I started off today by removing the aft heat shield on the left wing, then pulled the peel ply and razor trimmed the top and bottom mounting tab glass.

Here’s a shot of the somewhat narrow and tall phenolic bottom tab, secured with flox and 3 plies of BID on the aft side.  I’ll probably add a single ply of BID on the front side.

I then reconfigured my plasma cutting table again as a plotter, and printed out the left wing root forward heat shield mockup on thick stock paper.

After which, I cut out the paper mockup and set it in place in the left wing root.

I should note that I ran downtown for a few hours to run some errands, and during that time picked up two different sizes of plastic grommets for the aileron control tube thru-hole.   This grommet I’m testing below has an inside diameter of 1.0 inch.

In addition, by looking at some bends in the stock paper, you can tell that I need to trim a little more around the edges here and there.  So I’ll tweak the drawing in CAD, reprint and test fit again.

I then made a slew of measurements and constructed an initial cardboard mockup of the right front wing root heat shield.  You can see I’ve already moved the rudder cable transit thru-hole down from its initial position (presence of the green tape).

After getting the rudder cable thru-hole position set, I then opened up the diameter of the aileron control tube thru-hole.  Then, as I did on the left side, I ensured that there was good clearance through the entire control tube range of motion with full left and right aileron deployment.  Full right aileron is shown in pic 1, while the widest part of this aileron control tube is actually a rivet head when the stick is a little past center towards the left (pic 2).

As I mentioned before, I got 2 sizes of plastic grommets while I was out: 1″ ID and 7/8″ ID.  Here I’m testing out the 7/8″ ID grommet, which I assessed didn’t provide enough clearance.

Reading the Canard Pusher and Central States Newsletters, I’ve read a few stories of first flight issues with controls snagging on nearby structures (or thru-holes) with clearances not as big as they should have been to allow for various stresses and pressures during flight.  Thus, my standard for this 1/2″ control tube is 1/4″ all around it. I tried the 7/8″ grommet mostly out of curiosity, and I think it proved my initial minimum 1/4″ clearance requirement was good.

It was getting later in the evening, but I wanted to at least get the initial right wing root cardboard mockup imported into CAD… which as you can see below, I did.  This stuff often takes much longer than expected, and I’m clearly wanting to get it done and in the books to get this bird in the air.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to get these forward heat shields plasma cut and installed.

Pressing forward!