID tapes.

After laying the inboard NG30 BID tapes, I turned my sights on mounting the nose gear strut to the NG6B nose gear pivot.

I slathered on a bunch of flox all over the mating parts, then permanently screwed the NG5 (top) plate to the nose great strut and NG6B pivot assembly (bottom).

Although a little late for Halloween, this is a shot of “Scary Napster”.

Tomorrow I’ll be working both the elevators and the nose build.

I started out today by setting up the prepreg BID for the lower half of the NG30 to F22 layup.

I mixed up some epoxy with fast hardener and wetted out the prepreg BID.

And then mixed up some flox and applied it to the corners.

Below is a shot of the 2-ply BID prepreg layup for the right external NG30 to F22 attach.  I overlapped the bottom layup over the first (top) layup by an inch.

I then peel plied the layups.  Note that I also laid up 2 plies of BID in the very bottom corner between the NG30 plate and the F22 plate.

While the NG30 glass was curing I started working on mounting the fuselage further forward on the fuselage dolly so that there would be plenty of clearance for the front wheel ingress & egress from the nose gear wheel well.

To move the fuselage forward I needed to cut another fuselage saddle wider than the current forward saddle.  I marked up a piece of wood and cut it out.

I then clamped the old saddle over the new undrilled saddle.  I drilled through the existing holes to make the new mounting holes.

Here’s the new saddle in place and mounted with the 5/16″ bolts…

allowing me to move the fuselage farther forward on the dolly.  I also added another tie down strap.

With the nose wheel clearance taken care of I started working on mounting the nose gear strut (NG1-L) to the nose gear pivot (NG6B).  I mounted it temporarily using clamps, and spent a good 20 minutes getting it aligned down the center of the channel.

I also temporarily mounted the nose wheel to ensure their was enough clearance for the wheel in the wheel well.  It was close, but there was just enough clearance aft of the wheel.

Once I got it aligned I loaded my drill with a 3/16″ bit and started to drill starter holes in each of the 4 holes in the NG6B.

I should probably offer a reminder at this point that I’m using Jack Wilelmson’s NG6B vs the NG6A (or the original NG6).  The NG6B differs in that it uses two separate bolts to hold it in place –one from each side– rather than the single long bolt that the NG6A uses.  This comes in rather handy if you want to remove the nose gear pivot after the nose is built.  Unfortunately, the NG6A bolt can’t be removed easily after it’s installed since the bolt is too long.

The NG6B also comes with the 4 screw holes pre-drilled which makes it really nice when it comes to this part of the build!

My initial plan was to simply drill some starter holes since that would give me the exact locations of the screw holes.  I would then finish drilling the holes on the drill press later.  Well, as I was drilling the starter holes, it occurred to me that the bottom of the nose gear strut isn’t straight, level or even, so mounting this horizontally & level on the drill press table would not be an EZ endeavor.  So, in the name of optimizing time and getting this done I went into Maverick mode and just finished drilling the holes with the power hand drill, freestyle.

Now, I did use the drill press to drill the countersinks into the NG-5 plate.  I screwed the NG-5 down to a 2×4 with 2 screws.  I then drilled the first two countersinks, swapped the screws and drilled the last two countersinks.

Here’s the finished NG-5 plate screwed in place to the nose gear strut.  The ring around the lower left screw in the pic below is because by using the countersink drill bit assembly on the drill press obviously works differently than using it on a hand drill, where with the latter when you press down on the plate it stops the support plate on the drill bit.  When using it on a drill press you have to manually stop the support plate from spinning before engaging the actual bit.

All NG6 assemblies seem to require that the areas around each screw hole be ground down to allow the washers & nuts to fit.  Below you can see that I Dremeled out the area around the hole on the left, while the hole on the right was not yet completed.

The aft holes seemed to be ok for now, so I just added some temporary nuts and tightened everything up.  It all lined up great.

Here are a couple of shots of the nose gear strut in place.

I then started working on the 1/4″ 2024 aluminum skid plate that I’ll be mounting on the lower nose.  I marked a cut line at 6.2″ and then cut it at 45° along this line.

Here’s the raw cut skid plate.

The skid plate will also serve as the mounting plate for the rubber nose bumper that my buddy Marco made for me.

