Today I finished the instrument panel leg holes reinforcement flange/cable channel layups.

Starting on the left, I pulled the peel ply and did a rough razor trim of the 3 ply interior carbon fiber layup.  Notice this layup is pretty much a 3-ply “U-channel” in that it’s attached to the forward face of the composite instrument panel, and then the floor and front wall of the channel. (pic 2 shows a peak of Version 4 nose hatch latch handle safety guard).

On the right side side, I used the slightly smaller 3D printed form and laid up 2 plies of carbon fiber on the outside of the form as I did on the left side.  Also like the left side, I had peel ply on the inside (over the taped up form, or mold) and also on the outside of the layup (pic 1).  I used MGS 335 epoxy with fast hardener, so a few hours later this sucker was cured… and off came the clamps (pic 2).

I pulled the 3D printed form out and then cleaned up the inside of the layup in prep for first a strip of Lantor Soric that I laid in on the bottom (after a fillet along the corner of the panel and the carbon fiber… pic 1).  I then laid up the 3 plies of carbon fiber (all scraps for these layups I’ll note!) on the inside and peel plied the layup (pic 2).  I then left it to cure overnight.

Back on the canard fit into the nose and sidewall after a good half dozen rounds of sanding and dialing in the fit (about 1.5 hours worth of work), here we have the left side: first a look at the leading edge (pic 1), and then the underside (pic 2).  All fitting nicely.

And pretty much the same thing on the right side.

I also worked a good bit on the canopy perimeter fit and of course the turtledeck, with the requisite micro to fill in a few uneven spots and divots (yes, unfortunately I’m playing THAT game).

Moving forward…

I started off today taking the epoxy-wiped left elevator outside and sanding it with the orbital sander with 80 grit paper.  I then spent another 15 minutes handing sanding it with 150 grit.  I grabbed the right elevator and hand sanded it with 150 grit as well.

Next steps on the elevator is to West-410 fill about a half dozen minor divots on each one, then sand those, local epoxy wipes on the divot fills, before wet sanding both elevators with 150 grit.  Overall I’m pleased with how the elevators are turning out.

I turned my attention to the canard left end where I micro’d in a sleeve for the elevator hinge pin.  I had removed the hinge pin last night before locking up the shop and here is the cured sleeve as I found it this AM (pic 1).  I then used the Dremel tool to rough trim the edges flush before smoothing up the edges with a file (pic 2).  Task complete.

I taped up the underside and leading edge of the canard where it meets the fuselage/ nose sidewall, laid down a thin layer of flox and then mounted the canard.  Here we have the left side with the flox fill at the front leading edge (pic 1) —which was the main goal of this exercise— and along the underside seam as well (pic 2).

Of course I did the same thing on the right side.  Again, my main goal here was to get the front “corner” of the canard gap at the leading edge filled where it intersects both the sidewall/ nose and the aft nose/avionics cover.

Here’s what the nose side looked like after I removed the canard a couple of hours later.  I had some irregularities on the wall side along the bottom of the canard previously, thus why added a thin layer of flox to “clean” that up… which of course requires still more fill and cleaning up.  I knew this going into this task, but didn’t want to pile up the flox and have it ooze out all over the place.  Better to keep it clean and simply add another step, since this is a seal after all and not structural.

I’ll jump ahead and show you how it turned out after adding some extra flox, made up from the leftover epoxy from the layups I did below on the canopy lock reinforcement and the panel left leg hole flange.

As an aside, I’ll note that (not surprisingly) I’ve been working a safety latch for my nose hatch latch pull handle.  The new pop-up spring on the nose hatch latch works great, but the issue is the pull required is only maybe 1/4″, so I want to ensure I don’t snag the handle by accident with an electrical cable or whatever and pop my nose hatch open during flight!

After pondering it a while now, I decided to simply make a pivot block that wraps around the big cable nut.  I’ll use RTV to secure it to the nut when I have my final version ready to deploy.   I did about 3 fit test prints before I started actually designing the pivot block.  This is version 2 with the pivot hole nubs on the sides, at the vertical center of the block.  With the curve of the wheel well cover on the inboard side, there’s no clearance for the safety latch pivot arm, so I had to move the hole nubs up higher.

