I got back from my weekend trip a bit earlier than expected, so I was able to get out into the shop in the very late afternoon.

I started by spending a good 45 minutes emptying the water out of the right fuel tank. When it got low enough I just pulled the plug and let the water drain from the main tank exit drain down into the right sump and then out the sump drain hole, which doesn’t have the drain plug installed currently.

I then got busy designing the elevator root fairings.

After assessing the inboard elevator area and interface with the aft nose/avionics cover I put my design down on paper.

After a few iterations I narrowed down my fairing profile on paper and cut it out.  I then test fit it on the aft nose/avionics cover.  So far so good at this point.

I then rounded up my piece of PVC foam and taped my fairing profile to it.

I then traced out the template to create 2 fairings.

I marked the excess foam to be removed . . .

And cut it off with my mini-hack saw.

Because the block of foam was so thick, I used my small band saw to cut out the fairing blocks.

Voila!  Initial foam fairing blocks shaped.

Another shot of the foam fairing pieces.

Clearly a bit of trimming still required at this point.

I marked up the left foam fairing block for trimming and shaping.

And worked both sides to get the foam fairing blocks to fit.

I then made the radius cut on the aft side of each foam fairing block.

With the initial fit of the foam fairing blocks good, I then got busy on working stuff for the #2 purpose of these fairings: to help secure the aft nose/avionics cover to the fuselage via CAMLOC hard points.

To do this I’m going to embed a threaded CAMLOC (SkyBolt) receptacle phenolic block into a bottom-side notch on each fairing.  That will lock to a floxed and glassed G10 phenolic nub protruding out of the fuselage sidewall approximately 1″.

I first cut a couple squares out of my 1/4″ phenolic stock.

I then drilled and tapped the phenolic blocks . . .

to mount the threaded CAMLOC receptacles into.

After stuffing the threaded CAMLOC receptacles with plastic saran to protect the insides, I the micro’d the blocks into place into their respective fairing notches.

A bit later I laid up 3 plies of BID over each phenolic CAMLOC receptacle block to secure it to the foam fairing block.  As you can see, the right fairing block layup turned out fine, whereas I’m definitely going to have to clean up and redo the left one tomorrow.

It was quite late so I called it a night and will hit it hard tomorrow!

I continued on today with my work on the aft nose/avionics cover.  To reiterate, I want the aft nose/avionics cover install complete before I flip the bird over to shape and glass the bottom strake skins.

I started off by drilling the hole in the front right flange that will allow the nose side CAMLOC stud to engage the lightweight stainless steel CAMLOC/SkyBolt receptacle I riveted in place on the flange.

I then tested out the fit of both the aft nose cover and specifically all the 4 mounted CAMLOCs located on the front flange.  So far so good!

Note that I will be extending the outer flanges further outboard with glass to conform and compress the “B” seal as far outboard as possible.  This part of the nose curves to intersect the mating curve with the canard leading edge, so clearly I could not use straight G10 phenolic stock to create this section of the flange.  Moreover, I don’t consider this super critical and will do this task after I flip the bird back upright.

To ensure clearance with both the forward-situated nose bridge corner edge and with the canard as the cover swings either up to open or down to close, I trimmed the outboard flanges as close to each CAMLOC receptacle as possible.

Here’s a before shot:

And post trim.

As I alluded to above, my priority is the securing of the aft nose/avionics cover to the airplane.  Secondary is sealing the gaps to keep moisture out as best possible.  So besides the very outboard flange extensions that will need to be glassed, the front flange with its 4 CAMLOC receptacles that secure it to the forward nose section is complete.

So just how is the aft nose/avionics cover secured to the airplane?  Well, there are 16 points that secure it (green denotes completion):
– 2 hinges that allow opening and closing of cover without removing from plane.
– 4 forward CAMLOCs (above)
– 4 aft CAMLOCs (across top of instrument panel)
– 2 interlocking hinge segments with hinge pin (upper corner each side of panel)
– 2 CAMLOCs on each “flap” to pin them to the aircraft (discussed below)
– 2 inboard elevator fairing CAMLOCs that secures fairing to sidewall tab

To have better access into the avionics bay to mount these next pair of CAMLOCs I chose to install them with the canard off.  Plus these are much less complex and a quicker kill than tackling the inboard elevator fairings.

