My Home Page

The heat and humidity here in the Mid South can be
unbearable in the dead of summer. So in order to park
the car in the garage, which helps to keep it cool, I built
my A-Frame and added six casters from Lowe's. To help
give it a little more stability when moving it, I screwed
two pieces of 1/2" EMT conduit in parallel laterals to
each other. Now I can simply roll the Cozy in and out of
the garage as needed, and Delia stays cooler in the
summer.

Like most other builders, I've checked out other
websites to see how everyone else was doing it. I
took a few ideas from a couple of builders and
incorporated them into mine. The result is quite
functional, and I'm very pleased with how easy it
is to maneuver by myself.

This is what happens to a project when it is
neglected over a period of three years. This project
was stored in a barn in Stugis, South Dakota. As you
can see from this picture, there is some sort of stain
or stains on the bottom of the fuselage. I'll deal with
it.

Here again, is the result of neglect. Don't invest your
time and money just to let this happen! Since this
project was started in the late 90's, there have been
numerous revisions to the plans. I see this as an
opportunity to bring this project back to life and up to
par with current plans. All this foam is going to be
replaced.

You can see the rotisserie portion of my A-Frame. It
relies on a piece of 3/8" all thread with washers and
nuts. I did what one builder did, I used a 2x4 across
the top of the lower firewall utilizing the LWY or Z
and the, the,...you know, those wood thingy's back
there to hold it all together. Man! some of these
things get confusing. I later remembered that the
other builder I'm thinking of is Joe Hull. He's got alot
of information on

THE BUILD CONTINUES!!!!!! May 1, 2007

The first thing I did was to remove and replace
the forward portion of the NACA scoop. Two
reasons: 1. There was just too much damage to
that part of the scoop, and 2. I had seen on
another builders website where he had extended
that portion of the scoop the eliminate the dip in
the underside of the fusalage just behind the
speed brake that the older plans method caused.
The picture to the right is the new foam microed
and weighted down with bricks that I've kept
laying around the backyard. "You see dear? I
knew these things would come in handy if I just
hung on to them long enough"!

In this picture you can see what appears to be
Pour Foam oozing at the exterior of the main
gear opening. I read on another builders
website about using "Great Stuff" expanding
foam for some of those little places that can be
filled with this stuff....(note to self, and others
that think this is a good and inexpensive way to
do these little fills...DON'T DO IT!!!) This stuff is
great for insulating drafty old windows and
filling in gaps in the old homestead, but it stinks
to high heaven on airplanes. It doesn't sand
without balling up and causing horrible gaps in
softer foams that may be adjacent to it. I
guess we all learn our lessons the hard way.
Never again!

Here you can see the new and improved forward
section of the NACA scoop. The white blotches
just behind the new section of foam is a bit of
"Great Stuff" tha i have since removed, and is
now ready for glassing.

Glassing the inside of the NACA scoop was a
piece of cake. I layed up the 2 plies of Bid on a
piece of heavy duty Reynolds Wrap per "The
Cozy Girrrls". It really works great! Here is the
scoop all glassed per plans. The dreaded
"Joggle" wasn't all that difficult with the Bid in
this area of the fuselage, but I'm sure it will be
more af a challenge with the Unidirection glass
in the next step.

As I said earlier in this section, the Nav
antenna was showing signs of extreme
decay. I removed the old copper tape
and RG-58 cable, and replaced with new
RG-58 and copper tape from RST. For
some reason, RG-58 cable is not very
common in this area of the country. The
only place I found it in Memphis was
Bluff City Electronics. Here in this
picture you can see that I have also
added two additional antenna's. You can
never have too many antenna's.

I decided not to install the hard point as called
for in the plans for the step. I'll be installing a
retractable step later. I'm planning on building
extended stakes per "The Cozy Girls" and the
plans step appears to be too far back to be of
any use. The extended strakes have a certain
"Kool Factor" that I really like.