I cut out a notch on the bottom of the NG1-3 bulkhead, or “Napster” as I call it, for the skid plate… using the skid plate as the template.

I then tested the fit.  Not bad.

With Napster prepped, I then taped up the NG6B and its hardware in prep for installing Napster to the forward NG30 uprights.

I started prepping the 2-ply BID tape prepreg setups for mounting Napster to the NG30s.

I mixed up some epoxy with fast hardener and then made up some flox.  I then applied a bead of flox to front edge of each NG30 upright.

Then I cut the BID prepreg setups to size.

And then laid up the BID tapes on the outboard sides of the NG30 uprights.

After a good night’s cure I’ll remove the NG6B nose gear pivot and lay up the inboard BID tapes to finalize the Napster bulkhead install.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so the build will be light, although I will try to get the inboard BID tapes laid up.

Because I now have a nose!

I started out today doing some research on my wiring tools.  I realized that I didn’t have a crimping tool for larger diameter wires under 16 AWG, so I did a little research and ordered one online.

Then, while I was doing an impromptu inventory of my wiring tools, I decided to go ahead and swap out a set of blades to give me a fuller spectrum of MILSPEC wire stripping.  The wire strippers to the left in the pic below are mil spec wire strippers that strip 16-26 AWG wires.  The wire cutters to the right are basically the same strippers that also strip 16-26 AWG, but with standard wire stripping blades for automative purposes, etc., not for aircraft wiring.  While in Qatar I took Nick Ugolini’s advice that he provided on his blog to simply buy a set of aircraft grade mil spec cutting blades (shown to the right below) and install them in a standard, cheaper pair of wire strippers.

So that’s what I did.  But instead of buying 16-26 AWG mil spec cutting blades, I ordered a set of 10-14 AWG cutting blades to give me the capability to strip wires as large as 10 AWG down to 26 AWG wires.

Here’s a couple shots of the wire strippers.

I then started working the install of the NG30 nose gear assembly.  I started by mixing up some MGS epoxy with fast hardener.  I had already prepped the 2-ply BID prepreg setups for both the internal & external BID tapes for attaching the NG30s to the F22 center strut.  I quickly wetted them out and then began mixing up some flox.

I applied the flox to the aft edges of the NG30s.

After applying the flox to the NG30s aft edges, I attached them to the front of F22 with the clamp and then marked up the internal 2-ply BID tapes and cut them to length: 13.5″ long x 3.3″ wide.

I then laid up the NG30 assembly’s internal BID tapes after applying pure epoxy to prep the glass surfaces.

After laying up the internal NG30 BID tapes, I did a final alignment check with the laser. Thankfully it was spot on.

I then laid up the external BID tapes that wrap around the aft side of the F22 center strut on the first inch and a half of each aft NG30 edge.  Because of the clamp securing the NG30 assembly to the F22 center strut, I could only lay up the top 7″ of the external BID tapes.  I’ll add the bottom external BID tapes later.

After I peel plied the external BID tapes, I was in the middle of adding the first of some peel ply strips to the edges of the internal BID tapes when I felt the epoxy cup in my hand getting really warm.  I was able to get a little bit more epoxy on the center peel ply strip but I stopped when the epoxy started getting much, much warmer and was clearly heading towards exotherm.

Since the internal BID tapes will rarely see the light of day, I left them as is and didn’t mix up any more epoxy to add any more peel ply.

Here’s a shot of the left side external peel plied BID tape.

And an aft view of the external BID tapes.

I then fired up a heat lamp and took a break for dinner.

Upon my return from dinner I removed the peel ply from the external BID tapes.

I then razor trimmed the top area of the NG30s.

I then removed the one piece of internal peel ply, and then the protective tape around the nose gear actuator mount.

Tomorrow I plan on laying up the bottom external BID tapes.  As the the BID tapes cure, I’ll be working on the elevators to ensure they’re balanced and meet the up/down angle specs on the canard.

Oh, and the left elevator rebuild is complete!

I finished the left elevator rebuild by laying up the 2-ply UNI strip layup around the outboard elevator weight.

I then peel plied the layup.