I started by doing an assessment on the final position for the CAMLOC on each side. Again, these pin down the flaps, which are fairly thin, to ensure they are literally not flapping in the breeze.

The factors as to where to locate these side CAMLOCs is a combination of optimum placement for securing the flap, relationship and clearance with the future elevator fairing, and also —and one of the most important— avoidance and clearance internal to the avionics bay side wall.

Once I cleared myself hot… and after confirming the position with a small pilot hole, I drilled the left side flap CAMLOC hole.

I then drilled the right.  As you can see, the right side (far side below) has both a cable connector bracket and the autopilot pitch servo to avoid.  Admittedly, and to be clear, these side flap CAMLOCs are in the same general location, but are not exactly symmetrical.

I then temporarily mounted the 1/4″ thick phenolic threaded CAMLOC receptacle block onto the surface of the right sidewall.  I then traced out the edge to mark the sidewall for cutting.

Then cut the sidewall and dug out some foam.  Although not really visible here, I dug out foam at the edges to create a flox corner.

I then test fitted the 1/4″ thick phenolic threaded CAMLOC receptacle block. I made up these phenolic receptacle blocks quite a few months ago (November maybe?) and am just now installing them.

I then floxed the inside of the foam to create the flox corner around the perimeter of the hole, and then to also even up the foam surface a bit.  I then placed a small patch of BID into the hole, wet it out a bit and pressed the phenolic receptacle block –also slathered with wet flox– into the hole.

I then repeated the same thing on the left side . . . I temp mounted and marked the phenolic receptacle block perimeter edge.

And cut the side wall glass with the Fein saw.

Same flox corners around the edge of the hole, with a ply of BID before I pressed the phenolic receptacle block into place.  Here you can see that I did prep the threaded CAMLOC receptacle by stuffing it with plastic (saran) wrap and then covering the front face with a patch of tape.  I did this previously on the right side as well.

And here we have the left side phenolic receptacle block floxed and glassed in place. These steps for both sides were the initial, round 1 of glassing.

A few hours later I cut the cured glass around the phenolic receptacle block on the interior side.  The real fun was removing the glass, flox and plastic from the front face of the threaded CAMLOC receptacle.  It wasn’t overly difficult, but it did take a good 20 minutes per side.

To ensure that the phenolic receptacle blocks are secure from the pushing of the CAMLOC stud from the outside in, I added a ply of BID on the inside that overlapped from each phenolic receptacle block onto the surrounding sidewall glass around it.  Since there was slight difference in elevation between sidewall and phenolic receptacle block on each side, I used micro to smooth out the transition.

And Voila!  These layups complete the aft nose/avionics cover side flaps’ CAMLOC installation.

Since the interior ply of BID didn’t cover the center of the threaded CAMLOC (again, these are actually from SkyBolt) receptacle, I went ahead and placed the aft nose/avionics cover in place and locked it down at all the other CAMLOC stations as well.  Then I installed CAMLOCs at these freshly installed side flap CAMLOC points to have them cure completely in as correct position as possible.

Although it was late, I wanted to get the test “fuel” (AKA water) transferred from the left tank to the right tank.  It took nearly 2 hours as I had to first prep the right tank (rubber stopper, drain valve install, remove tape, etc.) to be ready for the test fill.  As I did on the left tank I applied a strip of blue painters tape along the front edge of the fuel sight gage to annotate fuel levels in 2.5 gal. increments.

I then proceeded to transfer the water over from the left tank to the right tank (2x 1 gal, 1x 0.5 gal) and annotate the fuel site gage every 2.5 gallons.

I’ve been curious for quite a while just how much fuel my tanks will hold, and with this exercise I now know:
Left tank max capacity: 26.7 gal
Right tank max capacity: 26.3 gal

That’s obviously 53 gallons max capacity if I need it.  Not bad considering the elbow room mod takes such a big chunk of fuel out of the mix.  I’ve very pleased with the fuel capacity . . .

And even more pleased that again, just like the left side: NO LEAKS!!

