Apr 22, 2024     Landing Gear Bow- Outside Tabs - (30 hours)       Category: Landing Gear

Took advantage of time off from work and have spent many hours at the hanger. Have been working on the build-up on the tabs for the landing gear bow. Hours spent so far are at around 27 this includes shooting in the landing gear bow twice, cutting cloth, doing lay-ups and trimming the outboard tabs. I was looking at photo's tonight and noticed that one of the tabs is grossly out of alinement with the other I think it's the aft tab on the Starboard side.
After the lay-up of the outboard tabs something didn't “look right” I was just about ready to cut the tabs off and re-do them but before I did I posted to The Canard Zone forums asking for some advice. Got a couple of responses back generally the answers were” sure you can cut them off", but one person said .. Why ? (Marc Z) explained to me some of the things in the plans and one big measurement was the LNG tubes shouldn't stick out more than 0.0625 inches …….. mine stick out approximately 0.50 inches. Reshot the gear and discovered that my reference lines on the fuselage were ALL wrong. So now in the process of re- aligning everything prior to the inside tab lay-up.
Hours to date now around 30

  Apr 22, 2024     Cowling score       Category: Engine

Attended Sun-N-Fun 2024 and found a cowling for my airplane ! the price was right but wouldn't fit into my car .... a HUGE shout out to Chapter 724 president Dwayne Waters for finding room in the back of his truck and bring it back to KCOI.
thanks again Dwayne !!!

  Mar 24, 2024     Initial Shooting -in of the landing gear - (4 hours)       Category: Landing Gear

This past weekend I completed the finish sanding the landing gear bow and performed the initial shoot in of the landing gear to fuselage. a lot of time was spend leveling the work bench to the "floor" then the fuselage to the work bench. while I didn't have enough time to secure the gear bow to the fuselage I made lots of temporary marks so that when the time is available it should take too long to set it back up again.

  Mar 17, 2024     Main Gear Bow build-up - (8.0 hours)       Category: Landing Gear

Completed to cure the main landing gear bow build-up with 8 additional layer of glass (per plans) The wraps are added at 30 degree to the "leading edge" in a criss-cross pattern ( first is 30 positive the next is 30 degree negative and so forth) Total time so far is about 8 hours spread over three weekends. Next up is Clean up of this lay-up and then on to fab of mounting tabs.

  Feb 18, 2024     Landing Brake finish - (8 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Despite that four letter word getting in the way (work) I have come to the "finish line" on the landing brake build. I chose to go with the an electric actuator. I debated for some time on the electric vs manual and decided that I would go with the electric set up since so many people recommend it as the way to go.
I made a couple of video's to show the actuator in action (not sure if the log has all the storage for videos.... ) In the view you can still see the build frame on the actual brake itself ... after I made these videos the first thing i did was to take that all off and smooth out the surface.
I still need to detail out the inside attach point but all in all complete and on to the next chapter. Landing gear !

  Jan 01, 2024     Landing Brake Re-do - (5.0 hours)       Category: Fuselage

This is an update on progress of the second attempt at building the landing brake (or speed brake if you prefer)
Lots of sanding and adjustments to get the hinge halves to align but finally succeeded. The gaps around the brake and the fuselage are not to my liking ( i.e. too large) but I am going to fix that before i claim success and move on to the next chapter. I will leave the wooden hanging fixture attached to the brake until i'm satisfied with the fit into the fuselage cavity.

  Oct 15, 2023     Belly Board .. Re-do - (3 hours)       Category: Fuselage

After looking at the finished “bellyboard I decided that the hinge location was not correct as the hinge would not be fully supported by the layers of glass and epoxy … only one thing to …. Start over !!!
I payed a little bit more attention to all of my measurements and so far am pleased I made the right choice to remake the part rather than try to make the first one fit

  Sep 05, 2023     Belly Board Pt 2       Category: Fuselage

3/5 Sept 2023
Finished glassing in the ‘depression” for the belly board along with LB23. Next up was shaping up the foam to be the basis for the “board” itself. In the pics you'll notice some red stuff on the borders of the raw foam prior to glassing …….. ‘Playdoe” …. Just something to keep the epoxy from dipping down into the cracks between the board foam and the glassed depression. Finally 3 layers of BID per plans squeegeed out and peal-plied

  Aug 31, 2023     "Belly Board" hinge - (4 hours)       Category: Fuselage

26 / 27 Aug 2023
Spending lots of time on the hinge attach point of the “belly board” .. I want to set in correctly so that there is minimal protrusion above the skin line of the fuselage .. less drag. I ultimately chose to use nut plates riveted to a piece of 0.090 6061 aluminum 1.0 wide X 8.0 in long rather the blocks which have to be drilled and tapped after being covered by three layers of BID. The total weight increase was 7 grams and with the nut please I have a locking feature for the attach hardware. The cons are spending extra time carving out a area behind installed location of LB23 for the nut plate assembly to sit flush.

oh and contrary to what you've been told about using 100 % slow harder with your epoxy .... yes you can still get exotherm !

  Aug 16, 2023     Cover and Start of landing brake - (30 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Took time off from work for a week and spent most of the time covering the fuselage and making the depression in belly for the landing brake.
I still need to clean up the pocket for LB22 and LB23 ( parts which transfer the loads of the landing brake to the fuselage)
Covering took the better part of two days. One thing I really noticed was that even though I was using a 50 / 50 mix of slow and fast hardener ( MGS 285) I was getting exotherm like crazy in the mixing cups. Heat index was in the 100's most days and I could tell it was time to mix another batch of resin when the cups starting getting warm ... thought about trying a 75% slow to 25% fast hardener ratio and it seemed to help a little but was running out of slow hardener very quickly so I had to switch back to the 50 / 50 ratio.
To maintain a prepared surface between the two days I peel plyed the entire surface of the fuselage.between the two days once ply ply was removed a quick / light sand with 80 grit sand paper and dry cloth cleaning i was ready to go. The pictures don't do the finished layups justice. With respect the epoxy use by between the "hard shell" approach on the fuselage before covering and squeegeeing the daylight out of the layups I used slightly less epoxy than the plans indicated that I would .. plans called for 3/4 of a gallon I used a tad over 1/2

Sharp eyes may notice that for covering I was still using saw horses with a home made 'rotisserie" devise and that for the landing brake depression work I was on a wooden work bench ... in between days ( covering and milling out the depression) I built a proper work bench with castor wheels that allow me to pick the bench up and roll it around then set it back down where I want ... got the tip from EAA magazine for the castors ... from Amazon 40$ I think.... they work great!

currently working on the LB22 & LB23 attach point hardware which need to be fabbed and installed prior to building the actual landing brake