So today was yet another ungodly hot day.  I spent about 2 hours working on my house outside AC unit, then another 45 minutes inside researching parts before pulling the trigger on those.  I bought a new capacitor and contactor, which I believe should do the trick.  I also ID’d a new fan motor to buy if it turns out to be that.

Back in my 100°+ F shop, I thought I had more 1/8″ Fiberfrax than I apparently do… so I played the “where might it be?” game for a good half hour, again in that blazing hot workshop.

Alas, I finally accepted that I only have enough to cover the actual spar proper on each side, with one full piece of Fiberfrax on the right side…

And barely enough actual Fiberfrax to cobble together a patchwork of pieces for the left side (sorry for the pic quality).

I had planned on attaching the Fiberfrax to the CS spar on each respective side TONIGHT but wanted to do a little bit more research on how to actually attach it.

I know some builders have used 3M 77 adhesive spray to attach the Fiberfrax to the spar and/or firewall, then in turn used the red high temp RTV for attaching the metal overlay onto the Fiberfrax.  Other builders use the red RTV for all attachments.

In looking at CP 82, buried on page 11, it notes to use the red RTV for attaching Fiberfrax to the firewall, CS spar, etc., so I’ll go that route… tomorrow.

Needless to say, I’m not exactly thrilled with this crazy hot weather… the multiple shirt changes and added shower or two more per day is just getting ridiculous.  Since after 30 minutes of work I’m drenched literally from head to toe with sweat.

Still… pressing forward.

So the heat wave continues… I said to myself at around 3pm that I should grab a pic of thermometer in my shop.  It was at about 104° at that point, and dropped a few degrees when I finally got around to grabbing this shot at 5:30pm.

In addition, the capacitor on my outdoor house AC unit gave up the ghost, so I’m in the process of locating one to buy.  My indoor house temp “only” hit a “cool” 95° compared to the shop (thank God Jess’s AC is working!!).

Regardless of the heat, I need to get this bird done.  I aimed the floor fans towards the front of the plane and finished sanding the re-micro’d areas on the nose, sidewall, strake LE’s, etc.

I then epoxy wiped the sanding scratches and pinholes with a couple coats.  The two biggest issues in completing that task was first containing the simply profuse amount of sweat from dripping onto the surfaces that I was applying the West epoxy to.  Since I had the West pump already in the 205 fast hardener, I pressed forward… thus issue #2 was anything more than a half pump of epoxy resulted in getting VERY close to exotherms with the internal shop heat being so high… needless to say it was probably the quickest, sloppiest epoxy wiping session I’ve done on this bird.

But I got ‘er done… all with about a 20 minute gap between coats because it was curing so darn fast!

Earlier in the day I had tweaked my left and right CS spar “wing” templates in CAD, and mid-evening tonight I again plotted them out using my plasma cutting table.  The final fit on these were much better so I’m calling these templates good and will be pressing forward with using them to cut the Fiberfrax as well as cutting out the aluminum sheet overlays to cover the Fiberfrax on each side.

Yes, the forecast shows we’ve still got a lot of days upcoming that will be hot as hades, but the build must go on!

Over the past few days I have been able to finish up sanding all the epoxy wiped areas I finished nearly 2 months ago.  Not to brag, but that’s quite a decent little feat given the average shop temps have been well in the 90’s, with the heat index way above 100° F (I’ve also been helping local Canardian Guy Williams on stuff with his Long-EZ).

Here we have a the right side of the fuselage and nose adorned with pencil marks to be used as my ‘poor man’s sanding guide.’ (pic 1).  And after some aggressive sanding with both the new Jitterbug pad sander and the 30″ longboard I finally had to admit defeat in this area and apply another round of micro/West 410 to the low spots (pic 2).

I slathered quite a number of small divots and major pin holes all around the recently sanded epoxy-wiped areas with micro, including the nose as well.  I suspect on the nose and upper sidewalls that I’ll finish off the finalized micro with another round or two of epoxy wipes to clean up the scratches and any pinholes.

Back near the firewall, I used painters tape to create a template for the left CS spar “wing” (outrigger, exposed area… whatever the term) to allow me to transfer it into Fusion 360 CAD.

Which I did next for both left and right side CS spar “wing” areas.  My focus is on these to knock out first, which in turn will allow me to finish off the wing root forward heat shield on each side.

Although I grabbed this pic well after 9pm, the shop temp was in the mid 90’s (note fan). Here I’m once again using the plasma cutting table as a plotter to gin up some thick paper templates for the left and right CS spar “wings” on each side of the firewall.