Which I did here.  This is Version 3 with pivot “nub” holes up a bit higher, and you can see my initial inside measurement for the arm was just a hair short, so I’ll retweak that as well.  Again, this is a sideline task that I may spend 5-10 minutes on when I go in the house to hit the bathroom or grab a drink.  I can then kick off a 3D print and head straight back out to the shop.

I wanted to start nailing down my external canopy lock, so I cleaned out the inside of the wall to allow clearance for not just the lock barrel, but also the large securing nut and also the 90º pivoting catch that will rotate down into the wall when unlocked (pic 1).

Which way does the catch pivot you ask?  Good question, since I got the two locks (if you remember, I had another lock I was testing out) confused and cleared out the aft side of pocket for the catch to pivot into… uh, oops.  Actually I needed to clear out the foam towards the front side, since it rotates forward to unlock.  It’s foam, so no big deal on refilling it.  That being said, I used the Dremel tool to trim the catch to about half its original length.

I was already planning on reinforcing the inside of the exterior wall where the lock will mount, but especially after I chewed up the top edge of the wall a bit trying to clear out the foam and micro, it definitely needed some help.  I laid up 2 plies of BID on the inside of the external wall, and of course peel plied it (pic 2).

Back to another CAD part that I designed and 3D printed: this is a mold for the instrument panel left leg hole to add a reinforcement flange to essentially make the panel thicker (by about an inch) just in case (God forbid!) you have a crash and you want to keep the thin panel from acting like a guillotine.  It also doubles as a wire tray to help corral and hid the wire’s crossing the bottom edge of the panel (pic 1).  I taped it up in prep for the layup (pic 2).

After measuring and cutting 2 plies of carbon fiber, I then wetted out peel ply onto the taped plastic mold (inside peel ply).  I then laid up the 2 plies of carbon fiber and peel plied the outside.  The carbon fiber plies extended beyond the bottom edge of the mold going aft about 1/2 inch, which overlapped onto the bottom edge of left leg opening. With the layup and form in position, I then simply clamped it in place.

While I was laying up the left side panel leg hole above, I had the right side mold (slightly shorter and narrower) 3D printing inside the house.  I plan on laying that up tomorrow.  In addition, I’ll add a ply of Lantor Soric plus 3 more plies of carbon fiber on the inside of these initial 2-ply layups.

My final build task of the evening was cleaning out the cured micro from the seams between the longeron/turtledeck and canopy.  I also did a fairly thorough initial sanding of the added micro.  Tomorrow I’ll do the final fine sanding and plan on being done with all the micro additions and tweaks to the canopy-to-fuselage perimeter interfaces.

Ok, still working to get this beast done and in the air!

Another 2-day update here…

I started out Day 1 by cleaning up the touchup micro spots on the left elevator, and then epoxy wiped it every hour or so for 3 total coats.  Here are both elevators now microed, sanded and epoxy wiped.

Day 1: I slathered up the left leading edge of the canard with micro, over the “repair” (extra layers of glass over my aggressively sanded LE) [pic 1] and then today I took the canard outside and knocked down the micro a good bit in prep for final sanding (pic 2).

I also sanded down the epoxy wiped right elevator outside for a good 45 minutes… no pic today.  I’ll grab one tomorrow of both elevators after I sand the left elevator epoxy wipes.

I had bit of a break thru in sanding the thin glass on the left front corner of the canard, so I grabbed a thin strip of UNI cut with the fibers at a 45º angle.  I laid that up and peel plied it to knock yet another one of the myriad of to-do tasks off my list.

Over the past 3-4 days —as I’ve been working on the canard— I’ve been pondering a better solution to my outboard canard ends elevator hinge pin holes, since mine are looking pretty rough (see above).  I don’t have the right size Nyla-flo on hand to use, and I spent a little bit thinking about what I could employ to create a nice sleeve in these pin holes.

And then I found it at my local Ma & Pa hardware store: a foot long length of aluminum 7/32″ OD with 0.014″ walls (pic 1).  Very light and perfect for this assignment.  You can see how well the elevator hinge pin fits into this aluminum sleeve (pic 2).

