Below is Version 2 of the Canopy Strut Block hot of the pres… er, uh, 3D printer!  I went with basic tactical efficiency by simply using a Sharpie to color the lettering black.  I also did a rudimentary strength test by “jamming” the canopy shut with a good bit of force and this version held up fine.

Honestly, if it works once on a strong gust of wind but is sacrificed in the process, where I’d have to keep the canopy closed for a period… I can always rework the design and print another one in about an hour.  For less than an ounce, I think this is decent insurance against the canopy slamming shut due to strong winds or gusts.

Back on the turtledeck… yep, a few more divots and low spots on each side that needed some judicious minor micro filling —more so than what will/can get filled with epoxy wipes alone.

I’ll sand the added micro tomorrow and should be done with micro on the turtledeck proper and the shoulders… I’ll wait to epoxy wipe until I get the longerons micro’d up as well (and hopefully warmer weather!).

With the micro tasks completed on the turtledeck, I then did a final clean on the top cowling and did the first round of epoxy wipes (see below).  With the first epoxy wipe complete, I then got busy machining the canopy latch handle.

The stock I have on hand for the canopy latch handle is a little longer than I need, but the other dimensions (1.5″ x 3/4″) are exact to what is called for.  Here is the original aluminum stock (I think 6061?  It’s been a long while since I bought it), after I marked it using my original 3D printed handle mockup as the template.

Since I didn’t want to waste aluminum stock, and a lot of time machining both ends, I used both the horizontal and vertical band saws to notch a big chunk out of each end, the shorter end shown here.

I then did 2 separate rounds of machining: one for each end of the handle, with a break in between the two sessions for another round of epoxy wipes on the top cowling.

As you can see, here we have the external milling of the canopy latch handle completed, with the internal slot yet to do (planning to finish tomorrow).

Once all the milling was complete for the night, I did one more round of epoxy wiping on the top cowling… for 3 total coats of West epoxy.

I had actually planned on doing 4 coats total, mainly for the micro’d areas of the top cowling, and used the 205 fast hardener so it would cure faster in between each round. But as I MAY have mentioned, it’s still quite cold out and I’m struggling to keep the shop above 65° F (Marco is just a few hours north of me, and he’s already got about 7″ of snow… and folks 15 miles inland from me are getting snow as well).  In short, it was getting quite late, plus Jess had dinner made and waiting, so I made the call that 3 epoxy wipe coats was all she gets!

Tomorrow I plan on finishing the canopy latch handle machining, as well as getting the bottom cowling sanded and at least final prepped for epoxy wipes.

The turtle-DECK that is!

Yes, I busted nearly every goal I had this week, but I continue to plug along.  And dare I say, the weather is back to quite chilly once again, and is scheduled to be so this entire upcoming week.  Thus, I’m trying to knock out what chunks I can so when it does turn warmer for a good spell, I’ll be poised to strike and get the bigger stuff (underside wing ends and nose/canopy surround areas) knocked out.

For now, with a decently warm day in the high 50’s and the magic of heat lamps to keep things warm overnight, I was able to get the majority of the bottom cowling slathered up in micro.  Once I remove the bottom cowl I’ll add more to the immediate areas around the now taped up CAMLOC holes, but clearly I wanted to get the micro on the bottom cowling with it being mounted in situ to preserve the exact mounted shape as best possible.

Now, sitting on the shop floor applying micro on pretty much completely negative angled surfaces took quite a bit longer than I anticipated (over 3 hours) and took a much bigger bite out of my shop time than I had planned for.

I was able to get a plastic sheet taped in place to allow for sanding the micro’d turtledeck, but it was getting later in the evening so I decided to kick that can until tomorrow.

Which I did… and here is the initial sanding of the turtledeck on the left side. Hindsight being 20/20, if I had thought out and planned better, I think I would have waited to drill the holes and run the fuel vent lines until AFTER I micro finished and epoxy wiped the turtledeck.

You see, just above the top vent on each side the turtledeck is fairly flat in its arc around the top.  But right about where those vents are situated, the contour changes significantly with different curves and angles competing with each other, and trying to get those right, while trying to weave in and around those protruding vent lines just added to the challenge.  All in all I spent about 3 hours sanding and contouring the micro on the turtledeck and the shoulders.

