Disclaimer

This blog is for entertainment purposes only, and is not meant to teach you how to build anything. The author is not responsible for any accident, injury, or loss that occurs as a result of reading this blog. Read this blog at your own risk.

By chapter

Miscellaneous
  1. What's a Long EZ anyway?
  2. Necessary skills
  3. Composites for dummies!
  4. Heated epoxy box
  5. Epoxy 101 - How it's used
  6. Epoxy 102 - Un-Gelling the hardener
  7. Epoxy 103 - Why bother testing the epoxy pump?
  8. Epoxy 104 - Thermal runaway
  9. Removing hard to grab peel-ply
  10. Spruce goose
  11. Wet-micro foam bond demo
  12. Rough River 2012
  13. Rough River 2016
  14. Heated Pitot tube
  15. Voltage regulator - part 1
  16. Voltage regulator - part 2
  17. Voltage regulator - part 3
  18. Voltage regulator - part 4
  19. Voltage regulator (aka Pitot power) - part 5
  20. Voltage regulator (aka Pitot power) - part 6
  21. Retractable heated Pitot tube - part 1
  22. Retractable heated Pitot tube - part 2
  23. Anodizing - part 1 - Setting up shop
  24. Anodizing - part 2 - Heating things up
  25. Anodizing - part 3 - Tying up a few loose ends
  26. Anodizing - part 4 - Partial success... or partial failure?
  27. Anodizing - part 5 - The sweet taste of success
  28. Anodizing - part 6 - Equipment improvements
  29. EZ shop trailer
  30. Foam cores
  31. My first solo in a Long EZ
  32. Wade's first flight in my Long EZ
  33. 360ยบ video
  34. EZ mailbox
  35. Sun & Fun 2019
  36. JT's miscellaneous updates
  37. Leaf blower
  38. Moving a LongEZ fuselage... solo.
  39. Grill Cart
  1. Band saw
  2. Drill press
  3. Lathe and vertical mill
  4. Lathe issues
  5. Fixing the lathe
  6. Tailstock DRO
  7. Tramming the vertical mill
  8. Mini-Mill's digital Z axis conversion
  9. Mini-Mill's X and Y axis digital conversion
  10. Mini-Mill's new back brace 
  11. Aluminum sheet metal tools
  12. Mini-Mill's new belt drive
  13. Tig welding
  14. Ahp welding systems - 2014 Alpha TIG 200X
  15. Perma-Grit sanding hand tools
  16. Aluminum sheet metal tools
  17. Horizontal bandsaw
  18. 3D printer update
  19. CNC plasma cutter update #1 - Assembling the CNC table
  20. CNC plasma cutter update #2 - Adding a 220V 50A circuit
  21. CNC plasma cutter update #3 - "Will this dog hunt?"
  22. CNC plasma cutter update #4 - Instrument panel #4
  23. Compressor swap
  24. CNC plasma cutter update #5 - extended Y travel and Z axis

CNC mill conversion
  1. Machining the ball-screws
  2. X axis stepper-motor mount
  3. Y axis stepper-motor mount
  4. Y axis spacer
  5. Ball-nut stop blocks
  6. Mounting the ball-screws
  7. Stepper-motor coupling
  8. Motion control system
  9. Stepper motors first test
  10. CNC for dummies - video series
  11. Solving more mechanical issues
  12. Backlash reduction and ball-screw inconsistency
  13. More Z axis components, more issues solved, and more tools
  14. The end of major construction on the Z axis, not!
  15. Working the bugs out of the Z axis
  16. Adjustable mill's head attachment
  17. xbox 360 controller
  18. Computer stand
  19. Fixing some minor annoyances
  20. Redefining the term… ugly
  21. A few more improvements
  22. Fixture plate
  23. X travel limit switches
  24. Pneumatic drawbar
  25. Digital Read Out (DRO) warning!
  26. Spindle light
  27. X, Y, and Z limit switches
  28. Limit switch covers

CNC lathe conversion
  1. The kit
  2. Electric motors
  3. From debugging hell, to success.