I cut two 2.25″ lengths off the 1-foot stock with my tube cutter (pic 1) and then chamfered out the insides of each end to get them to slide smoothly again over the hinge pin (pic 2).

On the left end of the canard I micro’d in the new sleeve, which fit like a champ.  I then slid the hinge pin into place to ensure the sleeve alignment was correct.  Tomorrow I’ll Dremel the excess sleeve and file it smooth to match the contour of the canard surface.

However, on the right side I must have set the inside of the hinge pin hole with flox or micro, because when I went to drill it out with my 7/32″ bit, it wasn’t having it.  I didn’t want to do any damage, so I’m calling this good for now and will simply do a final clean up of it with micro when I do the final finish on the bottom of the canard.

As is my build life over the last week (will it ever end?!) I spent a good hour sanding around the perimeter of the canopy, with my main focus on the back corners and the top elevation alignment of the D-deck between it and the top aft canopy frame.  Here’s the left side.

And here’s the right side.  Hopefully this is my LAST iteration of micro and sanding around the canopy! (fingers crossed)

Yep, still pressing forward!

Hopefully my work today finally clears out my “sins of the past” task queue . . .

Years ago when I was sanding and micro-finishing the canard —my first experience at micro-finishing a part— I followed a pretty cool looking builder’s tip by Wayne Hicks (Cozy IV builder) on getting a close to perfect profile on the canard.  It involved making correct-profiled sanding blocks using the top and bottom canard templates.

I followed Wayne’s method of finishing the canard surface with a 2×4 for each side, cut out to the shape of the templates, with a bit extra for the thickness of the sandpaper.  However, with the thick 36-grit peel and stick sandpaper, it didn’t do so well conforming to the inside curve at the leading edge on the profiled sanding blocks.

Well, I did some fairly aggressing sanding on the micro that I had apply on the left side of the canard, and when I assessed my work I realized that the un-conformed paper inside the leading edge curve had cut into the leading edge to create a bit of a flat, more angled, edge.  When I inspected it, I couldn’t feel any soft spots or where it had broke through to the core foam, so I figured it was just a bit of an angle on the thick top glass overlap area of the leading edge.  So I summarily slathered it up with micro, and pressed on after fixing my sanding block leading edge configuration issue.

But then I got to the right side of the canard, where my sanding block performed as I had originally hoped.  I noted I had no need to add more micro and I had a nice curved leading edge that was at the proper profile.  I made a note that I should remove the micro and lay in some reinforcement glass on the left leading edge just to ensure I hadn’t hamfistedly sanded away a few too many plies of glass to weaken it in any way.  Especially, as I noted when flying in the back of Marco’s Long-EZ, how much those outer areas of the canard bounce around in flight.

Well, today is the day to do that insurance layup on the canard left leading edge, as you can see above.  At the angled edge I added a 1/2″ strip of 1 ply BID and 1 ply UNI, then covered that with a 1.5″ tape of 1 ply BID and 1 ply UNI.  The length was a little over 36″.  I then peel plied the layup.

I then took the micro’d elevators outside and sanded them down: first with the orbital sander with 40 grit, then hand sanding the final stage to get both left and right elevators prepped for epoxy wiping.

Here we have the left elevator, which needed a few micro fills on some divots, so I added those.

Moreover, as I sanded down the top and bottom surfaces of the elevators, I used the Eureka CNC (or new name?) profile templates to ensure I was getting the final shape dialed in correctly.

[I’ll note that I had to redo my elevators years ago and ordered the cores from Eureka CNC, while my original wing and canard cores were from Feather Light.  I can see how the Eureka cores are far superior (CNC cut) than the traditional hot wired cores.  Dialing in the elevator shape was super easy since the core is so perfectly cut… it really felt like I was cheating!]

While the touch-up micro was curing on the left elevator, I set up a hanging contraption off my work bench to epoxy wipe (3 coats) on the right elevator.

Also, as is par for the course over the last week, I also did a fair bit of sanding and micro work on the area around the canopy perimeter throughout the day.  Thankfully, I should have that dialed in within the next day or two.