I’ll be out of town for a quick trip this weekend (Sat & Sun) so no building on those days. I will of course be mentally contemplating my inboard elevator fairings and any ways to optimize or simplify those.

I didn’t get much done yesterday.  I ended up helping out a sick friend by watching her daughter for a while.  I did get started on positioning of the aft nose/avionics cover left flange CAMLOC placement though.

I was also able to lay up a ply of BID on the front side of the RIGHT flange on the aft nose/avionics cover…. which I peel plied.

I then laid up a ply of BID each on the aft side of both the right and left side flanges.  I then peel plied those as well.

Today I started out by pulling the peel ply and cleaning up the layups on each side flange.  I then finished drilling and installing the left flange CAMLOC receptacle… again, a lightweight stainless steel SkyBolt receptacle to be more precise.

I then did a final test fit of the CAMLOC stud… all good!

Yesterday I added about 10 gal. of water, with a bit of soap in it to reduce surface tension, to the left fuel tank.  Mainly to test for leaks of course, but I was also very curious about the capacity of the fuel tanks given that I had the inboard GIB elbow room mod and the subsequent added outboard fuel pocket.

I added the water 2.5 gallons at a time (technically 1 gal + 1 gal + 0.5 gal) in order to make my hash marks on the blue tape next to the fuel site gage.  Interestingly enough my fuel sight gage’s max topline indication is at 24 gallons . . .

while I was able to fill up the tank to 26.5 gallons.  My only limiting factor to adding –in my guesstimate– another 1/2 gallon was that the outboard of the tank was filled literally to the brim… or T-hat in this instance.

However, at the BL23/R23 rib I had a good half inch between water top and bottom edge of T-Hat.

At at the far back corner I had about 3/4″ more space to cram in some fuel.

Clearly the minimum max capacity of these tanks –IF the right fills to the same level (which I’ll test next)– is 53 gallons.  Possibly over 54 gallons.  Given the space lost to the GIB elbow room mod, I’m more than happy with that fuel capacity!

Moreover, I’m very pleased that without having even glassed the external bottom strake skin I have ZERO visible leaks!

I threw this video together to provide an overview of the strake and fuel tank build.

And with that, I called it a night!

I started today back on the aft nose/avionics cover.  With the 1-ply BID layup cured on the left front flange, I took the weights and tape off the top to check out the intersection between the cover and the nose…. not bad at all.  Clearly the ply of BID was securing the cover to the profile of the flange, something I was concerned was outside of the job description of 5-minute glue on its own.

In contrast, the right front corner of the aft nose/avionics cover still needs to have a flange segment created and thus the corner is still raised a bit.

I took this shot showing the 2 of the 3 tasks on the list to complete before the fuselage gets flipped inverted: the aft nose/avionics cover install, the right strake pilot air vent (finished, see below) and the final instrument panel install.

I removed the aft nose/avionics cover and laid up a ply of BID on the front side of the flange, after laying in a flox fillet.  I then peel plied the layup.

I had previously removed the peel ply from the aft side of the left flange and cleaned up the edges of that layup.  The aft side will get one more ply of BID for strength and rigidity.

I then got to work on the right strake pilot air vent structure.  After knife trimming the glass around the inside edge of the vent hole, I pulled the internal wall cardboard form off the internal 2-ply layup.

Overall it looked pretty good but I did have some sagging of the glass on the front lower edge.  It’s hard to tell in the pic, but the laid up glass was even with or even over-hanging the fuselage sidewall just a hair.  I could have slathered in some dry micro for the transition, but I wanted the convergence of the glass at this perimeter edge to flow more smoothly and evenly than adding more to the mix to cover it up.

Thus, like a plastic surgeon, I decided to do some judicious surgery here and remove the offending sagging area…. so I marked it first.

And then cut it out with my Fein saw.  I know when I’m creating one-off parts like this that sometimes it’s a very iterative process.  With such a small sliver missing, I started by glassing in a patch on the inside of the vent wall.  I also added micro and flox to the seams and this patched area about an hour before I laid up the actual glass… again, just to let it get fairly firm.

I then laid up 2 plies of BID as an external layup over the existing 2 plies for the internal layup.  While both plies overlap onto the fuselage sidewall, only the top ply overlapped onto the aft face of the vent structure (around the opening).  I then peel plied the layup.

