After a power nap I reviewed Chapter 7 of the plans on skinning the fuselage.  I took a hard look at the strake cutouts as well (the holes on the insides of the fuselage that allow access into the “wings” to store baggage, etc.).   I hauled the plans, A-pages and firewall out to my shop to mull over my next steps.  I mounted the firewall and in doing so, noticed a few more hairline cracks developing in the foam fuselage at the aft end of each side.  I need to get the fuselage glassed soon!  I checked the firewall: it fits well and is square.

One thing that is not fully captured on this site is the planning steps that go into each build action.  I have been talking to a number of highly experienced canard builders, and although they quite often don’t agree with each other on build methods or project mods, I take what they have to say with a lot of weight and consideration. I also understand that if I do anything outside of the guidelines of the plans, it will quite often be met with a fair amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth!  In light of this, one modification that I looked at and assessed in-depth tonight was imbedding the rudder Nylaflow tubing into the fuselage sides.  It looks quite doable.

What is the advantage of doing this?  My rudder cables will be taking a more direct route out to the rudders from the rudder/brake pedals.  They will travel in-line straight from the peddle down the side of the fuselage, make a shallow ‘S’ curve and run near the top longeron through the Center Section Spar (again, no fibers will be cut, just gently gapped about 3/16″ for Nylaflow clearance) and then turn out towards the rudders.  Another plus is that it cleans up the interior of the fuselage and allows me to work on the rudder cable conduits on the outside of the fuselage vs. the inside, in pretty much the same manner as how the conduit is run through each wing.

I spent about an hour and a half mocking up the tubing path and how it corresponded with the strake cutouts, using as gentle of curves as possible.