It was QUITE late in the evening, and I had to drag myself out to the shop for that 3rd epoxy wipe, but I got ‘er done.

Although not really shown in any of the pics below, the last couple of days have been about SANDING, SANDING, SANDING… oh, and more sanding.  Mainly sanding the epoxy wiped areas on the rudders, winglets, inboard wing root edges, cowl shoulders, turtle deck, longerons, and fuselage sidewalls.

Then divot and depression refills with micro, more sanding, more minor touchups and fills… ad nauseum.

As for the glassed inboard ends of the elevators, those layups came out very nicely: I pulled the peel ply, razor cut the edges and then did a quick sanding to clean them up.

With the weather now fairly warm (high 80’s…yeah, all or nothing!) I took the elevators outside and gave them a thorough sanding in prep for micro.

I also took the canard outside (I had already sanded the inboard edges of the canard and micro’d those edges  up) to sand down the new added micro.

Which I did next.  This is to fill the edges that were uncovered by the aft nose/avionics cover.

I couple of years ago I read in the Central States Newsletter that polyester filler glaze is incompatible with composite finishing.  Well, many, many years prior to my reading that, I had followed suit with Nate Mullins as he was just finishing up his Long-EZ build, where he had used Z Grip filler on his bird.

Now, while Z Grip does not claim to be a polyester filler, it is from Evercoat.  And I had a decent amount of Evercoat’s Metal Glaze on hand, which states right out that it is a polyester filler glaze.  Both are a light bluish green in color, and both are applied fairly easily and sand easily (after about a quick 20 minute cure time).

Since my only micro finishing project at the time was the canard, I too employed this type of easy-to-apply/quick curing/EZ sanding filler on the canard (this was my pre-West 410 discovery).

Well, after a quick text chat with Nate today I confirmed that he had had some issues with his Z Grip filler “any application over 1/16″ deep” and again, that’s not even a polyester based filler (that I know of).  My Metal Glaze is a confirmed polyester filler, which its use is again warned about in the Central States newsletter.  With those two data points now converged, it confirmed to me that the Metal Glaze must go… never to be used again! (ok, apparently it’s fine to use over PRIMER, but not before).

Thus, I removed it as you can see below.

My last build task of the evening was to slather up the elevators with micro [in 2 steps: bottom first → nearly cure → then top side]… which took a good half hour per side, so 2+ hours total.

Then even more sanding and re-microing shenanigans on & around the canopy frame… And more sanding and more micro applications coming tomorrow I’m sure (did I mention it’s an iterative process?!).

Pressing forward . . .

Yep, after all these years I finally completed the elevator builds by glassing the inboard edge with 1 ply of BID.   Success! (haha)

But allow me to back up just a bit first.  Yesterday I did a fair bit of sanding on the epoxy wiped longerons, turtledeck and forward fuselage areas.  I also sanded some micro that I had reapplied to the front edge of the glare shield.

In cleaning up the threaded inserts on the canopy internal lock microswitch block, I realized that the mounting screw hole spacing wasn’t correct, so I corrected that in CAD and kicked off another 3D print of it.

This morning I went to mount the new microswitch block and discovered I had moved the hole in the WRONG direction in CAD, so I (re)moved the hole and reprinted yet another block, which I installed.  And yes, I did an ops check and it works a treat.

My next goal was to get the elevators off the canard to allow me to sand them down and micro them up.  Well, the way the bolt goes through the inboard tube to secure these elevators in place, the canard must come off and both elevators removed together to provide the clearance required to get the bolts out.  Thus began the canard removal operation (first I did a final sanding of the inboard elevators ends to ensure that once glassed and painted, there would still be 1/16″ of clearance).

I was quite expecting some huge drama in getting the 3/16″ stainless steel hinge pins out, but they came out with some vice grips and steady force, but no crazy antics requiring power tools and/or expletives!

Here we have the pair of elevators off the canard.  Note that when I decided to go with the inboard elevator fairings these elevators were mounted on the canard and I didn’t want to waste time removing them, so I trimmed the inboard 1.5″ off in-situ… and that future point to finalize the task is now.

