Chapter 10 – Canard Construction

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Worked Ch 10 and 11 together. Had to play around with hot wire equipment. Had read thicker gauge wire holds tension and cuts better, so bought .049” gauge steel wire from AC Spruce. The hotwire transformer kit from AC Spruce (2Amp) promptly fried. I bought a 4-amp transformer from Fry’s, and should have seen the premonition – it also fried. Did some research and realized I needed ~6-7 Amps to heat the .049”wire to foam cutting temperature. Bought a 10-Amp transformer from an internet electronics supply company, re-read about the physics and danger of 12V, 10A current, and satisfied, put the wire cutter together and it worked fine.

Also installed #1 NAV and Glideslope antennas in Canard. Routed coax just inside the elevator carve-out, and BNC connectors on the top.

10A, 12V transformer with rheostat switch in control box..

Outside of box

Hotwire cutter – 2x4s, ½” steel tube and pipe clamps

.	Templates all cut (masonite). Sanded to ½ of printed lines.

Lift tabs (from Brock, before they closed). Sounds like alodine is a good idea – will treat before installation

Canard core ready to cut.

Cutting troughs

Lift tab inserts in place, before shear web layup. Note the 2 centerline markings. The blue is the template centerline. The red is the ‘true’ centerline for the core to position the lift tabs.

Shear web laid up. Another small nit…I didn’t angle the support nails horizontally and alternately per instructions, so there was a bit of horizontal give. I re-checked alignment during cure – ok.

.	Elevator Jigs – I cut 5 at a time from my band-saw, then clamped all 10 together and belt-sanded square sides to be true. Here’s the laser level aligning the tips.

.Assembled Canard, ready for spar cap layup

NAV and Glideslop antennas.

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