Posts by Dave Berenholtz

Dave Berenholtz
1304 posts
http://www.alongwayroundtheworld.com

Brake Line in the Nose

Date:  09-24-2021
Number of Hours:  6
Manual Reference:  13

Time to finally get the nose brake line sorted out.

After a lot of thought I went for a clickbond to hold the 1/8″ line with a hose clamp.

You can see the hose clamp in place at the right of the pic. Next up was to secure the brake line so I wouldn’t kick it every time I got in the plane. I went for flox, a two ply BID tape and as you can see sticks to hold it in place while it cured.

After a clean up I painted the newly secured brake line to match the interior. Almost no one will see this but I feel good about it.

The Swagelok lines are easy to install but I was very careful anyway. Here you can see I have a connected brake system up front.

Brake Lines at the Wheel

Date:  09-20-2021
Number of Hours:  3
Manual Reference:  9

As I get closer to the finish line little jobs need sorting out. I though I had this one nailed.

These are very expensive Swagelok fitting for my 1/8″ stainless steel brake lines. We need a little flexibility at both ends.

Someone didn’t leave enough brake line. I wonder who that was?

I can make it fit but the hose is 20mm too short really. I’ve order new ones. It will be three weeks. <sigh>

I have double wrapped my special ceramic heat reflectors here.

The heat wrap is also behind a heat shield. No melting down of the gear legs after heavy braking for me!

The blue line is the piss tube end. I have one on each main wheel. When the new brake hoses show up I’ll wrap that AND this piss tube outlet in heat protection. I know I will get a dribble that might need a clean as the exit is in the pant area. BUT, who needs more drag?

Some Post Paint Refitting, Pant and Nose Wheel Sorting

Date:  09-14-2021
Number of Hours:  20
Manual Reference:  no ref

After Paint I found that things didn’t really fit anymore and it was time to sort out some nose wheel issues too.

After some work the hell hole hatch fitted again.

This RAM air scoop is another experimental modification that I hope pays off.

A lot of careful sanding got the paint boarders back in the ball park.

The pants look good if you photograph from the best angles. These took quite a bit of careful sanding to make them fit again too.

They do look good.

A reasonable fit and the lines are nice.

Another little job was to get the static vents placed.

Here’s one side installed. They are just press fitted for now. It will get sorted out when we plumb everything and then test fly!

Quite some sanding and fit work was needed to get the nose gear happy to retract with its Garolite G10 nose shield, now painted, in place.

This little spring loaded cover needed a fiddle as well.

I have a nose bumper and thanks again to ‘Marco’ who made it for me. I can’t say who Marco is as he doesn’t want the world to be asking him to make them more nose bumpers. So don’t ask me OK? He does great work.

Quite a bit more work went into this nose gear. It had issues. Lateral play side to side. I had to get the AN5 bolt out holding the NG6A and it was a nightmare. I ended up making a special tool just for that and spent more than a full day trying to stay …cool.

The side to side problem was because the mushroom spacers that came with the NG6 I had purchased were a little too long. There were also a sloppy fit for the AN5 bolt. I got a precision bolt and then had new spacers machined up and those a fraction less in length. Long story short… its rock solid now.

This part seems OK and has a mod I must have documented somewhere in this blog!

The next problem was the side to side play at the wheel. WTF?? I had purchased mushroom spacers for this too that matched my wheel. NOT! These got a tickle on a serious lathe and after adding a the AN960L washer my nose wheel was also rock solid.

Elevator Balance

Date:  09-11-2021
Number of Hours:  2
Manual Reference:  10

The elevators must be balanced to prevent flutter below VNE and then some. Of course where VNE is will come down to flight testing. The plans have it at 190knots. I’m going to need it higher so I’d better get my ducks in a row before testing.

I had previously build a couple of knife edges for this balance test. There are instructions from Mike Melvill on balancing the elevators for the Roncz canard which is a little different from the GU canard in the plans.

You can see with the pin and hardware installed its all good.

Here’s how it goes. Interestingly the other side was much more positive so its good to see this one still in balance. In short we want the trailing edge up and the leading edge down. It end s up that way meaning the weight is forward of the elevator pivot point.

This is unedited but maybe I should have more videos on this site to reduce your boredom?

 

Aileron Final Balance and Weights

Date:  09-10-2021
Number of Hours:  11
Manual Reference:  19-9

Balancing the Ailerons (and elevators) is one of the critical things to ensure the greatest possible air speed (TAS) before I encounter flutter. It is one of the factors that will determine my VNE.

