Next job is to fabricate the elevators and mount them to the canard. Each elevator consists of two foam cores joined with micro. A one inch diameter aluminium tube is bonded into the core. This block of orange Styrofoam seems to have lots of internal stresses, because after we hot wired it, it wanted to curve. I had such a hard time getting the tube through the foam, I wound up adding another lengthwise cut so I would not have to insert the tube into one end.
I also think the hot wire tension may not be high enough, but I am afraid that if I make it any tighter I will bust my hot wire saw. I wound up discarding the first set of elevator cores we made, cause I didn't like them.
Pat just wandered in the garage when I was starting on the first core and he volunteered to mix epoxy and micro.
I don't remember having trouble with this thirty years ago, when I did this the first time, but be had a heck of a time. I won't bore you with all the details, but we wound up with a piece that was way too heavy and I fear the dimensions may not be right.
I just ordered some super-duper superalloy ultimate hot wire which has a much smaller diameter than the stuff I was using. I have just enough foam left to try another set. If they still come out crapola, I'm going to bite the bullet and order a set of cores cut on a CNC controlled hotwire machine.
