Flipped the Canard and Wondering about Wheel Pants

After a bit of dressing up the previous layup, we flipped the canard today.  Things are looking good.

There is one fly in the ointment, how to strengthen the canard?  There are several issues I am addressing, but the bottom line is the canard isn't quite strong enough for the landing loads I seem to put on it.  I'm not going to hash it all out here, but I will show you what I came up with.

Here, I have lots of lumber bondoed to the canard. This will hold it in place.

 We have broken it loose from the templates and set it on the floor.  If you click on the photo, you can see all the foam and micro that dripped out.

 After a couple of hours of sanding, it is starting to look pretty good.  Maybe I can get the lay-up done next weekend.

 I have been trying to decide what to do about the wheel pants.  Several years ago I re-vamped them, starting with a simple core then building them up for the desired aerodynamic shape I was looking for. I am leaning toward doing the same thing. I imagine I would cut off everything but the core, stick them on the new canard, just like last time, then build it all up again.  This would save me from having to do all the fitting associated with the wheel and brake installation.

Canard Lay-up

Thanks to some major help from my friends, we did the bottom canard layup last Saturday.  Even though it was the first for these guys, I am extremely pleased with the result.  We started mixing epoxy at 9:30 a.m., then finished about 2:30 in the afternoon.

Here is the canard, ready for glass.

First batch of epoxy/microballoons goes on.

Lots of  squeegees flopping around.  Be sure and fill all those air holes guys.

Not that the micro is down on the foam, Clarke applies pure epoxy to the spar.

Fast-finger Larry wettin' everything out!

The layup gets a ply of UNI directional glass at a +45 degree angle, then another at a -45 degree angle.  Finally, a spanwise layer is applied. That is what you see here.

 

 Clarke is wetting out the glass over the spar.  We are just about done and getting ready for the peel ply.

The glass layup is complete.

After all the glass is down, we apply a layer of dacron type fabric to everything.  This flattens everything out and lessens future sanding when we have to prepare for joining more components and for the filler. Pat had a bunch of old Ceconite that he inherited from his father, and he donated it as peel ply.

I let it set for a couple of days to cure up and let everything harden.  Pat came out and we removed a bit of the peel ply.  Looks good!

As I said, I am really pleased with the  results.  Everything looks nice and straight.  I guess I must have remembered some tricks from when I last did this 30+ years ago.  Just seems like yesterday.

Bonding the Cores to the Spar.

Pat helped me hot wire the cores and now it's time to glue them to the spar. The trick is to maintain perfect alignment until the epoxy cures.

After sitting through an exhausting training course, Bill Hunter became the the chief epoxy mixer.

Applying the mixture of epoxy and microballoons to the backside of the foam core.

Applying the fiberglass "rib" between the first two cores on each side.

Setting the first core into place,  Good thing Bill is a CrossFitter.

We used a hot glue gun,  nails and filament tape to hold everything in place.

Some pour in foam is used to fill the gap between the center cores.

Sam & Bill taping things up.

All the cores have been joined and held together with filament tape.

The next day I removed all the tape, nails, and excess foam.  After an hour of sanding, things are looking pretty good.  I also trimmed the nose of the center section, where it will butt up to the firewall.

I have so much work remaining on this project...  Thanks to my buddies for helping to move things along.

Canard Spars Are Now Joined

This took longer than I expected, so what else is new?  All other prep aside, it was about 4-1/2 hours from the first cup of epoxy mixed.  I had floxed the spars together the previous day but wound up with an exotherm event. It actually pushed the spars apart a bit.  I decided that ripping it apart would have no real benefit, so I routed the gap with my Dremel and filled it with flox.

First item was to give the joint three wraps with bidirectional glass, as you can see in the drawing in my previous post. The top caps were fairly straight forward.  The bottom caps were a different matter, since there was so little clearance between the spars and the table.  I wound up laying up every five pieces on a piece of saran wrap, then transferring to the workpiece. I couldn't provide any photos of this process, since my hands were full of epoxy.

 I think it went pretty well and I got all the underside caps attached without any air bubbles. 

I finished the whole thing up by wrapping it with peel ply and aiming a couple of lamps at it to keep it warm.

I'll let it cure a couple of days, then on to fitting the foam cores.

My thanks to Pat McGuire for coming out and mixing epoxy.

Spar prep

Getting ready to splice the spars.  They are matching up pretty well.  Today I cut the 55 coupons for the layups.

Trial fit foam cores.

Before I join the carbon fiber spars, I thought it prudent to trial fit the foam cores to see if everything was fine.  Overall, not too bad, but just loosey goosey for now.

Hot Wiring

Today we made a significant accomplishment, we got most of the hot wiring done.  It was no small task dusting off those old cobwebs and trying to remember how it was all done.  I also relived the frustration of the poorly written and illustrated plans.  

Anywhoo, we got er done.

The baby steps.

My rebuild had to take a pause while I fulfilled a promise I made to Sandy a year and a half ago.  I installed the new patio and retaining wall.  That was a project in itself, and you can see the detail here, if you are interested at all. In the meantime, Bob already had the engine, so at least something was getting done on the plane.

Now, back to the plane.

The AvTech department at SIU was kind enough to donate some heated space, so I will be able to work all winter.  Pretty neat.  I started by building the canard jigging table, and today I was able to start fitting the carbon fiber spars.  Next on the list is to get some hot wiring done and cut out the foam cores.

It has been 30+ years since I made the first canard, so even though I understand the big picture, quite a few of the details on how to do it are a bit hazy.  More than a few cobwebs need to be cleared out of the old brain.

The Engine

My friend down in Texas, Bob Malechek agreed to inspect my engine.  Bob is a long time hot rodder from way back and he knows performance engines.

Even though the prop strike was "minor" it warranted tearing the engine down.  Generally, it looked pretty good, most noteworthy, the crankshaft was not bent! Bob did find some issues with the crankcase, and sent it to Divco for repairs.

As of today, most of the components are back in Texas and Bob will start putting it all together.

Good progress.