After I got it all dialed in as best possible, I then added another round of micro to the divots and low spots, first on the left side (pic 1) and then the right (pic 2).  Moreover, note that I taped up the oil dipstick access door and added flocro into the gap around the door (some of us didn’t have that razor narrow cut starting out like the more consciences builders… ahem!).

A few hours later I popped the oil dipstick access door open and cleaned up the surrounding flocro filler a bit.  I also removed the tape from the door.  This is all in prep for epoxy wiping the top cowling here in the next day or three (depending on heat lamp availability!)

A sideline project I’ve been working on the past few days since I now have the canopy open is a positive block for the canopy’s air strut.  I had this on my list of things to do at some point after the bird was flying, but was reminded of it last week when I was helping my buddy Guy work on his Long-EZ.  His bird —built in 1982— has the original size canopy which is about half the size of mine, yet his air strut is one of the tall ones that is much stronger than the diminutive one I have on my canopy.

Clearly I’m aware that a good gust of wind on this massive “boat sail” of a canopy I have could easily bring it crashing closed, hopefully not on any unsuspecting head or fingers (almost certainly MINE!).  So I figured now would be a good time to get this canopy air strut safety block ginned up to get into the habit of always putting it in place, even it’s “only,” say, my fuselage sitting outside my shop.

I had envisioned a clamp style positive strut block, somewhat like the potato chip bag clip that so many canardians use for their rudder gust locks.  And I actually looked around for one at a couple stores over the last week, but oddly couldn’t find any full sized ones.  Thus, I decided to go much simpler and try out a style of strut block that simply snaps into place around the canopy strut’s inner shaft.

It took about 3 iterations with small test 3D prints to get the wall thickness and circumference angles right for a good snap into place on the canopy strut shaft, to ensure it always snapped firmly into place and was nicely secured on the strut.  With my lateral dimensions good, it was time to create a full length block for a height (vertical) test.

After all that was successful, I printed the first actual canopy strut block that you see here.

The functioning and dimensions of this version are great, with it having a good snap on pressure and removes with not too much effort either.  The issue is the holes I created to give it somewhat of a gun rail appearance.  With a sharp 1″ closing of the canopy to test how it would hold, it cracked this unit at the narrow top support above the top opening.  In response, on Version 2 I removed those thru-holes and simply added some labels on each side.  I also added some thickness to the spline down the middle.  I kicked the print off as off this writing and will grab some pics of my new version and ops test tomorrow.

Pressing on!

Over the past few days I’ve been focused on the top cowling, the aft strake interface with the top cowling, including the shoulders.  This was all in prep for micro finishing the turtledeck.

After a couple of cycles of removing and re-mounting the top cowling, along with a good bit of work refining and shaping the micro on the shoulders, I taped up the side edges of the top cowling to allow me to add flocro along the interfacing edges of the wings and top cowling.

In the end, I only added flocro to the forward 2/3rds on the right wing side, as can be seen above with the tape.

Months ago I filled a depression on the left side of the turtledeck with strands of UNI tape and an overlying ply of BID.  There was a depression on the right side of the turtledeck as well, although it wasn’t as prominent as the left side.  I had debated just filling that depression with micro, but finally decided to just mirror the left side with some strands of UNI in the trough, then an overlying ply of BID.  I then peel plied the layup.

After another removing of the top cowling, and the side tape, I then cleaned up the right side flocro before taping up the front edge of the cowling and aft bottom edges as well before remounting the top cowling.

With the top cowl mounted and the front edge taped up, I then prepped the turtledeck for micro.  I had originally planned do this with the canopy aft edge taped up and the canopy closed and locked, but since I don’t have the canopy latch system completely sorted out yet I simply pressed forward with the canopy open.

With everything prepped, I then whipped up some micro and applied it to the turtledeck.

I have one more decently warm day tomorrow before the weather turns chilly again for the next week.  I do plan on machining some stuff and creating some 3D parts during the upcoming chilly weather.

Pressing forward….

I’m still slogging along in this chilly weather spell trying to get as much done as possible… admittedly, my plane-building output isn’t nearly what I want it to be, but I am knocking out some of the more mundane, albeit somewhat challenging, tasks as I slowly creep towards getting this bird finished.

Today was all about finishing up the front corners and TDC CAMLOC holes on the top cowling.

I started by drilling out the center holes wider out to their original diameter on all the holes being worked, to allow for CAMLOC installation.

I then spent a good little bit grinding and sanding down the tops of the G10 “washers” on the right front corner to be even with the top of the surrounding micro, as they were a bit proud by around 0.015″.