About 5 hours later I removed the peel ply.  Due to all the black lines and white micro it’s a bit hard to tell that the flow is very smooth.  Once painted I think it will look really good and have very nice transitions.

I then installed the actual vent in its mounting plate to check out how it will look and function . . . Voila!  I’m very pleased with the outcome of this right side strake pilot air vent.

One reason I want to get these tasks out of the way before I flip the fuselage over is that they tend to be fiddly, in that it takes a lot of trial and error, fits, sanding, filing and refits to get these parts dialed in closely.

The same holds true on the aft nose/avionics cover.  I tell people that stop by to check out the plane build that I honestly think the aft nose cover will be one very cool and extremely functional part of the plane when its finished.  But man, oh, man is it a time suck to get this thing done.  I enjoy the creative process and try to enjoy the construction of it, but the time required to get this thing together is a bit much. Regardless, with the air vent now complete, I only have the aft nose/avionics cover and some remaining instrument panel install stuff left before I flip the bird.

With that said, I spent a good little bit of time creating a cardboard template, then dialing that in to transfer onto my 1/16″ thick stock of G10 phenolic to cut out.  I then did some final tweaking on the G10 flange before 5-min. gluing it up under the right side of the aft nose/avionics cover.  I clamped it in place while it cured.  Note that you can see some weighted shot bags above the flange on the top of the nose cover to wrangle the edge down into a more aligned position with the nose top.

After the 5-min. glue cured I laid up a ply of BID –again, to keep the front right corner of the aft nose/avionics cover aligned with the nose– on the aft side of the right flange and then peel plied it.

(Note the drilled 1/2″ diameter CAMLOC receptacle hole drilled in the left flange)

I then left this layup to cure overnight.

Part of my initial tasks today was to peel ‘n stick the “B” seal on the aft edge of the nose bridge which will get compressed by the front flange of the aft nose/avionics cover.

Here’s a closer shot of the “B” seal on the right side of the aft nose bridge surface.

I then created a cardboard template of the left side forward flange for the aft nose/avionics cover and then traced out the cardboard onto my sheet of 1/16″ G10 phenolic.

Here we have the original cardboard template and the cutout G10 phenolic flange piece.

I taped up the aft nose bridge, the “B” seal and the hinge to protect them from the decent amount of 5-min. glue I slathered onto the edges of the left flange piece before clamping it into place firmly against the left CAMLOC tab.

I should note that this step came after spending well over an hour carefully sanding both the front edge of the aft nose/avionics cover and the aft edge of the aft nose bridge to get a fairly uniform gap and to be able to get the outer front edges of the aft nose cover to align elevation-wise with the forward nose surface.

Not surprisingly, both front outboard corners of the aft nose/avionics cover flare out just a bit higher than the surface of the forward intersecting nose.  So I weighed and taped this outboard front corner down to keep the intersection as even as possible between the two surfaces.

To really make sure the front outboard corner of the aft nose/avionics cover kept its shape and nice intersection with the forward nose edge, after the 5 min. glue cured I added a flox fillet on the aft side of the left flange and laid up a ply of BID to secure the aft side of the flange to the underside of the aft nose/avionics cover. I then peel plied the layup.

I then got to work on the right strake pilot vent inlet hole.  I sanded the interior of the hole and then sanded and shaped the outer edge of the hole.  It may not look the cleanest, but after a bit of cleanup micro and perhaps some inlaid glass during the strake skin layup it should be a nice rounded, smooth inlet.

With the major shaping of the external vent inlet hole complete, I then turned my sights to creating the inboard vent structure wall.  I used some thin cardboard to make up a template for the inboard wall . . .

And then laid up 2 plies of BID on the inside of the cardboard template, with the glass overlapping onto the interior edges of the strake vent structure, including the inboard edge of the aft face.

Again I should note that not only did I tape up the inboard surface of the template with smooth packing tape, but I then added peel ply so that the outer surface of this layup would be as ready as possible for an added external layup.

With that, I left these layups to cure overnight.

Today I was able to finish up the ailerons with the installation of the left aileron.  Yes, I still need to install the control hardware, but the big hurdle of getting both ailerons constructed and installed has been cleared.