I’ll note that there’s a way to edit the G-code that inputs a pause after each hole circle is drawn to allow me to lift the Sharpie to keep the line from being drawn between holes, obviously making the final diagram much cleaner.  But since these are merely temporary templates, I didn’t take (waste IMO) the time to modify the G-code and simply pressed forward.

Here are the plotted and cut-out left and right CS spar “wing” templates in place, with minor tweaks required for both… which I’ll knock out tomorrow.  I’ll note these templates will be used for cutting the Fiberfrax that will get Hi-temp RTV’d into place.  Then, with the CAD drawings dialed in, I’ll use those to plasma cut the thin aluminum coverings to protect the Fiberfrax.

Heat be damned!  Pressing forward!

With my having been crazy busy over the past 6 or so weeks as I focused on Jess and mine’s wedding (and subsequent honeymoon), this post covers a smattering of tidbits back from the very beginning of May.

First up, here we have the floxed and glassed Clickbonds on the right outboard corner where the CS spar meets the inboard right wing root.  These Clickbonds will secure the front lip of the forward wing root heat shield that will also serve to keep hot engine compartment air/cooling air from flowing down this interface channel betwixt wing and CS spar.

Also from early May is the completed install of the Clickbonds on the left side of the CS spar for the same purpose:

To gain access to do the work above, I had removed the engine and had it hanging on the engine hoist.  To ensure the hydraulic cylinder didn’t bleed down over time, I secured a 2×4 to the cylinder with tie-down straps to ensure that the hoist arm wouldn’t lower over time, to avoid my engine ending up on the shop floor.

Over a couple of weeks the engine did drop a little, but I chalked that up to hoist flange merely biting into the wood a little bit more.  As another week passed, I then found something even a bit more insidious going on: the 2×4 was acting as a fulcrum, the engine was lower by a good bit more, and the wheels of the engine hoist on the opposite end were off the ground by a good 2-3″ (pic 1).

To solve this weird engine-hoist predicament, a few weeks into May I merely transferred the engine back onto the rolling engine stand and called it good… pic 2 (with more components now on the front [accessory case] of the motor I had to plasma cut some notches in the steel engine mount frame that was pre-mounted on the rolling engine stand).

I will also note that at the end of April my “little” buddy came over a few different days and really helped me in removing nearly everything out of the 2 far bays, blowing off and wiping all the micro dust off —again: everything— before it coming back into the shop.  We got both bays 2 and 3 cleaned out very well, but alas, Bay 1 (long work table and machining tools) is still dusty and cluttered.

I don’t have any pics, but last week I spent a few good hours sanding down the epoxy wiped micro fills on the aft ends of the aft wheel pants, as well as the epoxy wiped micro on the front half wheel pants… that was a good workout by itself.

Fast forward to this past week, where my main focus is finalizing the sanding of all the epoxy wiped areas that I never got a chance to sand, and prepping the exposed CS spar “wings” inside the engine compartment for a ply of Fiberfrax to then be covered by aluminum as a protective overlay to the Fiberfrax (firewall will be Titanium).

I took my previous foamboard template for the right side and reinstalled it with the new Clickbonds in place that will secure the forward wing root heat shield (pic 1).  I also removed the autopilot roll servo cable Deutsch connector (not without some drilling out of the inside click-in-place tab that would not come out without a fight).  This will allow me to slide the cable through a hole in the protective aluminum fiberfrax covering (pic 2).

I then got to work sanding.  A few months ago my issue was the persistent cold weather we were having, and now that my schedule has allowed me to go back to work on the plane the current weather is VERY hot.  And my shop AC is inop at the moment (a few calls to AC repair shops that said they don’t work on split systems).  The heat index is currently well over a hundred, but after doing some nitnoy prep tasks I finally bought an extra shop fan, bit the bullet and dove into about 4-5 hours of sanding per day the last few days: first on the epoxy wiped right and left strake leading edges, and then down the left longeron and fuselage sidewall.

Next came the fuselage sidewalls in the area around and under the canard, as well as the aft nose substructure.  As you can see in pic 1, I’m trying out a new air-driven “Jitterbug” pad sander that is working out quite well.  Still a ton of sanding required with even that, with a lot of excess cured epoxy coming off the surfaces (as seen on the plastic in pic 2).

My last task of the evening was the initial sanding to knock down the epoxy wiped upper nose.