Here’s what the plans say in Chapter 19. Riding on the wisdom of others instead of a solid steel rod. I opted for a hollow steel tube.

This steel tube you can see in my first weigh above is not yet filled with anything. Naturally we have the aileron hanging trailing edge low.

Yes thats lead of the exact diameter to stick into the tube. Instead of a hit a miss method I can control exactly the balance I want.

I left it a little long so I could get the insert in and out as needed. In the end I filled the whole tube with lead.

You can see that I’m pretty much in tolerance here.

I’ve just used some thin aviation lock wire and an overhead shelf which worked a treat to hang the aileron.

Its a bit hard to photograph, I added a bit of string to help. On the job a small steel ruler can be held up instead.

The idea is that the top of the spirit level is parallel to the bit of string. I have it almost perfectly balanced for both ailerons. The plans give a bit of a margin and I think thats because if you just glass in a weight per plans its a bit hit and miss. If you miss by too much you get to scrap the aileron and try again. With this tube method I really can go for accuracy.

Once I was happy with the weights I needed to secure the rods in the tube. I just pulled out an end several inches and used epoxy. While it was still wet I pulled the other end out and did the same. I little back and forth to get the glue in and that was it.  The lead is so soft I could cut the ends off with a steel backed razor blade to tidy up.

For those who care, here are my final weights. I think I built these as light as was reasonably possible and I’m happy with the results.
After all, no one builds as light as Mike Melvill!

Aileron Weights
As reference Mike Melvill’s aileron weight before paint was 5lbs 2oz
Mike’s plane was one of the fastest constructed and lightest ever built.

Right        3lbs 12oz (1.685kg)  Painted 3lbs 15ozs (1.757kg) 2.5oz of paint
Final Weight after adding lead to the trailing edge tube  5lbs 13oz (2.625kg)

Left          3lbs 13.5ozs (1.745kg)  Painted 4lbs 4oz (1.83kg) 2.9oz of paint
Final Weight after adding lead to the trailing edge tube  5lbs 11ozs (2.574kg)

 

 

Hinge Upgrade and How to Do It

Date:  09-07-2021
Number of Hours:  15
Manual Reference:  no ref

The hinges for the rudders, ailerons and landing brake can be improved. There is a system where Teflon is introduced into the hinge with a replaced smaller metal core. This Teflon lining greatly reduces wear and stops the flying surface become loose at this point over time from the metal to metal vibrations.

Another advantage is they will not need periodic lubrication. A trail of oil from the hinge point can be seen on a lot of aircraft including my own flying Long-EZ, VH-JZE. I’ve always hated that.

A heads up is in the Canard Pusher 39 page 7 as a ‘Builder hint’. To be fair, this is not new information from canard people, it is well known and used in some GA airplanes.

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Two issues, its hard to know what sizes and materials to use and it is hard to do this simple mod. You have to stuff a 0.1″ soft liner into a hinge while adding a metal core AND the whole thing needs to be tight.

All the right sized materials can be bought from James Russell in the form of a kit for your airplane.  Here’s his email:- fshort@flash.net

That’s what I did. The kit comes with instructions and install suggestions. James is very helpful if thats what you need. Here’s one of the methods, with pictures, that worked for me.

Here’s a rudder hinge with the original pin. My plane has just been painted and the original unpainted perfect fit aluminium hinges now need quite a clean up. Did you spot my mistake? A smarter person would have put the original hinge rod material in place before painting. You’d need extra rod if the hinges were painted apart which is the way to do it.  This way no paint could get in that would later need removing. Maybe in my next life…

I started with small drill bits to clean out the hinges.

Then I moved to a larger pin to get more paint out.

A final tool was a piece of original hinge pin. I made some notches in one end with cutters. This made an excellent final reaming tool to ensure the holes were clean. You want this right or you will never get the teflon liner tube inserted without drama.

Lots of reaming and then a bit of work with sand paper and even a razor blade to clean off any paint so the hinge halves go back together.

Next I prepared the Teflon tube. You need a piece twice as long as the hinge plus an inch or so.

I carefully sliced off 1/3 to 1/2 of the tube just over the length of the hinge. If you slice too much it will break later. If you slice too little it will not fit easily.

Wooooh! Hold it. It is time to clean with something like Isopropyl alcohol, we need clean, rinsed out hinges to prevent wear from any dirt or grit.