I then turned my sights on the nose area, or F22 as it is right now.  To prep the brake line secure and protect layup on each side, I first slid another 6″ of Nylaflow to jut up against the end of they current Nylaflow.  A good portion of this new Nylaflow will get buried under Micro & glass.

With the left over epoxy from the elevator weight glassing, I whipped up some thick micro and micro’d in the urethane foam piece with a good slathering.

I then laid up first the left side, and then the right side with 1-ply BID over the foam ramps. The popsicle sticks in the pics are holding the glass down that surrounds the upper brake line.  I then applied peel ply to each layup.

Here’s a shot of the completed left elevator . . .  hoo-ah!

And here’s the trimmed outboard elevator weight glass.

I turned my sights back onto the F22 center strut.  I sanded the forward face and then hit each back corner with the sanding  black to radius it a bit for the glass tapes that will hold the nose gear frame (NG30s) to the center strut.

Here are the finished layups for the right & left side brake line secure, protect & route.

Here’s a shot of the new layups from the front.  Notice how the interior area forward of the instrument panel is clean & sanded.  I spent a good hour getting this area sanded and in shape.

I then grabbed my trusty string and checked the CL alignment of the bulkheads.

I also removed the nose gear actuator from the NG30 frame in prep for glassing the NG30s to the F22 center strut, etc.  Notice that I taped up the mounting brackets & hardware.

Also checked the left-right level of the fuselage across the longerons.  Looks PDG!

I then clamped up the NG30 nose assembly to F22 on the front of the fuselage to test out the fit & finish of the nose gear frame assembly.  Now, this was just a dress rehearsal, trial run, etc. so I haven’t floxed or taped it on yet.

Here’s a little bit closer shot.  Amazing that although I built the NG30s back in 2013, this is the first time they’ve been mocked up on the nose.

To really ensure everything is on the straight and narrow, I pulled out my (also) trusty laser level to shoot some laser lines.  It took me about 5 minutes to get the laser set up and leveled itself.

I then fired a line at the CL of the fuselage and NG30 nose gear assembly.  The laser line was off a very faint tad here & there, but in the end it all lined up, nice & centered!

Tomorrow, I plan on floxing and glassing the NG30 nose gear assembly onto the front of the plane.  I’ll also remount the elevators and test out their range of motion, balance, etc. Finally, if I get time, I’ll be getting back to finishing the underside of the canard.

I didn’t get a whole lot done today since I relaxed a bit and watched some football, and also ran a few errands.

I did get a little bit of work accomplished today though.  I started out by trimming the foam around the inside edges of the glass skin on the outboard end of the elevator.  This foam removal is to allow for flox to be applied to replace the foam in the areas around the perimeter and thus create a “flox corner” for strength.

Unlike the other side, where I taped up the NC6 and then worked a fair amount to get the cured glass off of it, this time I simply cut the glass out ahead of time using a 1″ round tube as a template on a pre-pregged ply of BID.

Here’s the prepreg after I cut out the 1″ circle.

And here’s the layup with the top piece of prepreg plastic still in place.

Here’s the layup set to cure.

Quite a few hours later I returned and razor edged the elevator end layup.  Since it was pretty much cured, I sanded the corners of the layup to smooth everything out.

I don’t have a pic of it, but I did spend a little time removing all the protective tape from the various holes in the elevator  I cut the glass covering the hinge tab slots, and then drilled out the holes on each end: one for the set screw and the other for the torque offset bolt, respectively.  I also sanded the LE a bit to get everything smooth & even.

Here’s a shot of the end of the elevator, and the contour template in place as well.

My last act of the evening (besides some research) was to re-attach the outboard elevator weight with flox.  On this side the foam wasn’t too bad off, so I reused it.  I did add a small crescent moon shaped foam spacer to help fill in a gap where it met the LE.  I mounted it to the elevator with flox made with fast hardener.

Tomorrow I should get around to covering the outboard weight with 2 plies of UNI.  I’ll also be working to sand down the TE on both elevators to dial in the correct width.

Not that I am… but I like the concept!

I started off today by sanding down the left elevator tube and then Alodining it.  It was raining lightly so I let the tube soak in the PVC pipes just inside the garage door & out of the rain.  As you can see, to keep the tubes upright I simply stuffed them into my shop recycle bin.