After hitting it with the Jitterbug I then did a good amount of block sanding by hand to get it cleaned up fairly well.

I found a few major pin holes and minor divots throughout my recent sanding adventures, and the nose was no exception.  I’ll fill these with some West 410 compound and then sand the surfaces to final contour before calling them good for primer and paint.

Officially back at it… and pressing forward!

As I am getting into domestication mode in prepping my house for a ton of guests for my upcoming nuptials, I have been trying to continue to get key tasks done on the bird build as well.

I knocked down and final sanded the added micro on the both sides of the aft wheel pant tails.  I then epoxy wiped the new micro with a couple coats of West epoxy.

Although no pic, when I epoxy wiped the aft wheel pants above, I also hit the strakes lower leading edge micro fills (after final sanding) with epoxy wipes.

On the glassed spots on the inside of the aft nose cover, I razor trimmed and pulled peel ply on the previously delammed bare wood inside surface (pic 1), and did the same with a little edge cleanup on the front left corner layup (pic 2).

My goal was to get both side CS spar Clickbonds floxed/glassed in place, but it got too late too fast, so I only nugged out the final/top Clickbond on the left side.  Again, this is to secure the left wing root forward heat shield.

I plan on knocking out the pair of Clickbonds on the right side in the next day or two.

Although it took a few rounds, my final significant task was the epoxy wiping of the forward sidewalls, the avionics bay/aft nose substructure, the top forward nose, and the nose hatch perimeter lip, obviously on both sides.

And here’s a better shot of the epoxy wiped nose and nose hatch perimeter lip… again, from both sides.

My next major task will be to sand/wet sand all the epoxy wiped surfaces I’ve done over the past few days.  As I finish up the final fit and integration of the aft nose/avionics cover in relation to the canopy front skirt, I am starting in on the CS spar “outrigger/ wings” and the wing root forward heat shields, to be completed before the wings come off and flipped to finalize the micro finishing on each of those.  Since I don’t really want the firewall installed before paint, its cutting and install will come a bit later.

Still pressing forward… just in slow-mo for the next month!

I started out today using the Fein saw to trim the overhanging glass that I laid up on the aft top (not glare shield) edge of the aft nose/avionics cover, at the seam with the front edge of the canopy skirt.  I then sanded the glass smooth to match the underlying vertical micro/foam.

I then flipped the aft nose/avionics cover over and did 2 layups: one on the left inside “flap” or “wing” that wraps around the nose over towards the fuselage side.  I discovered a delam here and cut out all the offending glass, and am laying up a single ply of BID to cover the bare wood underneath (Pic 1: And yes, we’re allowed to have would in/on these planes, but we have to cover it all in fiberglass to pretend it doesn’t exist… like a bastard sibling! haha).

I also needed to do another layup on the inside of the front left corner, and then added a very small dollop of flox at the edge to allow shaping this corner to fill in the gap better between it and the canard leading edge (pic 2).

I used Pro-Set epoxy for the layups above, and when done —not surprisingly— I had a decent little bit left in my cup.  I normally use fast hardener, so to be able to casually do an entire subsequent new layup from scratch is a nice break.  Here I’ve glassed the first (lower) of the two Clickbonds on the left side CS spar that will secure the left wing root forward heat shield… which will also serve to close the gap at the opening of the channel down the length of the wing and CS spar (hot engine compartment air = no good).

I had planned on starting my task below on the left side, but with my impromptu glassing-in of the lower Clickbond, I pressed forward on the right side.  I first made up a tape template, transferred that to foamboard and then pressed it into place over the numerous Clickbonds poking out.

Over the next day or few I plan on using this foamboard template to cut the underlying piece of Fiberfrax, and also as a template in CAD to plasma cut a thin piece of overlying aluminum (the firewall will be titanium).

Pressing forward!

After adding another round of micro around the nose-side perimeter edge of the nose hatch door, today I started off spending well over an hour fine-tuning the sanding on the micro lip.  I’m considering the nose micro around the nose hatch door complete, with a caveat that minor tweaks may be required as I prime and paint these components.

On the added lower mounting Clickbond for the right rudder cable bracket, I pulled the tape and peel ply and cleaned up the layup and threads (pic 1).  I then test mounted the right rudder cable bracket to check out the threaded mounting studs (Clickbonds) on the CS spar (pic 2)… all good.