I started out by prepping the hinges for temporary attachment to the aileron itself.  As per plans the hinges are secured in place inside the wing’s aileron pocket, and then the aileron side of the hinge must get attached –very rigidly– to the face of the aileron.  Since this deals with permanent aileron alignment, whatever method used to affix the hinges to the ailerons must be secure, but then allow for removing the hinges for a final application of flox as they then get riveted to the aileron.

I chose “5-minute” glue (actually 30 min. cure time Gorilla 2-part epoxy) over hot glue or Bondo for my temporary hinge attach method.  To keep the hinges pressed firmly up against the face of the aileron, I used packing foam cut about a 1/2″ thick x 3.5″ long.  The heights varied (see below) because the wing side aileron trough gets deeper the further inboard in you go.

You can see the hinges propped up/open by foam here… I set a sample of the foam mid-pic.

Another shot of the foam “spring” spacers used to hold the aileron hinges up tight against the aileron face.

For those curious about the foam pieces I used for the hinges, here are the heights of those pieces:

And then, just as I did on the right wing, I hung a 25-pound weight over the aileron trailing edge at the middle hinge to compress the above foam inserts and keep the aileron hinges pressed as tightly up against the aileron front face as possible.  This is after I applied dollops of 5-min. glue to the hinges.

A bottom aileron shot as the 5-min glue cures to secure the hinges to the aileron.

Also, as I did when I did the initial hinge-gluing on the right aileron, I continuously checked the surface alignment between aft wing and aileron surface every few inches and made minor tweaks as required.  Both ailerons only required some very minor nudges (this is due to the fact that I dry ran both aileron installs and knew where all my clamps and shims needed to go before I ‘went live’).

As I suspected, there was a bit of difference between the wing and aileron trailing edges… but the offset here on the left side is even less than the right: under 0.050″.

About 45 min. later I popped off all the clamps and removed the clecos.  I then removed the hinge pins and wing-side hinge halves.  The 5-min glue does a great job of securing the hinge plates to the aileron face, and is not horribly difficult to remove either.

I then marked and drilled all the rivet holes –24 total– as per plans.

And set all the MSP-43 pop rivets in place . . . I then removed all the rivets, popped off the hinge pieces from the aileron, and cleaned off the 5-min. glue from both the hinges and the aileron face.

I then whipped up some fairly wet flox, applied it to the hinge pieces before riveting them to the aileron.  I will say I did have yet another misfire on exactly one rivet as I did on the right aileron, but had it removed and replaced in just a few minutes.

After cleaning up the excess flox and letting it cure for a few hours, I then mounted the aileron back onto the wing using clecos.

After checking gap clearances and rotating the aileron up and down to ensure good function (I had some gumming flox that was causing some issues so I had to do another thorough cleaning/de-gunking) I then pulled one cleco from each hinge and drilled it out for a #10 screw.

I eventually got all the clecos removed, holes drilled out to #10 and nutplates installed on the wing-side hinge halves.

I then re-installed the aileron using temporary bolts (again, when the wing surface micro finish is complete, I’ll drill out these holes to accept stainless steel CS screws).

Voila!  Left aileron officially installed!

Here’s the bottom side of the aileron.  I do have some small layups on both wings to fill in the excess gaps I have from having to trim the ailerons down on the sides to allow free rotation through their respective range of motions.

As shown here… both up and down travel are fine at this point.

It was late, and the entire process of mounting just a single aileron takes a surprisingly long amount of time, but it’s done and in the bag.  With both ailerons installed I can move on and focus my attention on the aft nose/avionics cover install.

I started out today with a few trial and error attempts to use hot glue to temporarily secure the aileron hinges to the front face of the ailerons.  I’m not sure if it was the type of glue stick I was using, but for me it just didn’t work.  So emphasis here was on error. I ended up punting and simply going with the tried and true 5-minute glue.  What I definitely wanted to stay away from was Bondo…. it’s such a pain to get all of it off a glassed surface.  My experience anyway.