In between the extended soaking times of my very weak Alumaprep & Alodine, I measured out the fuselage “saddles” that will keep the fuselage safely atop the fuselage dolly.

I kept the bottom of each saddle 3-1/2″ high to keep them the same height as a regular 2×4.

Here’s the first cut “saddle”.

And here are the saddles in place, although not yet mounted.

I should note that before I cut the front saddle I measured the angle of the work top of the fuselage dolly.

The goal to match the angle of the longerons with that of the work platform on the fuselage dolly.  As you can see, they both came out at the same angle.

My next task was to drill a 3/8″ hole 4 inches from the side of each saddle into the 2×3 below it.  The 2×3’s will be mounted flat and then each saddle bolted to the 2×3.

Here’s a shot of the fuselage mounted on the fuselage dolly in the saddles.

I also mounted 3 tie-down points on each side of the fuselage dolly: one next to each saddle, front & aft, and then one in the middle of the work table.

Along with finishing up a lot of tasks on the fuselage dolly, I also reorganized the garage to facilitate the nose build and cleaned up a bunch.  After I finished with my non-build tasks, I got back to work on the left elevator rebuild.

Below is a shot of the elevator tube after the Alodine dried.

Now, to get the left elevator foam core mounted on the elevator tube so that it matches the right elevator tube, especially the TE, I simply couldn’t build it as if it were a new build. Why? Well, when I originally drilled the elevator tubes to mount them to the torque offsets, which occurred at the same time with both elevators aligned, that action locked in the two elevators so that they were in synch and also ensured that the TE’s matched in trail.

Thus, I had to do a little reverse engineering in mounting the left elevator foam core to the left elevator tube.  I had been pondering this quite a bit over the last week and finally decided to mount the elevator foam core with the elevator tube mounted on the canard, in conjunction with the other elevator tube, spool tube, torque offsets, etc. exactly as it would be in its final install.  In using this method the first step would be to lock the right elevator TE in place, and then that would let me know where the left elevator TE needs to be.

Now, to take this one step further I wanted to mount the elevators to the canard with the canard in a nose down/TE up position.  I pondered on this a bit as well and finally decided on a method:

I started by measuring the distance between the LE and the canard mounting tabs, which was about 3-1/2″… obviously the same width as a 2×4.  So I mounted a 2×4 to the work bench with clamps.  I really wanted to avoid (at worst minimize) any damage to the mounting tab holes, so I used a drill bit as a smooth mounting peg on one side by simply drilling the bit into the 2×4 until the cutting edge disappeared into the wood.  I then released the chuck and left the drill bit in the 2×4 (you can see this drill bit on the top right side of the 2×4).

Here’s a closeup shot of the drill bit as a mounting peg.

I then used a fine-threaded screw and covered all but the first 25% of the screw threads with electrical tape to mount the other canard mounting tab.

The first issue I noted is the mismatch between the TE of the new right elevator and the TE of the right swoosh tip.  Now, I haven’t done specific measurements on the width of the of the elevator, so this may be a passing issue.  Of course I made a note of it and it will have to be remedied in some fashion.

I then clamped the right elevator TE to keep it aligned.

Since this evening was all about fixing my elevator woes, it was nice to finally have something go right, as in I’m very happy that the outboard elevator weight fits perfectly into its notched home in the canard.

Here’ are couple shots of the canard with right elevator, et al, mounted.

Now, I have to admit that I just could not get either of the hinge pins into the inboard tube hinge points.  I finally unmounted the canard, laid it flat in its normal right-side-up position and with a little firm coaxing and twisting with vice grips those suckers slid right in.  On the bright side I guess it’s nice to know that they’ll go in when the plane is right side up.  It would suck if it was the other way around!  Yuk, yuk!

I then pulled out the second set of elevator foam cores that I just recently got from Eureka CNC.

To check how square the ends of these foam cores were I placed them end to end.

I then measured the paired cores and marked a line at 53″.  I then cut the second foam core and confirmed that the two combined cores equalled 53″.

To keep the mess on the canard to a minimum, and to also keep the micro’d left elevator core as straight as possible, I decided to only micro the smaller of the left elevator foam cores pieces onto the tube.  To start, I mocked up that smaller piece as you can see below.  It fit perfectly and very snugly.