I marked the glass to be trimmed —again, that I couldn’t get in to cut while constructing the elevator fairing when I removed the inboard 1.5″ (pic 1)— then trimmed it off with my Fein saw (pic 2).  I then cleaned up the tube of the old epoxy and glass residue.

Here we have the pair of the elevators ready for a ply of BID on their inboard face, to FINALLY complete the construction of the elevators!

I made a paper template, then cut and prepregged a ply of BID for each elevator. After wetting out the prepregged BID, I then cut it using my template.  After making some flox (near the tube) and micro internal corners and applying wet micro to the blue foam, I then laid up the ply of BID.  I then peel plied the layups and left them to cure overnight (sorry for the blurry pic).

I’ll offer another point of note in that these layups are close to the last of all plans-required layups that I’ll need to finish for this bird.  The only other ones are the underside of the top lips of the wings and strakes at the seam between the two (both sides).

With these layups complete, I then applied some micro on the inboard edges of the canard where they intersect the aft nose/avionics cover as well as some touch ups around the canard mounting notches in the nose (no pics).

Tomorrow my main priority is to finalize the sanding of the epoxy wipes and do any clean up/added micro tasks required.  I’ll then continue to work the canopy, canard, aft nose cover and nose hatch finishing to get all that knocked out and ready for paint.

My final goal for today was to get the longerons, turtledeck and forward fuselage sides epoxy wiped, and I’m pleased to report that I completed that task.

Of course to get to the point of epoxy wiping all these surfaces required well over 4 hours of sanding…  all in the past at this point.

Here we have the left side epoxy wiped, with the forward nose area, stopping just under the canard (pic 1) and the longeron, cowl/strake shoulder and the turtledeck (pic 2).

I had planned on doing 4 coats total, but besides it getting really late, since I had to use a brush on the narrow longerons I ended up putting more epoxy on per coat than I normally would with a squeegee, so I stopped at 3 coats.

Here we have the right side.  In addition to the right side turtledeck, shoulder, longeron and forward fuselage side, I also epoxy wiped the repair on the right strake leading edge, the top of each wing root edge, and a couple of micro fill spots on the rudders and winglets.

Just prior to initiating the epoxy wipes, I shot this quick video to show the “exciting”  initial operational test of the canopy internal lock handle functioning with microswitch block mounted on the sidewall forward of the instrument panel.  As I mention in the video, I still have some dialing in to do, but the operational design seems to be working.

Still pressing forward!

I started out today whipping up some micro and slathering up my repair on the right strake leading edge, and finishing off the micro’ing of the right longeron, as well as adding some to the inside of the slanted edge of aft nose/avionics cover.

I had some micro left over in the cup, so almost on a dare I applied it to the perimeter lip of the nose hatch… I had JUST enough to cover the lip.

With a good application of micro curing, I then made up an 8-32 threaded insert on the lathe for the canopy internal lock micro-switch block second screw hole.

I’m reusing this pic from yesterday to give an idea of how I floxed the second threaded insert into place for the canopy internal lock micro-switch block.

I then taped up plastic over the cabin so that I could sand the left side longeron and forward fuselage without covering the inside of the plane with dust.

Here is a before shot (pic 1) and then an after shot after I spent a good few hours sanding (pic 2).

I then did a good bit of sanding on the right side as well, here on some contrast and compare pics of left vs right side, both sanded…. note the intersecting lines of the where the aft nose/avionics cover intersects the front corner of the canopy at the canopy bottom edge line.  This is what those aft corner layups were all about on the aft nose cover (to fix the intersect line).

A closer shot of the right side canopy-fuselage-aft nose cover intersection… yeah, some very slight bit more tweaking required.

I also grabbed this shot to show that the line between canopy skirt and the aft nose cover is no longer some gaping hole like the grand canyon!

Pressing forward.

I started off today by marking the aft nose/avionics cover’s aft corners for trimming, which I did immediately after grabbing these pics.

After installing the aft nose/avionics cover back on the bird, and taping up some seams, I then finished adding micro to the front edge of the right longeron.

In addition, I laid up the final ply of BID on the damaged right strake leading edge.  I then peel plied that layup.