The next issue was the eternal canard builder’s question of how exactly to keep the hinges pressed up tight against the surface of the aileron face?  I have of course read about using hacksaw blades, and after 10-15 min of messing around with that, no joy for me.  I eventually settled on using about a 1/2″ wide x 2.x” tall x ~3″ wide piece of high end packing foam… the good stuff. It definitely can hold its own shape, but then has enough spring to it that it will compress.  I cut these 3 separate foam pieces a little tall and then to ensure I was getting a good push from the foam from underneath to keep the hinge tight against the aileron face, I simple do what I do best and cheated… by hanging a 25-pound weight over the trailing edge to compress the aileron –and thus hinge plates– down as far they could go against those foam pads.

Here’s a shot with the dangling weight as well… I have to say, it really worked a treat.

I guess if I had not trimmed the top surface of my aileron back to match the foam core, and instead slathered that entire edge with micro, I might have been able to save the resulting forward shift of my aileron about 0.050″ . . . . hmmm?  Well, I still would rather do it the way I did and simply shave a hair off the wing TE inboard of the aileron.  Since I had the same issue on the left wing I expect close to the same.

BTW, the outboard end is close enough to not even bother with a pic.

After about 45 minutes cure time I removed the weight and the clecos and pulled the aileron off, with the entire hinges, off the wing.  I then pulled the hinge pins and removed the wing-side hinge halves.

I then marked up the hinges with the rivet positions per plans, and drilled the 24 holes out to accept the MSP-43 pop rivets.

I then removed the hinge plates from the surface of the aileron, cleaned off the 5-min glue from both the hinge pieces and the face of the aileron, and then reset the hinge plates back in place after applying a good amount of decently wet flox.

All went well except I did have one misfire on the far inboard rivet of the middle hinge plate.

After some contemplation I simple lopped off the rivet as close as possible to the plate using the Dremel’s cutoff wheel, and pushed the nub into the foam.  I then scored the remaining rivet face with the Dremel, and finished removing it by drilling it out.  That left the original sized hole. I did dump a bit of extra flox in there with that small nub in there, but the new rivet went in and secured just fine.

I then worked on some personal stuff for a bit while the hinge plate flox cured.  A couple of hours later I did another round of flox cleanup (there wasn’t much) and tested out the fit of the right aileron by mounting it back in place on the wing… securing it again with clecos.

I then tested the aileron travel both up and down…. looks like it is definitely functioning as designed.

I then pulled one cleco from each hinge and drilled it to accept a #10 screw.

I then installed a K1000-3 nutplate on each hinge and reinstalled the aileron.  Once it was secure and all the gaps and tolerances were still good, I then drilled out the remaining cleco holes to #10 size hole.

I then installed the remaining nutplates.  I have temporary bolts installed here to secure the aileron hinges… since these bolts have both a phillips and hex head and are very versatile and easy to install and remove quickly.  When I finish the top of the wing with micro, I’ll then drill countersink holes to install the Mike Melvill style stainless steel hex head CS screws.

Here’s the right aileron replete with riveted aileron hinges as well as nutplates installed to secure to the wing.

It was getting later in the evening, the right wing aileron install having taken much longer than I would have expected or wanted, but I wanted to at least get the initial aileron install work done on the left wing.

Going off of my aileron hinge locations, I marked the 0.2″ notches for the hinges onto the top aileron edge of the left wing.  Here’s the inboard hinge notch.

And here’s the middle hinge notch.

I then cut out all 3 marked aileron hinge notches on the left wing.

I fitted and aligned the wing-side hinge plates and drilled those out to allow me to secure them with clecos.

Here’s a closer shot of the middle and outboard aileron hinge pieces secured by clecos.

It was getting pretty late, so I called it a night and will continue with the left aileron install tomorrow.

I started out today by cleaning up the final nose layup.  I first pulled all the peel ply and then cleaned up the remaining peel ply boogers left along the edges.

I then knife trimmed all the edges, including a good half hour alone just carefully trimming the glass away from and around the nose hatch opening.

I have to say I’m very pleased for the most part with this final nose glassing… it appears to have cleaned up a lot of the minor surface issues.

I then spent another good half hour to 45 minutes dialing in the interface of the nose hatch and the new higher surrounding lip around the nose hatch opening flange…. simply induced by adding 2 plies of BID around the edge of the nose hatch.