I mixed up some micro and micro’d on the smaller piece of the left elevator core.  I ran a line from the right elevator TE to match the left elevator TE as closely as possible in trail to the right side.

Here’s a wide angle shot of the left elevator core piece installed.

And a shot from the top side of the canard.

I let the micro cure for about an hour before dismantling the elevator assembly.  With the smaller elevator core piece micro’d securely in place, I then merely mounted the remaining elevator core with micro.

And then weighed down the elevator core, specifically the TE.

Here’s a shot of the curing left elevator core micro’d to the elevator tube, and a shot of the entire canard back in a “normal” state.

Tomorrow I plan on finishing the major glassing of the left elevator, both top and bottom. As I’ve mentioned before, once I start getting close to finishing the left elevator, I’ll start ramping up more on the nose build.

After taking a long hard look at the left elevator I made the call to rebuild it.  The plans say that you can sand the skin down to 1 ply of glass with no issues as long as the areas aren’t too big (around 2″ in diameter).  I met this criteria, the weight was under control after the heavy sanding, but the skin felt just a little too soft in that there was just a bit of give in about 3 of the 5 thinly sanded spots.  My gut told me that this was ok and met the “letter of the law,” but since I have a perfectly “perfect” elevator core from Eureka CNC on hand, my brain said the right thing to do was rebuild this sucker.  I want to be clear, this wasn’t a decision borne of fear, but one of optimization.  I simply want to be able to run this bird as fast as I want to, without worries yes, but the more complete the elevator skin is, then common sense dictates the less prone to structural failure if I do encounter any flutter.

So, I chose to rebuild.

Here is the left elevator when I started this evening.

I began by removing the torque tube offset on the inboard side.

And then I removed the outboard weight.

If you remember, a while back I had a “moment” as I was floxing the inboard elevator hinge bracket into the canard slot.   I had some type of exotherm issue where it spit out a good portion of the flox onto the hinge, torque tube, etc.  The flox even bridged between all these parts and the fishtail area of the canard TE.  I was heading out to meet my buddy Rob, so if I hadn’t found this issue and cleaned it up my life would have been hell for a at least a few days.

Anyway, that incident left some flox on the elevator torque tube offset that I never really noticed until today.  After I removed the installing torque offset, I heated it up with the heat gun on high and then scraped off the dried epoxy.

This was the result of my cleaning:

Below is a shot of the “clean” left elevator with all the “add-ons” removed.

Then, as I did with the right elevator, I checked the gaps for hinge slot spacing with the hinge pin and NC7’s installed.

After I got my hinge spacing set and spacers cut to size, I made my first cut to remove the skin along the top of elevator.

And then the next cut along the bottom of the elevator near the tube.  I used my trusty Fein saw to make these cuts (BTW, in my shop Fein=Harbor Freight!)

I then extricated the elevator tube from the glass & foam of the now “old” elevator core.

I cleaned off the old foam & micro with my razor knife in the first round of elevator tube cleaning.

Then, just as with the right elevator tube, I dunked it in a PVC tube full of solution.  Only this time I soaked it in acetone vs. white vinegar since I wanted to get this tube completely cleaned by evening’s end.  I figured acetone would probably have a bit more of a “bite” to it.

While the elevator tube was soaking, I removed the canard from its mounts and cleaned the leftover Bondo off the mounts.

With the mounts clean (read: no scratching or gouging the top finish), I flipped the canard upside down.  I was pleased that the Bondo blobs securing the canard to the mounts turned out to be pretty much in as inconspicuous places as I could possible get them.

If you look closely at the pics below, you can see that the Bondo is right on the line of the junction (or corner) where the bottom of the canard meets the fuselage.  Clean up and noticeability in this area shouldn’t be too demanding.

I then took a long shot of the canard –bottom view– that clearly shows that I have a fair amount of work left on the bottom side of the canard as well.

After a couple of hours, I removed the elevator tube from the acetone for its final cleaning.

Note the NG30 assembly to F22 bulkhead clamp in the background for the upcoming nose build.  I drilled and assembled this guy tonight.