After sanding the epoxy wipes on the aft wheel pants, I discovered that there were very slight, but noticeable (especially after paint) bumps where the glass from securing the two pant halves together were rearing their ugly heads (pic 1).  These layups are from me widening the Sam James VANs wheel pants to better fit around the Long-EZ gear leg, brake and wheel (ala Wayne Hicks).  Thus, another round of micro was required on the aft end, each side, of both wheel pants (pic 2).

I had a rough patch on each strake lower leading edge that when I micro’d the aft wheel pants above, I also hit those spots on the strakes as well.  I fully expect those to be the very last of the fills on the strakes, and after sanding I will epoxy wipe the leading edge of the strakes with 2-3 coats.

I sanded down the front wheel pants and took a bit more off on the rounded nose area, on each pant, more then I was expecting too.  With these good bit of sanding breakthroughs back into raw micro, I wanted to fill some voids and re-protect the pant noses… so I epoxy wiped them again with a couple rounds of epoxy.

With the engine off, I then got to work on the wing roots.  Here on the left you can see I trimmed and sanded the left wing’s aft heat shield platenut tabs.

Over on the right wing root, I grabbed a “before” pic with the tabs marked for trimming (pic 1).  And an “after” pic with the tabs cut and sanded (pic 2).

My last job of the evening was to lay up a hard edge on the lip of the Aft nose/avionics cover where it intersects the canopy.  For whatever reason it is way low in comparison, and instead of job globbing on micro, I added a 6-ply 3/8″ wide lip to create a harder edge which I will then finish contouring in micro.  Here it is a few hours later after it was mostly cured.

I realize in my recent banterings on what I need to finish I left out the aft nose/avionics cover… yes, I have a few final micro finish steps I need to do on this as well.

A reminder that tomorrow is my last full day of work on the build until June.  I’ll probably post about every 3-4 days since I’m limiting myself to only 1-2 hours a day on the build.

Over the past few days I’ve continued my unwavering love of sanding in numerous areas: on the nose and nose hatch, on the strake bottom leading edges (very minor fills left), and the wheel pants.

I’m happy to report I’m about done with all these components, and then it will be on to the bottom outboard of the wings and canard contour tweaks.  With these last two, that will complete the micro finishing of this bird.  Primer and paint after that.

On the front wheel pants I finished some minor fills on the top and sides (pic 1), with a good major fill on the bottom just forward of the wheel opening (pic 2).  After a good final sanding I then epoxy wiped the wheel pants with 2 coats of West epoxy.

On Friday and today (Sunday) I had my friend’s daughter (aka “my little buddy”) come over during her last days of spring break (her call!) to help clean the shop.  Not surprisingly, with all the micro sanding the last 6 months, just about every single thing in the shop has a layer of dust on it.

We started in the left-most bay and pulled out all the tools, equipment… everything.  She blew them off with the air hose, brushed them off with a foxtail and wiped them down as I cleaned the doors, walls, and even ceiling of micro dust.  Then a good sweep before all the clean stuff came back inside.

All in all, we spent about 8 hours total cleaning.

Part of that time was a good hour+ cleaning up the plasma cutting table since it will be getting a good workout in the near future cutting the forward heat shields, center section spar “outrigger” covers, and the firewall of course.

Later this evening I pulled the engine off the bird, and blocked the engine hoist with a 2×4 positive block to ensure the engine doesn’t end up on the shop floor in the wee hours of the morning.  I’ll note the engine will get its thorough cleaning as well in due time.

I then did a decent initial cleanup of the copious amounts of micro dust all over the firewall area and wing roots.

A layup task on my list was to add another Clickbond mounting point to the right rudder cable bracket.  The left side has an Adel clamp near the outboard end that keeps it in place, but this right side is flying solo with no help.  Thus, to keep the bracket from pivoting with only one attach point, I’m adding this bottom attach point to keep it solidly in place during rudder cable/brake deployment.

I’m pressing forward with theses arts ‘n crafts games that is micro finishing, and when that is over I expect my build output to increase significantly.  I will note the major detractor to said build output is my wedding upcoming in a month.  So 1 May is my no-kidding target swap between airplane build to getting the house in order and prepping for my wedding.  I will be doing single tasks, but I expect only those that take an hour or two per day to complete.

Today I focused all on micro finishing on this bird, primarily the Big 3 areas that I have in my sights to finish up: the strakes’ lower leading edges, the wheel pants and the nose.

After these 3 are ready for primer and paint, that only leaves some fine tuning on the canard and the complete start-to-finish micro finishing on the outboard 3′-ish underside of each wing and inboard bottom winglet to complete ALL the micro finishing on this bird (not counting my baggage pods, which my buddy Shane Banquer currently has in his possession to make molds in his quest to make carbon fiber pods).

