After attending a work meeting this morning, I started out today by spending a couple of hours finalizing my plan for installing the elevators on the canard after reviewing the Long-EZ plans, the Roncz canard plans, the Cozy elevator install plans, and my notes.

The first task I needed to complete was to mount the two CZNC-12A Torque Tube Offsets to the each end of the Spool Tube.  Of course, to do this I had to know exactly how long the Spool Tube needed to be.  I spent a good hour and a half mocking up the Torque Tube Offsets, the Spool Tube, and canard dimensions.  I really needed to lock down the dimensions of the fuselage in the F22 & F28 area to ensure that the elevators are mounted correctly.

After essentially transcribing the outline of the fuselage onto the canard surface, I checked and double checked the dimensions a few times over.  After confirming the numbers, I came up with a spool tube width of 17.6″.  This is 0.9″ less than I had originally estimated when I worked up the numbers in Germany back in 2013.

Before I started cutting anything I checked a couple more details in the plans & online.  I also gave Chrissi from the Cozy Girrrls a call to verify some of my install steps.  After chatting with Chrissi for about an hour on the elevators install (and a few other things), I was ready to pull the trigger.

I measured the spool tube & marked it with a piece of paper to ensure I would have a square cut (pic below).  I then cut the spool tube on the chop saw just a hair off the line (middle pic).   I then removed the paper and cleaned up the cut with sandpaper (bottom pic).

Now, in real time I showed the pics above out of order.  To cut the spool tube I needed to get the 50-pound bag of play sand off my cutting table.  So, I simply made up six 5-pound sandbags.  I took the leftover sand and dumped it into one of the sandbags I bought along with the bag of sand (the sandbags are the white plastic bags under the sand).

The sandbags I made are shown below placed over each “L” template.

Back on the spool tube: I mocked it up with the torque tube offsets in place & ensured it matched the marks I made up earlier (it did).

I set up a table to mount the torque tube actuators to the spool tube.  I clamped the whole assembly down to the table after ensuring it was all aligned.  To help ensure that all the pieces stayed aligned, I installed the 3/16″ stainless steel hinge pin all the way through from one end to the other.

Below are a couple of shots after I drilled the two holes for the AN3 mounting bolts.

And here’s a couple of shots with the bolts installed (after I deburred all the holes) and the torque tube offsets mounted to the spool tube.

I then spent about another hour making the 0.2″ (actually 0.23″) gap spacers and mocking up the elevators.  Here’s a shot of the Left elevator with 3 gap spacers installed.

And here’s a couple of shots of the elevators loosely mocked up into place.

Tomorrow I’ll work on tweaking the elevators into their final positions, get the inboard ends of the elevators cut to length and mounted to the torque tube offsets.  I’ll also be installing the stainless steel hinge pins and hinge tabs to allow for marking the hinge locations on the canard.  In addition, I plan to cut the 6 slots for the hinge tabs into the bottom surface of the canard.  Finally, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be floxing the hinge tabs into place.