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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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