While I had the right wheel pant all buttoned up in my checking the mounting apron’s new aft outboard 10-32 countersunk screws (vs series 2000 CAMLOCs), I finalized the judicious sanding of the front/aft seams on the top, inboard and outboard surfaces.  With that sanding complete, the aft wheel pant was ready for primer and paint, with only a pair of series 4000 CAMLOC receptacles on the inboard aft apron flange (see below) to completely finish off the install.

The same followed suite on the left side wheel pant as well.

What I hadn’t accomplished yet on the front of each wheel pant “half,” since they’ve both been installed this whole time, is the micro’ing of the bottom center area just forward of the wheel.  I accomplished this by removing the wheel pant front halves, taking them outside and aggressively sanding them before slathering them up with a final (hopefully) round of micro.

I had already sanded the STRAKE lower leading edges from the last round of micro adds, and all looked good except for one small trough a few inches each side of the fuel check valve on the left side, and a rather significant single divot on the right side.  I waited to fill these areas with micro until I whipped some up for the front wheel pant “halves” above.

As for the aft wheel pants, although still in need of a pair of CAMLOC receptacles for each side, I went ahead and epoxy wiped them with 2 coats of West epoxy.

Earlier in the day I did a near complete final sanding of the top nose micro, with the only strip left to do being the immediate perimeter around the nose hatch door.

My last build act of the evening was to transfer my green tape internal perimeter nose hatch door seal templates to the 1/16″ foam rubber seal that was just delivered yesterday.  Unlike on the 1/8″ seal, this time around I actual peeled off the backing to expose the adhesive side and installed the seal (yes, pre-testing… my educated guess was that it’d work!).

I then mounted the nose hatch door, closed it with the lock latch holding firm, and then popped it open again.  And I tried this a few times to confirm its functional operation. Voila… success!

I’ll note that I’m leaving the green template tape in place until after I paint the external face of the nose hatch door.

I then spent a good 45 minutes sanding the nose hatch perimeter edge down to match the level of the closed/secured nose hatch door… and re-blended the lowered edge with the surrounding nose micro.

I still have to clean up the internal edge walls of the nose hatch door lip on the nose side, as well as pretty much the same with the interfacing nose-side lip with the aft nose/avionics cover.  Once those lip edges are clean and gaps are good I’ll be ready to epoxy wipe the nose micro.

Another 2-day post here…

I started out this morning (Day 1 after putting the plane in the grazing position) by filling in the major divots of the micro fill on the nose.

Jumping ahead to today (day 2) of this post, here is the nose with yet another minor round of micro-fills and of course the requisite sanding that goes along with that.  I just received the 1/16″ thick foam rubber seal for the nose hatch door and will install that and test it out tomorrow.

It’s hard to get a shot from below since the shop lights tend to wash out the pics, but I also did two rounds of sanding and micro fills on the strake bottom leading edges, both left and right sides.  I am very close to finalizing that as well with just a few minor micro fills on each side.

As I’ve also noted over the past few days, I decided to pull the 2000 series CAMLOCs from the aft 4 hardware positions that secure each aft wheel pant to the gear leg pant apron.

In doing so, I moved the #3 screw aft on the left side outboard just a bit more for both clearance reasons and aesthetics, which meant I first had to fill the existing hole with flox (pic 1).  I then drilled a new hole further outboard and finished installing the K1000-3 platenut on the wheel pant, to secure the countersunk 10-32 screw (pic 2).

Here we have the same thing on the right side, with K1000-3 platenuts installed in the aft wheel paint at the outboard aft 2 positions on the gear leg pant apron.  My current plan is to mount standard 4000 series CAMLOCs on the inboard positions on both wheel pants, to decrease the amount of time and energy it takes to remove the aft wheel pant to check and/or add air to the tire.

I also did a good bit of sanding and a bit more micro fill work on both left and right wheel pants as well.

I’ve been trying to get to a good point to remove the engine, but since I did pretty much my last power sanding of micro inside the shop (more to come outside the shop!), I decided to hold off on the engine removal and instead take down all the plastic sheeting that was supposed to protect the shop from micro dust (it may have helped, but there is still dust literally everywhere!).  I still have one small sheet of plastic up next to the nose of the plane, which I’ll remove tomorrow after another round or two of sanding nose micro.

Pressing forward!