The plans

Ch 3 - Education
  1. Flat sheet
  2. Beam
  3. Bookend
  4. Foam cutting - Hot wiring

Ch 4 - Bulkheads
  1. Landing gear mounts - First aluminum parts
  2. Landing gear mounts - Bushings
  3. Landing gear mounts - LMGA assemblies
  4. Landing gear mounts - Sanding brackets and drilling holes
  5. Landing gear mounts - More sanding, more drilling
  6. Landing gear mounts - Counterboring
  7. Landing gear mounts - Alodining
  8. Landing gear mounts - Bushing upgrade
  9. Side 1 - Foam board magic
  10. Side 2 - Glueing more foam together
  11. Shaping the fuselage sides, longerons
  12. Longerons contouring
  13. Left side - Glassing
  14. Left side - Air bubble in top longeron, lower longeron
  15. Left side - Rear longeron triangular stringer
  16. Left side - Foam filler
  17. Left side - Glassing the gear hard-point
  18. Left side - Trimming the gear hard-point
  19. Right side - Glassing
  20. Right side - Installing the top longeron
  21. Right side - Glassing the top longeron
  22. Right side - Proper positioning of LWX and LWY
  23. Right side - Lower longeron
  24. Right side - Rear longeron triangular stringer
  25. Right side - Glassing the gear hard-point
  26. Right side - Trimming the gear hard point
  27. Extending LWYs
  28. Drilling the gear bracket holes
  29. Foam removal method
  30. Landing gear brackets final installation
  31. Washer replacement - part 1
  32. Washer replacement - part 2

Ch 6 - Fuselage assembly
  1. First assembly test
  2. Initial fitting
  3. Fuselage alignment and taping
  4. Taping the front seat
  5. Taping the rear seat
  6. Taping the front side of the rear seat
  7. Instrument panel installation
  8. F-22 installation
  9. F-28 installation
  10. Landing gear bolt access hole
  11. Strakes openings placement
  12. Fuselage bottom
  13. Fuselage bottom - final carving
  14. Fuselage bottom - glassing
  15. Fuselage bottom - attaching to fuselage
  16. Taping the floor
  1. Creating and installing the hard points
  2. Making the roll over structure - longeron braces
  3. Rollover outer recesses
  4. Roll-bar fabrication in action
  5. Attaching the roll-bar
  6. Burying the nut-plates and restoring the fuselage outline

Ch 9 - Main gear and brakes
  1. She's got legs...
  2. "Wrapping things up"
  3. The missing half inch...
  4. The straight tower of Pisa
  5. The other "missing half inch"
  6. Lower tabs
  7. Upper tabs
  8. Wheels, axles, and brakes
  9. Left leg toe-in final adjustment
  10. Wheel, brake, tire and tube
  11. Standing on her own two legs
  12. The original pedals
  13. Prototyping the pedals
  14. Shorter bracket
  15. Bracket testing
  16. Making all the little bits
  17. Pedals, pedals, pedals!
  18. Pedal base modification
  19. Pedal oops!
  20. Longer pedal bases
  21. General law of relativity
  22. Ending the pedal saga
  23. Flox doughnuts
  24. Disk brakes heat shields
  25. Cleveland wheel's main bearing race replacement
  26. Nose-wheel main bearing race replacement

Ch 10 - Canard Construction
  1. Roncz and canard cores
  2. Shear web
  3. Lift tabs and leading edges
  4. Canard extensions
  5. Bottom spar-cap
  6. Skinning the bottom
  7. Flipping the canard
  8. Trailing edge peel-ply removal
  9. Locating the inner elevator hinges
  10. PVC foam inserts
  11. Top spar-cap
  12. Antennas
  13. Top skin

