A funny thing happened while I was building my Long-EZ, or technically micro-finishing this bird, in that I realized that except for the canard many moons ago, I have not really dealt with LEADING EDGES in my previous micro-finishing endeavors.

Yes, we all know what happens when we assume things, and beyond using the longboard on my leading edges initially, I really didn’t give them a lot of thought after that since they looked straight.  Again, that assumption thing!

Well, out of curiosity I checked my leading edges on my left wing and winglet.  Wow. What I had assumed was straight was far from it.  The wing leading edge looked ok in merely casually looking at it, but with a closer look it had some significant peaks and valleys going on.  The winglet LE wasn’t as bad, but still not as razor straight as I’d want (especially for a “show bird” as my fellow builder <singular!> likes to claim… ha!).

At this point I would like to highlight that unlike most of my current building buddies, I was not able to avail myself (due to scheduling and relocating overseas) the services of Mr. Stephen James in acquiring his Eureka CNC wing cores. That’s right, although I bought my wing cores from Feather Light, they were still cut the good ol fashioned way: with hot wire and templates.  e.g. not perfectly straight CNC edges!

So whipping up some micro/West 410 was in order, which I slathered on the winglet leading edge last night.  This morning I started knocking it down and didn’t stop until I got it down quite a ways.  Obviously with some added filler on the front, it was going to cause a few gaps where it feathered back onto the existing winglet/fill… so a bit more filler was required to transition those gaps.

Thankfully the wing leading edge added micro-fill, after knocking it down, did not require any extra fill.  The wing LE is pretty darn straight now up until the outboard 18″, which has about a 0.08″ dip until the very tip of the wing, due to the added glass for the wingtip.  Now, I plan on adding a LE “disrupting” landing/WigWag light in this area, so I think that will disrupt the slight dip, so I’m not worrying about it.

If you’re wondering about the already epoxy-wiped right wing and winglet, well, yep… I will be reworking those leading edges as well.  The winglet I’ll do in the next few days.  For the wing I decided to do it with the wing off, LE up, as I’m prepping the right wing for final primer and paint (and installing the LE light on that side as well).

Ok, so for any builder reading this pre-wing/winglet finishing, the trick I now know (in retrospect) is to dial in the straightness of the leading edges FIRST, then contour the rest of the airfoil from there.  I probably read this somewhere in my myriad of research, but clearly missed putting it into application.

Another issue I found that I needed to deal with is the forward side of the left wing end, terminating at the front corner wing tip (AKA Nav/strobe light base).  The micro out here is piled up significantly more than on the right wing.  Clearly we pile the micro up when applying it to then give us a straight, smooth surface… but there is a balance.

First, obliteration of the natural shape of the wing is not part of the process, IMO.  And out here this piled up micro was doing just that.  Again, especially compared to the right wing.  Moreover, our Long-EZ wings have a washout, so although the LE is straight, there is an overall downward curve/twist to the wing as it goes outboard.  And I felt that I was affecting this washout with all my “straight” micro piled up.

Finally, looking at the wingtip from the outboard end (pic 1) one could see the micro piled up on top to the point that the Nav/strobe was no longer centered on the wingtip, but rather looked low because it was, with more than required micro atop the wing in this area.  Thus, I marked up the forward area of the outboard left wing to knock down the micro a good bit (pic 2).

I have to say I’ve read a number of accounts of builders using long sanding blocks/sticks to ensure the surface is even all the way down the line, and I think there is a good bit of area on the wing that is conducive to this approach. I too of course employed the classic “stick of pain,” long sanding board.  But I also think these wings have some natural (or unnatural really) curves that require the shorter 30″ or 18″ boards to blend in the overall contour in those areas… which is primarily each end of the wing: inboard 2-3′ near the cowling and outboard 2-3′ near the winglet.

All that stated to say this wing end is one of those areas (again, IMO).  My goal here was to knock the surface down approximately 0.1” CAREFULLY to 1) match the right wing, 2) find, ‘allow’ and maintain natural wing washout, 3) have my Nav/strobe light at least somewhat centered on the wing end.

Yes, the micro is still piled a bit higher than I had planned for, right where the wing extension dives into the outboard base of the winglet (pic below).

If looking from the front this matches the inboard height/level of the wing surface intersecting the base of the winglet.  In using a sanding block to knock down this forward area, I of course feathered in the entire area to get a nice transition.  This inboard spot of the wing intersecting the winglet flowed even with the rest of the wing… and to force a reduction in height in such a small area is asking for trouble in my book, given that it could knock out the nice even flow of the entire area and result in a mismatching low spot.

Best to swallow the little frog in regards to my Nav/strobe light position —which is noticeably better— and press forward in getting this bird finished.  [Little frog is a reference to wilderness survival: eat little frogs for protein… easier to gulp down than a big ‘ol frog staring you in the face.  Also pertains to a stock trade going bad: take the little loss (little frog) vs merely hoping as your stock falls off a cliff and losses climb (big frog). But I digress!]

With all my leading edge and wing tip shaping shenanigans under my belt, I started another marathon round of epoxy wipes on the left wing and winglet.

And a mere 6 hours later I was finished, replete with all the protective tape boarders removed and nothing left but to allow the 5 coats of epoxy to cure.

As I did on the right side, I of course also epoxy wiped the left aileron top and both sides of the left rudder.

Another shot of the epoxy wiped left aileron top and rudder (both sides).  Here I only used 4 coats of epoxy before calling these good.

Needless to say, given the time of year and weather situation at hand, I’m very pleased to have the major aircraft components (wings, winglets and strakes) micro-finished and epoxy wiped.  I still need to micro-fill and epoxy wipe the outboard 3′ of the wing bottoms and inboard bottom winglet, as well as the top of the nose, longerons and turtledeck.  And finally, the elevators need to be completed as well.  Thankfully on all those I can focus heaters and heat lamps to keep localized temps elevated to acceptable curing levels.

I expect tomorrow to be a light build day, and the day after is Thanksgiving, so probably even less building then.  Happy Thanksgiving all!