I cleaned up some excess varnish from the canard assembly tonight and then moved it upstairs with the other airplane parts. I decided to try sanding the scarf joints for the canard leading edge ply and sanded 4 of the 6 pieces tonight. I think that I will go back to my previous method for scarfing the plywood after I finish up the next 2 pieces; I think that the finished product is better with routed joints.
Number of hours: 0.8
Total hours: 234.9
I didn't take any pictures from the last few work sessions as I have only been varnishing the same parts. I am now done with the varnish so I will move on to scarfing the leading edge plywood over the next week.
Number of hours: 0.6
Total hours: 234.1
When I got home tonight the garage door was already open. Not a big deal, I figured my wife had her hands full with the kids when she got home. A little later we loaded everyone into the car and started pulling out of the driveway when the garage door bounced and opened again. I spent the next half hour trying to get the stupid thing to work to no avail so I called the installer back out to fix it. This is their 3rd trip back out and I think that they are getting tired of me. After all that adventure I went downstairs and started planing the leading edge stringer. I put another coat of varnish on the forward face of the canard spar and as I was applying the varnish I noticed that one of the nose ribs had slid while the glue was curing. I decided to wait for the varnish to dry before attempting my repair. After dinner and a movie with my wife I removed the offending rib and glued it back into place.
Number of hours: 0.9
Total hours: 233.5
I started tonight by cleaning the excess cured epoxy off of the scarf joint in the leading edge stringer. Once it was cleaned up I mixed a batch of slurry, epoxy and micro balloons, and I glued the stringer in place.
Number of hours: 0.3
Total hours: 232.6
I varnished the canard spar between the nose ribs tonight after I cut and glued the scarf joint for the nose rib stringer. My varnish cover must not have been sealed, so the little bit of varnish that I had left was cured. So off to Wal-Mart's aviation department I went.
I made an intermediate stop at Jane's Field (KANE) in Blaine to sign the paperwork on N43044. I am officially an airplane owner!
Once at Walmart I found the last can of Minwax Helmsman Spar Varnish, Clear Satin. I was unable to find any more 1" foam brushes in their paint department. As I headed over to get my son a snack, he was my patient partner in the night's nonsense, I lamented the inevitable trip to Home Depot. I decided to check the craft department to see if there was an alternative solution there. Boy was that a good idea! Instead of paying $0.63 per brush, they sell a 4 pack for $0.97, even better than that is the 25 pack for $4.98. That's only $0.20 each.
Number of hours: 0.5
Total hours: 232.3
Now I fought the urge to title this post with a condom joke so I deserve credit for that. I marked and cut the notches in the nose ribs tonight that will hold the leading edge stringer. As I removed the stringer from its storage location, it broke into 3 pieces; so I will be gluing it back together over the next couple of days. I figured that my bad luck was out of the way so I mixed some epoxy with some micro balloons and glued the nose ribs to the spar.
Number of hours: 1.2
Total hours: 231.8
Woohoo, my Blogger app is working again! I learned something this weekend, never use packing tape on plywood. I have spent about 3 hours cleaning off the residue. After that I drilled the mounting holes in the spar for the forward hinge fittings and I cut the spar tips at an angle. I finished the weekend by tracing the locations for the foam ribs and playing around placing them in their approximate locations.
Number of hours: 3.2
Total hours: 230.6
