Today, before I changed into my shop clothes I headed downtown to Harbor Freight to pick up a couple of bottle jacks to use in some wooden wing lift/jack stands to allow lifting one wing or both wings up at the same time.  Sometimes on these birds you want to be able to work on the main gear, brakes, wheels, etc. without using a main gear leg as the jacking point.

I had to buy these bottle jacks today since they were on sale, making them cheaper than the significantly smaller (but still would have worked) 4 ton bottle jacks.

Again, my timeline in regards to working these stands now is simply because my buddy Guy Williams needs them to repair his heat warped gear leg on his Long-EZ.  And of course I wouldn’t be surprised if I need them at some in the near future as well (hopefully not for the same reason!).

I also rounded up the original pic that Steve Rothert posted of his stand, and this was the best (and cheapest) of all the ones I saw on the COBA forum… and there were plenty examples to be sure.

Back in the shop I removed and installed the left aileron a couple times as I dialed in the wing’s inboard aileron pocket hinge notch trailing edge.  After some minor finagling and sanding I got it where it allowed me to install the aileron in place, just without the unsightly wide, off-angle gap.

I live fairly near the high school and my friend’s daughter, my now not-so-little buddy, has been experiencing some bullying issues on her school bus.  The past couple weeks she’s been walking to my house and hanging out for 2-3 hours until her mom can pick her up after work.  Well, she helped me do the final wet sanding of wing and aileron at the seams between the two, to ensure the surfaces are level with each other.

After sanding down the West 410/micro added fill on the outboard end and leading edge of the left wing, I then whipped up some West epoxy with 205 fast hardener to do the first round of epoxy wipes on the sanded added wing filler (pic 1).

I installed the left rudder and assessed some issues that needed worked, the main area being the thick micro fill on the outboard winglet at the bottom front corner intersection with the rudder.  There was at least a good 0.1″ jut out of the winglet edge at this corner vs the rudder, so I removed the rudder and aggressively sanded this corner but also kept watchful eye on ensuring it flowed with the remaining winglet surface (pic 2).  There are some tricky contours in play on these outboard winglets.  My sanding left a patch of bare micro, which in itself isn’t an issue, it’s the hard edge between it and the surrounding epoxy wiped surface that I wanted to reestablish a smooth transition.  Thus I also epoxy wiped the area I sanded at the bottom rudder corner, along with the wing.

These pics are at the end of the evening, with 3 total coats of epoxy wipes.  Also note the gap between the winglet and rudder front edge was a little too wide just below the bottom hinge, so I added a flocro edge both on the winglet side and the rudder side.

Over on the right side I sanded down the leading edge of the right winglet to allow me to add West 410/micro to it.  Again, eyeballing it the winglet LE looked straight, but with a straight edge against it you could see some peaks and valleys, around 0.1″ in variance.  Tomorrow I’ll sand it straight and re-epoxy wipe the LE.  I also plan on doing the same process for the right wing LE, which is pretty much the same story.

I closed out the major task portion of the evening by wet sanding the left strake top and leading edge, as well as the RAM air inlet on the leading edge, with 150 grit.  Inside the air inlet was some rough spots so I whipped up some West 410 and applied it on the inner inlet tube [note red Kerosene heater #2 in lower left corner: specifically purchased for the upcoming post cure].

I also wet sanded all the smaller areas I epoxy wiped yesterday, like the right wing video camera threaded inserts, right wing TE spot, etc.

I had padded the mold for my top left winglet video camera mount for the layup, but I may have overdone it for the 1/8″ thick internal protective foam rubber padding I had planned on using… so as not to scratch up the paint on the winglet top.

Again, the weather has been quite chilly, so I fired up the Kerosene heater to run for about 10 minutes to get the shop nice and toasty before I locked up for the evening. While the heater was running I grabbed some 1/8″ thick cardboard and taped it to the top of the left winglet.  I then put the glassed video camera mounting base cap onto the winglet.  It fit ok, but not overly snug as I would prefer… so more finagling will be in the works for this guy.  I may punt and simply go with 1/4″ (vs 1/8″) foam padding.  We’ll see.

It was again a late evening, so with the shop given it’s last blast of hot air for the night, I locked ‘er up and headed inside.

Moving forward…