A fair bit of judicious sanding both on the new glass edge bordering the flange and on the edge of the nose hatch door allowed me to get the nose hatch door to settle fairly well onto/into the nose hatch flange and opening.  I’m sure some future minor tweaks will need to be made.

While I was rooting around with the nose hatch flange, I decided it was finally time to upgrade my rather lacking cable pull for the nose hatch latch.  The current cable and handle are a rather cheap one that can be had at nearly any auto parts store.  I decided to go with an aircraft grade cable, with a handle I had already labeled and clear coated years ago.

In my mind I was going to need to drill out the mounting hole and the cable was just so much significantly bigger, etc.  But that was not the case.  The “new” (old) cable fit right into the mounting hole.  It did take a bit of time to trim both the outer sheath and pull cable to fit.  I will also need some more -4 Adel clamps to really secure this new, thicker, cable in place.

In addition, since I had to mess with the nose hatch latch, I replaced the spring with a new one I had on hand, but alas, I still need to dial it in with yet a shorter spring.

Finally, since the latch body has threaded mounting holes, I haven’t been able to use regular AN3 bolts to mount it since they are only threaded at the tip.  Thus, I took two AN3 bolts and tapped threads on them as close to the head as I could get.  This did the trick. (sorry, no pics for these last 2 tasks).

I then got busy working on the right aileron install to the wing.  My first task, which admittedly is out of order from the plans (which turned out to be a good thing), was to mark the aileron hinge notches on the wings.

Now, since there is about a 0.1″ gap between the wing and the inboard aileron edge, if I had followed the plans I would have cut the inboard notch starting right at the inboard corner.  But with the inboard edge of the hinge aligned with the inboard edge of the aileron, given the gap the hinge actually needs to be mounted just a hair (~0.1″) outboard of the wing hinge slot . . . and clearly that’s what I did.

My advice for anybody installing these ailerons is to get your ailerons “fitted” with at least initial approximate gaps on each end before finalizing your hinge placement. Then cut the hinge mounting notches.

Here’s the middle hinge notch marked for cutout.

A bit later, after cutting the hinge notches in the wings with the Fein saw, I then fitted, aligned, drilled and clecoed the aileron hinges into place.

A bit closer shot of the middle and outboard right aileron hinges.

It was late in the evening and decided to do a bit more research on the next step of setting and attaching the aileron-side of the hinges to the ailerons temporarily to get the appropriate alignment required before floxing and riveting the hinges to the ailerons.

Today was one of those days where I finally knocked another task off my list that I’ve been needing to do for a long, long time: the final nose glass layup.

But first, I started out by digging out the remainder of the foam just aft of the flox “corner” I made on the inside of the right strake pilot vent inlet hole.

I then filled in the resulting void with micro and peel plied it.

I then spent nearly an hour cleaning, sanding and prepping the top of the nose for its final glass.

I first re-used the paper that my recent order of 10 yards of BID came wrapped in from ACS.  I taped it in place covering the nose.

Then cut away at it to make a template that I would use to cut the final ply of BID.

The BID you see here is the final of the 5 yards I recently ordered a while back.

And here we have the final ply of BID for the top of nose layup.  Although I don’t show it, I also had another ply of BID that went around the nose hatch opening creating a reinforcement border of a couple inches.  Added to that is a strip of 2.5″ wide UNI that went across the top of the nose bridge and skirted the top edge of the nose hatch opening.  This UNI “strap” is just a hair less in length than the width of the final BID layup below.

Before I laid up any glass on the nose, I marked the aft edge of the nose –just forward of the canard– with a 0.3″ line to create a flox corner/edge.

Here’s another shot of the line I marked up for the aft nose flox corner/edge.

I then used my Fein saw to cut the glass and foam away at the aft edge of the nose.  I then sanded the inside of the vertical glass edge to clean it up for a good grip with the flox.

I whipped up some flox and slathered it into the aft nose edge flox corner.

Here’s a final shot of the nose prepped for its final glass.