Tomorrow I plan on sanding the elevator tube before Alodining it.  If all goes well I should get the elevator foam core attached to the elevator tube and the bottom skin laid up.

Today I had to attend my weekly broker’s meeting at the office.  On the way home I stopped off at Lowe’s, Michael’s and Home Depot in search of some springs for my ratchet pawls for the fuselage dolly.  No joy.  I guess I’ll have to look online for them.

Once back at the house, I started off with finishing about an hour’s worth of research on some of the electrical components, updating my nose wiring/component placement diagram, and a little research on the ADS-B & GRT EFIS interface.

I then spent about 45 minutes sanding the top of the canard with 120 grit paper using the long board.  I’ve got to tell you that sanding it this time around with the primer completely cured was so much easier than the first time around.  The primer sanded very nicely and I was able to get a bunch of it off and the canard top very close to its final shape.

At this point I was at a bit of crossroads: I still needed to get the canard flipped to mount the elevators, but I also wanted to finish the surface of the canard top as much as possible. Since I haven’t yet decided on a paint system, and thus the required primer, I couldn’t very well just apply a final coat of primer.

Since there are still surface imperfections & depressions, I decided to fill those before moving forward on any other finish actions.  Normally, after a good sanding where so much of the original primer coat has been sanded away, I would simply apply another couple of coats of high build primer and greatly minimize the surface imperfections.  But again, since I’m not sure which primer I’m using at this point, I punted and went with filling all the low areas on the canard top surface.

I started by angling a shop light at the surface from each end of the canard and looking at the surface at a very low angle to find all the imperfections.  As I found each low point I circled it lightly with a pencil.

I then popped open a can of Z-Grip that a buddy of mine was storing in my shop and said I could use if I ever needed it.  I swore that I had used this in past 9 months, but apparently not!  I tried stirring this to see if I could revive it, but the ship had sailed on the usability of this stuff.

I had even picked up a tube of hardener for the Z-Grip when I picked up the Evercoat Metal Glaze Finishing Putty, and yes, even though it has “metal” in the title, this stuff is a standard high quality glazing putty and works like a champ on fiberglass applications.

It actually turned out better that the Z-Grip was a pile of goo since for my filling requirements the Metal Glaze worked perfectly.  It took 3 separate mixing sessions and about 15 minutes to get the low lying areas filled.

Since the glazing putty cures so quickly, I immediately started cheese grating it to get each spot down close to its final level, using 80 grit strips that I cut out from some used long board sandpaper that I was going to throw away

Here’s a shot of the right side after cheese grating the glazing putty spots.

After returning from dinner, I mounted some peel-n-stick 80 grit paper to my sanding block and sanded just the puttied areas.  I got them really close to their final level, feathering the edges of each puttied spot to the existing canard surface.

After the lion’s share of the feathering was completed with the 80 grit hard board, I then loaded up another sheet of 120 grit on the stiff long board and sanded down each side of the canard, focusing of course on ensuring that the puttied areas were blended nicely into the existing canard surface.

I then checked the profile with the top canard contour template on each side, and was very happy with the results.

I cleaned the top of the canard off of any sanding dust, and really took my time feeling the surface with my hands for any imperfections. I then went over the entire canard top surface again lightly with the 120 grit long board focusing on any minor issues left to be dealt with.

I then focused on the edge of the right swoosh tip to feather in the two spots I had filled with glazing putty.

I’m very satisfied with the final fill of the canard top surface.  Although I’m sure a few minor elevation differences will rear their ugly heads during future final sandings and surface prep, the top of the canard is ready for a final coat or two of primer, some final wet sanding, and then paint.  Obviously, as per above, I just have to figure out what primer & paint that will be!

Now that I’ve got my electrical component curiosity satisfied for the internal nose configuration, I was finally able to focus on getting the fuselage pulled out from under the canard build table and mounted onto the fuselage dolly.

Over the next few days I’ll be focusing primarily on the bottom of the canard: getting all the divots filled and sanding it for final paint prep.  I’ll also be remounting the elevators, checking alignment, and rebuilding the left elevator.  Finally, I’ll finalize the mounting of the fuselage on the dolly, reconfigure the shop to allow for room to work on the fuselage, and get moving on the nose build.