After drilling out the center of the front left CAMLOC hole, I did the same thing by thinning down the carbon fiber “washer” to make the top even with the surrounding micro.

On the top CAMLOC hole —after re-drilling the hole— I trimmed the edges of the laid up carbon fiber and then shaved its height down a bit as well.

With all the “washer”/fill heights good (via eyeballing from the side) I then whipped up some micro (heavier on the West 410 than before) and filled in the gaps around the floxed in place “washers.”

I then filled the perimeter of the added carbon fiber plies on the top center CAMLOC hole as well.

I spent nearly another hour sanding down all the dabs of micro/West 410 that I had applied to some divots on the strakes, as well as quite a few on the right upper winglet. I also sanded down a couple of minor strake-wing seam fills as well.

Tomorrow is forecasted to be rather chilly again, so I’ll continue to do what I can with localized heat (aka heat lamps) since keeping those kerosene torpedo heaters fired up is not only loud and a bit smelly, but also fairly expensive when used day in and day out for heat.

Pressing forward! (slowly)

On the days that the weather’s been warmer I’ve been working on a sideline project to build a wing removal and installation lift, since in the very near future the wings will be coming off the plane.  I looked around for ideas, not surprisingly finding the best ones on the COBA forum.

I’ll note that a fair number of wing removal/install methods listed on the forum involved using an engine hoist hovering somewhere above the wing surface… which is only inviting trouble in my book, with a heavy arm and chain hovering over a painted fiberglass/foam wing.  No thank you.

So the best wing lift (and to be clear, NOT a storage dolly) I found that works for me is this triangular contraption.  After some assessment on how to construct it, I tweaked the design a little bit to make it collapsible.  I’ll further note that one of the main features I like about this design is that all 3 corner heights are independently raised or lowered via wheeled trailer hitch jacks.

So here is the near-final assembly of the wing lift.  I’d say it’s about 80% complete as I need to swap out some hardware and add the padded cross supports on each end that interface with the bottom wing surface.

I made the short end and one long side collapsible with hinges, with the other long side un-collapsed, that simply bolts onto the 3 expanded segments when they’re set in the expanded position.

I’ll note that today was warm during day, but the weather was being a bit sneaky as it is still rather chilly at night.

Back on the planes… On the left front corner of the top cowling, with the thinner micro application, I used my micrometer to measure the micro.  Instead of using the 1/16″ thick G10 “washers” as I did on the right side, I scrounged through my carbon fiber scraps and found an acceptable thickness for this CAMLOC hole.

I then floxed and clamped the carbon fiber “washer” into place.

On the top center of the top cowling, I only needed 0.02″ to 0.03″ added thickness around the CAMLOC hole.  Instead of trying to add a “washer” or disc of some other material, I simply laid up a 2 full and 1 half ply layup of carbon fiber.  I then of course peel plied the layup.

I also spent a good 45 minutes cleaning up the outboard strake-to-wing seam, doing a flox fill on the right wing edge.  I then identified a few other minor divots that needed tending to, which I will knock out tomorrow.

I’ll continue to nug through the minor fills and cleanups, get those knocked out, and press forward with completing the finishing of this bird.

This blog post covers the past few days.

Most of Friday was spent helping Guy retweak his right main gear, which we needed to angle it even further inboard than we had before.  This job took a good half the day.

Related to this gear bending redo, which I learned much on, was a notable side event where I did my first taxi in a Long-EZ after all these years of building one!  Guy wanted me to check his brakes while he viewed the wheel-to-gear angle while it was in motion.  So I did a little bit of taxiing about.  Even with a not-so-great right brake it was a good experience!

Since my last post I’ve been working the top of the left winglet to finalize that by sanding the added micro fill, then dry sanding with 150 grit, then wet sanding with the same.  Then rinse and repeat on a couple of low spots.  Same thing with the perimeters around the wing leading edge lights: a couple of cycles of sanding, fills, and more sanding.

Thus the reason I didn’t post any pics of those same ‘ol tasks.

After removing the top cowling, a new task I knocked out was drilling some 1/16″ thick G10 phenolic to use as “washers” that will be embedded in the top cowl front corner micro fills, to help prevent the CAMLOCs from sinking into the micro over time as I have discovered they do on the bottom cowling.

