I made my canard cover a bit ahead of sequence because I wanted to carve the foam with the nose cover and canopy deck concurrently such that it has a continuous contour. (Refer to Chapter 18 - Section 11).
Micro Canard CoverWhen it was time to work on the canard cover, I microed the canard cover foam onto the canard per plan. I first filled all the voids, cracks, holes and the under side with micro and laid it in place. I have to weigh it down to assure maximum contact. Once cured, I double-checked again to make sure the shape of the foam is symmetrical. |
Building Support Foam for the Canard Over HangInitially, I dug out the depression at the aft end of the nose cover to accommodate the nose door per plan (.2" deep depression). Later, I changed my mind from the plans method and decided the mount the nose door with 4 screws instead of a lip and 2 screws. The deep depression was not necessary and needs to be filled back up. I tried several approaches with limited success. Finally I just 5-min. epoxied a strip of foam onto the depression and sanded it flush with the canard cover.
After micro was applied to the canard cover surface, I pre-wet 2 BID tapes (one at a time, with plastic wrap on one side) and laid them in place carefully. Then I trimmed the BID to size, removed the plastic wrap and peel-plied. |
Glassing the Forward and Aft Face FoamI glassed both the forward and the aft face foam at the same time because they are pretty straight forward. First, I turned the canard over to its back. I sanded down a thin depression over the forward face to accommodate the new 2 plies BID. Then I smoothed out the rest of the foam surfaces. I filled all holes with dry micro and then the rest of the foam surfaces with wet micro. I wet out 2 layers of BID first, then glassed and peel-plied the forward face per Plan. It was not too difficult, just need to be a bit careful. |
As for the aft face, I dug a small trench along the entire edge (top, bottom and around the tabs, in preparation for the glass-to-glass bond. Then I applied dry flox into the trenches. After I pre-wet the 2 BID layers, I wet out the dry flox with pure epoxy and repeated the same glassing process to the aft end. |
Once cured, I removed all peel-plies and sanded down the edges smoothly. Here's a picture of the aft end with glass-to-glass bond along the entire edge - it turned out nice...
Note the nut plates for the canard alignment pins are enclosed for good... |
Here a picture of the completed canard cover... I need to smooth out the cover sides some more down the road. |