Now you need to feed the cut part of the tube into the assembled hinge. As you do this wiggle the hinge up and down. That’s to help alignment, particularly at the joins. If the tube seems to get stuck, relax and pull it out again. Chances are there is a bit of tube that is not sliced through and is still a bit thick. I found a few places easily, used the blade and had another try. The tube, with wiggling should feed through pretty easily.

Be careful not to force it and kink the tubing. Have a sip on your drink and try again.

Once the tube is all the way through it should look like the above. A bit of the cut area showing, at both ends of course. I put a mark on the tube so I knew when I was almost through.

Now insert your new thinner hinge pin into the good whole tube. I straightened mine out a fair bit. However I think leaving a bit of a curve helps the pin stay put in the hinge. In the picture above the lower piece has too much curve and the one in the plastic worked for me.

Now you have to get the whole show from one end pulled through. Don’t be tempted to push on the hinge, it only makes the tubing bunch up. It needs to be pulled through. Some sort of Vaseline or aviation equivalent may help a little. You need to pull gently and firmly at the same time.

Wow. Don’t forget to wiggle the hinge a bit as you pull through. If the lining breaks at the pliers you probably cut too much off the diameter during your slicing preparation. Oh well, get some more tube, you have extra right? and try again. Out of six hinges I only broke one. You do need to go slowly.

My clean up tool for the overhanging edges was the dremel wheel. Don’t forget you need some sort of hinge retaining system as your ‘safety’.

Here’s this hinge done. It is disappointing that it looks like any other hinge, but we know it’s special.

Here it is on one of the rudders. You can see the hinge pin is retained by design of the cutout in this case. Your application might need something else.

I really like this mod. It is proactive maintenance reduction and gets you a very smooth working flying surface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nose Wheel Box Insulation

Date:  08-05-2021
Number of Hours:  10
Manual Reference:  13

This is something I should have done years ago. It has since come to my attention that some of the canard gurus say that lots of cold gets in from the nose wheel box which is right between my legs. Everywhere else in the cockpit, except the windows and canopy has a good half inch or more insulating foam in the structure. The nose box has a couple of plies of glass and thats it!

Given I have just done the heat shields in the wing roots I had plenty of this hi-tech ceramic insulation left over. The distributor said it was also good for cold insulation, which makes sense.

A long time was spent on how to do this and what material. This Zircoflex II is only .5mm thick with a sticky 3M backing. I did sand off the paint I had previously put on. Nothing is final!

It came out quite neatly.

I wanted thin material because every time I get in the plane there would be the potential of snagging a corner with my feet. I mixed a little micro and  transitioned the edges. Of course peel ply as pictured helps further.

Peel ply off and a light sand and I was ready for the primer undercoat. Being silver foil it took a number of coats with a brush to get a solid covering.

Next was a mammoth job of masking so I could spray the top coats. I didn’t want any textured paint on my nice new white exterior!

It looks gold in the pic but it isn’t. We have texture. A day later, clear semigloss top coat.

After it dried for a couple more days I just used scotchbrite for a matching surface with the rest of the interior. Job done, move on.

 

 

Wing Root Heat Shields

Date:  07-29-2021
Number of Hours:  18
Manual Reference:  19

Both the spar and the wing root area needs heat protection. Just engine heat and of course protection to give a few more seconds in the case of an engine fire emergency.

I’ve gone with a new technology ceramic heat shield, Zircoflex II. I had very good support from the Australian Distributor. The product comes with a quality 3M adhesive backing and just needed cutting with scissors to fit.

Cutting to fit meant I needed a set of templates to maximise  the material with a minimum of waste,

It took quite a long time to generate an exact set of thin cardboard that fitted my rather odd shapes.

Once I had the sets cut out it was easy to use the Zircoflex sheets with a minimum of waste.

Fitting was just removing the backing paper to reveal a very sticky rear end.

I spent quite a while with a wooden roller and then a wooden ice cream stick. This works a treat for getting the foil to really sit down in the corners and on the flats and intersections.

Its a good clean result.

 

 

Gratuitous Post Paint Job Pics

Date:  07-01-2021
Number of Hours:  0
Manual Reference:  25

Beautiful straight off the gun. There are a LOT of dust particles and I could do the work and make it super smooth. For now I will chat with the painter and maybe leave it until after I’ve flown. If performance is a little down from expectations, particularly in the canard stall, then maybe I’ll do the sand and polish work then.

For today, I’ll just enjoy another major step forward.

Top Coat – It’s Finally White

Date:  06-26-2021
Number of Hours:  20
Manual Reference:  25

Finally, the top coats. Three to be exact.