I've used dry micro to fill in some of those
major ugly gaps and to smooth out the
contours of the fuselage prior to glassing.
Remember, I'm in the process of repairing
three years of neglect and bring this wonderful
design up to par. It's a chore, but well worth
the effort.

Here's the new and improved speed brake. I
used "Office Depot" brand double sided foam
tape instead of multiple plies of duct tape to
build up the areas around the landing brake.
It is just the the right thickness for the 1/16"
depression that needs to be built up for the
glass overlap. Because of the wax paper type
backing, it should also have a good release
once the brake is cut loose in Chapter 9.
After posing a question on the Canard Forum
about the possibility of slurry seeping down at
the front of the landing brake, I was able put
duct tape between the forward portion of the
landing brake and the fuselage. I'll find out
soon if this works. I'll take Wayne Hicks
advice and just be very careful when it
comes to spreading the slurry and also the
epoxy. BTW, the holes in the foam are a
result of a child and a pencil. Found the
pencil.....child still missing...go figure!

The plans are a little confusing when it
comes to doing the exterior layups. It says
to overlap the bottom ply with the side ply
at the corners and they should overlap by
1". And that the layers should be staggered
by 1". Well it's actually a little more wordy
than that. I've seen people do the layups in
many different ways...I guess it's what they
are comfortable with. I did what my "On-line
Hero", Wayne Hicks did. I used duct tape
and paper to mark the line that I wanted to
end my bottom layup at, and to keep as
much slurry and epoxy off the sides of the
fuselage as I could. The picture to the right
is the finished bottom layup. Peel ply has
already been removed and edges trimmed.

One more view. Notice that I've
taken a green fine point Sharpie and
marked out the engine mount hard
points. After all the reinforcement
layups, it was getting a little hard to
see.

My Second Edition plans don't say
anything about this step. Nat Puffer put
this step out in a news letter. You are
to remove the foam at the upper
longeron as well as the LXY (or
LZY...whatever...) wood pieces. and
taper the adjacent foam areas for a
glass to wood bond when it's time to
attach the Center Spar. This step
almost got left out, but good old Wayne
Hicks website has a big disclaimer right
there on the Home Page. Thanks
Wayne...you saved me again!

Contouring the sides was a piece of
cake. I worried alot about this step
prior to doing it. I used a Stanley
Surform rasp and took my time. I made
a sanding template for the CC section
out of blue foam and sand paper. I used
adhesive spray to keep it stuck to the
foam. I had to spray and re-attach the
paper several times, but the job was
done in short order and turned out very
nice.

Under this pile of bricks is a brand new
F-28 bulkhead curing. If you check
back in the Chapter 4 section of this
website, you'll see that my F-28
bulkhead was not positioned correctly.
The old bulkhead could not be re-used
because when moving it back by just
slightly over 1/4", it becomes way too
short to use. Therefore, another pile of
bricks doing the job they were created
to do...weigh down layups.

Just finished glassing the left side
of the fuselage. Total time involved
was about seven hours. That
included all the preparation time,
such as carving out the area for
the sight fuel guages and duct
taping the paper to the bottom of
the fuselage so that there wouldn't
be a mess to clean up if a had an
accidental epoxy spill.
The picture to the right is the left
side glassed and still in peel ply,
waiting for cure and trim.The right
side is the identical proceedure, so
there won't be any pictures of it
unless something truly amazing
happens that needs to be
documented.

It's been a long summer with a lot
of ups and downs. Delia's Mother
was hospitalized for the better
part of 3 months. At the first of
June, while we were enjoying
Disney World, she came down with
an extreme case of the shingles.
The doctors put her in the hospital
for pain control. While there, her
health began to deteriorate at an
alarmingly fast rate. By the time
the doctors discovered that she
had artery blockage in two of her
arteries, she was too weak for
surgery. With a ton of prayers,
and God's wonderful blessings, she
is now making a full recovery at
the time of this writing.
I completed chapter 7 on
September 23, 2007. I began
working on parts for Chapter 8
during this time as well.
The picture to the right is the
"Obligatory" first flight photo with
the whole family on board!