I didn’t drill out the middle hole to the same diameter as the top cowl CAMLOC holes yet, since I didn’t want to have to get the alignment perfect while floxing them into pace. I’ll drill the center holes out afterwards.

After the dry run, I then prepped the “washers” and floxed them into place, securing them with clamps.

I have another G10 “washer” like these to add to the left front corner of the top cowling, and then I’ll probably add 2-3 plies around the top center CAMLOC hole since it only needs a 0.02-0.03″ of fill to match the surface level of the micro finish.

My goal this coming week is to be completed with finishing the top & bottom cowlings, and have them prepped for primer/paint.  Also the turtle deck micro’d up and finished as well.  Finally, I plan on removing the engine, giving it a good cleaning and then bagging it up until after I get the bird painted.

Soooo… yeah…. it’s been rather chilly here over the past few weeks.  Weather temps typically ranging from teens to low 40’s (°F).   For those tracking my build that are not in the states, we had a pretty good ODD winter snowstorm here on the shores of eastern NC.

Here’s my shop under a blanket of snow.

We have had an odd “warmer” day here and there (in the 50’s) and I’ve got a little bit done in the shop, such as wet sanding, that doesn’t require me to have those monster torpedo heaters on full time.  Needless to say I’ve been getting some non-airplane build stuff knocked out.

Here’s my front yard and driveway.

One of those things I’ve been working on, which I don’t need much more than a heat lamp to keep things warm, is my buddy Guy’s prop that got crunched when his airplane went up on its ‘tails’ during a condition inspection (If you recall, I repaired his aft lower winglets).  Well, his Silver Bullet prop also was drug into the melee and suffered a dinged tip.

Here’s how the ding tipped should look as compared to the other side.  These pics were mainly taken to query both Marc Zeitlin and Gary Hertzler on suggested fix actions.

After going back and forth with Gary Hertzler a few times, he recommended using JB Weld as the agent to fix this prop ding.  Here I’ve attached a taped stir stick to the bottom side of the prop (relatively, as it’s sitting here) and after cleaning the tip with Acetone, slathered on some JB weld.  I then left it to cure a minimum of 24 hours.

And here’s the JB Weld-repaired prop tip after sanding, both sides.  Now it’s ready for paint.

On my bird (with the WX warming up) I carefully filled in the thin spots of micro around the perimeter of each wing leading edge landing light, mainly on the side edge of the wing light pocket opening where it intersects the carbon fiber flange, but in a few areas I needed some fill on the the top edge as well.  I then epoxy wiped the filled cleco holes and the immediate surrounding area around the wing LE light openings.

I also re-epoxy wiped the top of the left winglet, where I installed 2x threaded inserts that will serve to secure a video camera bracket.

On the top cowl intersection with the strake, I did some fills on both sides.  On the left (pic 1) I did a minor fill on the cowl front edge whereas on the right side (pic 2) all the fills were on the strake side, both outboard edge and also a good bit on the inboard shoulder bump.

Yes, trying to knock out all the minor micro fill stuff as I press forward to get ALL the micro finishing done on this bird.

Praying for warm weather here in NC!

Again, covering the last couple days in my blog post here, where I focused on machining a modified C4 canopy latch bracket as I start the slow journey to finalize the cowling, wings and strakes finishing and move forward to the final canopy fit, finish and install onto this bird.

After drilling holes and machining the C4 bracket at the top of a piece of 1/2″ x 2.5″ 6061 aluminum stock, I then simply cut the bracket off the top of the aluminum stock using my band saw.

Here’s the bracket, with a fairly rough cut edge, that I just lopped off the aluminum stock (the band saw blade was a little dull for this thick piece of aluminum, but not wanting to change it out, I pressed forward) .

And here is the final modified C4 canopy latch bracket after I cleaned it up.

For those that may have any interest in how I machined this part, I whipped a fairly quick video covering the creation of this modified canopy latch bracket.  Enjoy!

Continuing to slowly press forward!

Once again, this post covers the last couple of days… and yes, it IS cold.  My above ground pool (currently in “pond” mode) is frozen over solid, and has been for a few days.  I can certainly work in the shop and get it heated up to a decent temp, but that incurs the cost of essentially having 2 jet engines blaring away near full time to do it.  Although not overwhelming, the smell of Kerosene and constant jet noise clearly is not the most pleasant working environment.

That all being said, and “whining” aside, I still need to get this bird done, and specifically prepped for primer and paint.