Here’s the paint we used. I still need to check on the high build primer. Three top coats. A light one, then medium then a wet coat.

A brief word about the painter. I’ve done all hundreds of hours of fill and prep on my plane except for three days.  Day one high build primer was sprayed on, day two sanding, day three more prep and top coats. I think this is a good mix. My guy has averaged painting two planes a week for twenty years. His skills were next level. It cost a lot and thats the price of a job I could not do to anything like the standard I now have.

There will be one more day when all the smaller pieces will be painted off site and returned to me. Then there will be sealant around all the window edges.

Unfortunately I won’t get these parts back for two weeks so I’m yet again held up on the build until they are returned.

BUT WAIT…. lets roll back a few weeks again. Its all about the preparation, aka the never ending story.

After I had spent around 30 hours hand sanding the top surfaces yet again with long boards. The professional painter came for a day and did the undersides. That sander thing on wheels takes the compressed air from the sanding hand piece and keeps ALL the dust in the unit. Air, electricity, 180 grit sandpaper and skill gets it done.

I wanted to sand with the wings off so I could do the bottoms. Doh! All I needed was and office chair.

Oh and to the office chair you might add 20 years experience painting airplanes and helicopters.

Just to roll back a little, I did recheck these surfaces on the canard as they are particularly critical to getting my stall (canard) as low as possible.

All good or as good as I can get them.

Here we are a few weeks later and its top coat day. My job was to get all the pin holes filled before that day.

I thought I had done a through job. We wetted down the walls and floor to reduce dust. The painter got the air-blower out and the hunt was on for missed pinholes and a final surface check.

Using a marker pen all the missed pinholes appears as if my magic. Blow on them and they show up. This was just one small area. The whole plane needed these tiny holes filled that I had missed. Then the expert rechecked again and we found more and more. This is just part of the process apparently.

Then a wipe down with special grease and wax remover I assume. It was wax on wax off for a while, or really wipe on wipe off using two cloths.

You’ll never guess what we found…. more pin holes to fill!

After the pin hole hunt was over, With fill and sand and clean again, a final step was needed. This was a simple tack rag over the whole plane. It gave me something to do while the painter mixed paint.

After the first light top coat I snuck in for a quick picture.

After three coats here is the result.

No runs or blemishes, just a shine straight off the gun.

After enormous preparations to a degree I would never have achieved on my own it is done.

No sanding and polishing for a perfect finish. Its looking good to me. I have a quality gloss finish. I’m not going to a car show with this, I am flying around the world.

Primer

Date:  05-27-2021
Number of Hours:  20
Manual Reference:  25

The plane has begun the final stages of the paint journey.

First it had to go for a taxi to a nearby hangar.

Of course with no engine taxi is ‘code’ for pushing the pusher.

In the paint shop.

All taped up by the very capable painter, Ian. No last name, he is booked out until next year as it is.

More careful taping and then I left while Ian got out the high build primer.

After a lot of work. It looks great. This was the colour I wanted but we all know it must be white.

Looks pretty good but you can’t see the many pinholes everywhere.

I’m using Dolphin Glaze to fill those tiny pin holes. I mix very small quantities and then apply it with a razor blade to ensure those holes are filled.

More filling over all the top surfaces.

Next up is some panel beater black.

The black sooty stuff looks pretty rugged where the pin hole filler is. Note the Durablock sanding tools, aka the sticks of pain.

Many hours later it is getting smooth.

More sanding with the long boards and 220 grit paper.

The canard has come out to the correct profile per my template tool. That wasn’t by accident.

The wing tops are not too bad. Ian is going to do the undersides on a chair with an air sander. I need to see that! Not for a week or so because we are again in lock-down due to a Covid 19 outbreak.

Moving to the Paint Shop

Date:  05-21-2021
Number of Hours:  1
Manual Reference:  25

My Long-EZ, VH-XEZ, today escaped the hangar for a trip to the paint booth.

She was happy to get some fresh air after years indoors.

Still missing an engine it was not going to be a long trip.

No great heights were achieved. No contact required with the tower.

It was a bit of a taxi around some hangars. Better than nothing.

We found the paint booth without too much trouble. I’m grateful for the generosity of the person who has allowed me in there for the work. It is hugely appreciated. No names here, but… thank-you.

Then it was a lot of walking to get the loose items in the new shed. Despite some help I did get my 10,000 steps in that day.

A flashback from six years ago, 12_6_15 when I first visited the airfield with my build to fit the spar and wings.

One day I will taxi past that sock to the holding point on Golf two and then line up on 17 Right for departure.