Before I started prepping the nose for its final glass, I clearly removed the canard to get it out of the way.  Well, I wanted the flox corner/edge to cure a fair bit and get firmer –to keep its shape– when I laid up the overlying ply of BID.  Since I had a wait time to allow the flox to green a bit, I went ahead and trimmed down the interior edges of the elevators 1.5″ for the upcoming inboard elevator fairing on the nose (1.5″ as per the Roncz canard plans suggested fairing width).

Here’s a closer shot.

I had marked the lines a few months ago, but today was the day to take the plunge.

Literally.  I grabbed my ever-faithful Fein saw and trimmed the bottom line of the left elevator.

And then did the same for the right elevator.

I then did the top sides as well.  Clearly I can’t get all the way around the elevator tube with the elevators attached, but my immediate goal here is to get the aft nose/avionics cover completed before I flip the bird to finish glassing the strake bottom skins.

And at this point I was able to remove all but a small patch of glass on the front sides of the elevator tubes… good enough for creating the elevator root fairings on the aft nose/ avionics cover.  I’ll remove the elevators later and remove/clean off that (now) excess glass.

With my flox now in a nice gummy state, I commenced with the task of laying up the final glass on the nose.

[Note the right wing aileron clamped in place in the background].

Yes, with MGS epoxy it’s hard to tell anything is different after the glass is wetted out, but here is the nose with another few plies of glass, including the final big ply of BID.

There was a bit of bump on the nose bridge right above the nose hatch opening. To be honest I had never really noticed it but Marco felt it during one of his visits.  I configured the added, underlying plies of BID and UNI to fill in this slight depression (forward side of nose bridge).  I failed in getting a BEFORE pic, but the important thing is that the depression is gone, removing the bump it caused going aft.

Another couple shots of the final nose glass.

I was a bit surprised at how comparatively little epoxy this layup used.  At the end I was left with a decent amount still in my epoxy cup.  I had planned on peel plying just the edges of the final nose skin layup, but with the relatively copious amount of epoxy left over due to my miscalculation, I decided to peel ply the entire nose layup.  And as is easy as the peel ply went on –this time!!– I’m actually glad I did make up too much epoxy.

Again, a final shot of the nose bridge bump (that you probably knew nothing about) that was eliminated during this layup.

This final layup on the nose technically completes Chapter 13.  However, since I lumped in the aft nose/avionics cover into Chapter 13 (vs Chapter 18 – Canopy), I still have a bit more work to do before I consider Chapter 13 closed for good.

Today was another day focused all on ailerons… the left aileron to be exact.  I took the left aileron outside and cleaned out the foam and dead micro to leave an approximate 0.4″ depression on each end to create the end ribs with a 2-ply BID layup.

Here’s the outboard end all cleaned up and ready for glass.

And the outboard end 2-ply BID layup to create the end rib.

I did the same of course on the inboard side, cleaning up all the dead micro and removing foam inwards to 0.4″ deep, as per plans.

I then laid up 2 plies of BID to create the inboard aileron rib.

With the left aileron end ribs curing, I then got to work some on the right strake leading edge root pilot air vent intake hole.  I cut the cured glass away that was covering the hole, and then dug out the foam right at the front edge of the hole.  I then filled the areas where I had removed the foam with flox to create somewhat of a flox corner here.  The flox will allow me to shape the edges of the hole with the flox holding the shape.  When I glass the external strake skin I’ll wrap the skin into the hole to create a nice edge and smooth transition into the vent hole.

While I didn’t get any pics of it, which would have been hard to distinguish, I then took about 45 minutes to drill and fill some of the air gaps that occurred on the right aileron.  To minimize every bit of added weight as possible, I actually added some micro to the solution and then injected the wet micro solution into the air gaps.  It went well with nearly all the air gaps filled, thus eliminating them from the right aileron.

A few hours later I trimmed the left aileron end rib layups.  They turned out nice with no issues.  Here’s the inboard side.  Note that I finally pulled the tape off the A10 torque tube.

And double-checked how far it juts out . . . 1″ as per plans!

And then trimmed the outboard rib glass as well.  This officially completes all the glassing on both individual ailerons.

And a final shot of the finished left aileron.

Over the next couple of days I’ll be focusing on getting the ailerons physically mounted to the wings, as well as focusing my efforts back on the nose to get it finished up before I flip the bird over to shape and glass the bottom strake skins.