I also did a fair amount micro’ing on the left side as well, in the area in front of the strake along the longeron, and also around and under the canard and aft nose/avionics cover.

I then taped the canopy internal lock micro-switch block to the left sidewall of the avionics bay, forward of the instrument panel, to ensure it would not cause any clearance issues with the GNS-480 GPS navigator mounting tray.

Here’s another shot of the canopy internal lock micro-switch block on the left sidewall, which has a low enough profile to not interfere with the GNS-480 GPS navigator mounting tray (pic 1).  I then drilled the lower screw mounting hole with the micro-switch block in place (pic 2).

I finished drilling out the screw mounting hole and then prepped & floxed an 8-32 Nutsert into the hole (no pic).

And with that, I left the floxed the Nutsert to cure overnight and called it a night.

Well, when it rains it pours… seems like I’m clearing out all the upcoming spring mistakes early.

So it was a late night last night.  I got a lot of things done.  And although it was a nice warm day, as par usual over the last week the nights have been chilly.  I set a box with stuff in it (for weight) on top of a stool, with 2 heat lamps attached to the stiff cardboard —both aimed at the micro I had just added onto the right longeron… the temp was low 50’s in the shop, and very likely to get much colder than that.

Well, this morning as I got about 10 feet from the door of the shop, I could smell IT: the godawful odor of burnt epoxy, fiberglass and micro.

This is what I found.

Apparently, one of the light clamps had shifted, and it toppled the box over with the lights “conveniently” face planting right onto the strake leading edge.  My saving grace was the light with the cross grill across front landed on the BL23 junction, whereas the bare light landed inboard on the storage area side of the strake leading edge.

Here’s a look on the inside of the slightly cooked discolored paint.

Well, after opening up all the doors and windows, turning a fan on and letting the shop air out for a good half hour, I then got to work clearing out the charred fiberglass on the outer surface of the strake leading edge (pic 1).

The burn was very localized to the heat lamp face, and the glass beyond the burned glass was fine… and still very strong in that I couldn’t push it in at all.  The internal foam had melted away about 1/2″ to 3/4″ from the edge of the hole.  The brown stuff inside the hole is the melted foam and micro attached to the inside glass.  I then took my Fein saw and cut the perimeter of the hole at a shallow angle for the upcoming glass repair (pic 2).

To ensure I had “aircraft quality” foam reinforcing the edges of the hole, and as internal dams for the pour foam, I cut 3 blue foam wedges and micro’d them into place (one each side and one on the bottom).

I also discovered a slight delam area between the glass layers on the outboard side, so I cut the exterior delammed glass away.

As the micro’d foam wedges inside the hole of the burnt leading edge spot were curing, I then finished adding micro to the corner junction of the left longeron to left strake.  Here is the front side.

And along the aft side.

I also added about a foot more micro to the front side of the right longeron as well, just beneath the canopy lip edge.

I added pour foam to the inside edges of the burn damaged leading edge of the right strake.

After the internal perimeter pour foam cured, I cut the foam flush with the hole opening, made up a taped cardboard dam and secure it in place with more duct tape (pic 1).  I then whipped up some pour foam and carefully poured it into the dam and left it to cure (pic 2).

After trimming and sanding down the added pour foam (pic 1), I prepped the foam with wet micro before laying up 2 plies of UNI that crossed each other at a 30° bias (pic 2).

I then peel plied the layup and left it to cure overnight.

Tomorrow I’ll add a final ply of BID over the UNI and call the repair good, requiring only more micro finishing at that point.

If you’re curious about the BL23 junction leading edge heat damage, it merely cooked some micro and caused some minor surface cracks. I chipped away the cracked micro to clean it up.  I guess lucky for me the BL23 junction required a bit more (aka thicker) micro to blend it in, so the underlying glass was completely unscathed.

I also added some micro onto the aft nose/avionics cover’s aft corner inside BID layups before then adding a ply of BID on top of the added micro.  I then peel plied the layups and left them to cure overnight as well.

I then shot a quick video showing you the proof of concept testing I have been working on with the wire-manipulated micro-switch block for the canopy latch internal lock lever.

And with a crazy, frustrating day under my belt, I called it a night…