So I finished what is a close-to-final task on the wing leading edge lights by taping up the respective lenses with thin Tyvek tape around the perimeter edges (taking over 20 minutes per lens), and then secured the lenses in place on the leading edge light flanges with duct tape around the center of the lenses.  Here we have the inside of the taped-up right wing lens, with the left wing lens taped into place.

And then the right wing lens taped into place.

After mixing up some West epoxy with 205 (fast) hardener, I then whipped up some micro/West 410 to fill the gaps around the wing light lenses as they were firmly in place on their respective wing light flange.  Here we have the right wing light lens with micro around the perimeter (pic 1) and the left wing light lens as well (pic 2).

After stuffing the left winglet top edge video camera threaded inserts with saran wrap plastic to protect the threads, I also filled some divots, rough spots and inserts’ edges with micro/West 410.

While the micro that I had just applied cured I set about to do some work on the lathe to knock out another three (3) 6061 aluminum threaded inserts for the bottom of wing-winglet video camera hardpoints —which I’ll install when I finish the bottom of the wing-winglet intersection fairing on each side.

Once the micro had cured around the perimeter of each light lens: right (pic 1) and left (pic 2), I pulled the lenses off the wing leading edge light flanges.  Now, note the top center edge of the flange where the tape was securing the light lenses in place.  Clearly no micro was applied here (or on the bottom side of the flange either), so round 2 was to fill in these minor gaps.

For round 2, I taped the lenses in place on the outboard sides of each lens to expose the center gap that did not get micro’d during round one.

I then whipped up a very small amount of micro and applied it to the top and bottom edges of the lens on both the right wing (pic 1) and the left wing (pic 2).

Another task I finally got around to was pulling the top cowling off the bird to expose the front right corner of the cowling interface (aka aft inboard edge of strake) to sand that down a decent bit to check if I could finally get the top cowling secured in place at this corner.  Finally… success!  Here the top cowling is secured on the right front corner and ready to have the micro sanded down even across the cowling, strake and wing at this junction (I plan to do that tomorrow).

After all my sideline shenanigans were complete, I pulled the lens off the right wing leading edge light flange (pic 1) and did the same on the left side (pic 2).  Yes, there’s some minor cleanup I need to do to the micro, and after that I plan on epoxy-wiping the flange perimeter edges where I just added the micro and also the filled cleco holes.

Then after a final sanding of the epoxy wipe (and paint) the light lenses will be ready for install with silicone RTV.  Again, I’m waiting until I get the bird to the airport to dial in the aiming of the lights before I do the final light lens install.

And with that, I called it a night.  More tidbits to follow as I hack my way through this quite chilly weather spell.

As par usual, after our wonderful New Year’s trip to Asheville, NC it’s taking me a bit to get back into the swing of things on the build.

One reason, again, is the rather chilly weather we’re having here.  I missed getting to the primary place I go to for Kerosene, so that delayed me a whole day since my shop is just too cold to do anything other than very focalized tasks involving epoxy, obviously using heat lamps to keep the generalized area warm enough to cure.  Moreover, my normal shop heating just can’t do much without those torpedo heaters fired up since the insulation on my shop’s ceiling is now no longer (due to squirrels).

I did get the threaded inserts on the top of the left winglet cleaned up, and tested them with a couple of screws.  The next step on these will be to fill them with saran wrap to protect the threads as I add a minor bit of micro fill around them, and then re-epoxy wipe the winglet top with a few coats.

I also spent a good hour carefully removing all the wires I ran for the wing leading edge lights operational test (and video), and getting all the wiring put back away and labeled for the wire I actually cut for the lights.

I then removed the lights from the brackets, and removed the brackets from the wing leading edge light pockets.  Instead of painting the brackets this time around, I simply covered them with carbon fiber vinyl and cut out the the screw holes for access.

Instead of fancy hex-drive button head screws to secure the lights to the brackets, I had some stainless steel Phillips-head screws that I decided to paint black.  I did a round of 4 of these screws before Jess and I left for Ashville, but the other 4 were installed on the right wing light.  I then swapped the screws and painted the next 4 as I installed the now black headed screws to secure the right leading edge light to its bracket.  Here’s a couple of shots of that.

My plan is to keep the heaters fired up a good bit during this cold spell and get back to work to knock out the numerous items I have on my list to get all the micro finishing complete and this bird ready for paint.

Pressing forward… again!