Ch 11 - Elevators

    Ch 12 - Canard installation

      Ch 13 - Nose and nose gear
      1. Pinocchio
      2. Retraction system and NG-30 prep
      3. Glassing NG-30 inside out
      4. Test wiring the nose gear actuator
      5. Making NG-8 (and NG-5) the hard way
      6. Nose gear leg
      7. Attaching the nose frame to the fuselage
      8. Bulkheads
      9. Stashing the nose wheel
      10. Stashing the nose wheel for good
      11. Floxing the nose leg hinges
      12. Nose floor
      13. Nose right side panel
      14. Nose left side panel
      15. Standing tall
      16. Forward nose structure
      17. Making the "pointed end"
      18. The endless nose
      19. First in flight!
      20. Strut cover mod
      21. Fwd nose compartment - inner sidewalls
      22. Strut cover and bottom nose foam installation
      23. Nose cone shaping
      24. Glassing the nose bottom and sides
      25. Wheel well mod #1
      26. Strut outer cover
      27. Wheel well mod #2 & #3
      28. Wheel well mod #4 - nose gear doors
      29. Nose bumper
      30. Hinge box
      31. Nose bumper - take #2

      Ch 14 - Centersection spar
      1. The jig
      2. The foam structure
      3. Understanding the layups of Step 4
      4. Prepping for Step 4
      5. Changing the layup schedule of Step 4 (slightly)
      6. Step 4 at last!
      7. Closing the box
      8. Shear-web preparation
      9. Shear-web
      10. Bottom spar-cap
      11. Top spar-cap
      12. Layup #6 prep
      13. Wrapping the spar
      14. LWAs and layup #7
      15. Closing up this case

      Ch 15 - Firewall and Accessories

        Ch 16 - Control System

          Ch 17 - Pitch and roll trim
          1. Roll trim components

          Ch 18 - Canopy

            Ch 19 - Wings and Ailerons

              Ch 20 - Winglet and Rudder

                Ch 21 - Wing Strakes - Baggage - Fuel Tanks - Fuel System

                  Ch 22 - Electrical/Avionics

                  6 comments:

                  1. AryMonday, March 4, 2013 at 3:31:00 PM EST

                    AMAZING Long EZ blog!! Thank you so much for your posts!! I just started my Long EZ build (currently finishing up Chapter 4). Is there a 'contact' page on here so we can bounce back some ideas? My email is listed on my blog page:

                    www.aryjglantz.com

                    Thanks again and keep up the good work!!

                    -Ary

                    ReplyDelete
                    Replies
                    1. Capt MeatballsTuesday, March 5, 2013 at 3:54:00 PM EST

                      Thank you Ary, I'll shoot you an email when I get back home.

                      Delete
                  2. LutormWednesday, September 30, 2015 at 2:47:00 AM EDT

                    Hey Marco,

                    I'm looking at converting a mini mill from littlemachineshop.com to CNC (I'm also in theory building a Long-Ez, but unlike you I'm not making progress...) and I was wondering if you could, now that you've accumulated some experience with your machine, if you could summarize what you're happy about, what you wish you'd done differently, and if the machine's capabilities are generally filling your needs. It looks like I'm going to have similar applications, hopefully including making parts for the Long once I get time to work on it, so your thoughts about this would be helpful.

                    Thanks,

                    /Patrik

                    ReplyDelete
                    Replies
                    1. Capt MeatballsWednesday, September 30, 2015 at 10:22:00 AM EDT

                      Hey Patrik, nice choice of airplane by the way.

                      First of all, while I am happy I CNC'ed my machine by myself, I would not do it again the same way and spend 6 months of my time machining parts to very tight tolerances, just to see it all “blow up” in my face occasionally in the form of endless problems.

                      I thought I would be saving money by making things myself, and it sure looked like it on paper, but I should just have bought a conversion kit, and get it done in a few days instead, which is what I did with my lathe conversion to CNC.

                      Let's look at what you'd need...

                      CNC Fusion makes a very good kit, look it up here http://www.cncfusion.com/minimill1.html. I would go with kit #5 ($655) since you have the Little Machine Shop minimill, and I’d also get the Pre-Loaded Ballnut Service ($33 x 3), and the Heli-Cal zero backlash couplings ($24 x 3).

                      This way you’d be out $825 plus shipping, let’s say $860. On top of that you need a few more things, check out my blog http://longezproject.blogspot.com/2013/11/cnc-mill-conversion-part-8.html. You can get a controller board like mine pre-made for around $600 (here’s an example http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gecko-G540-4-axis-cnc-stepper-motor-controller-CNC-Router-mill-conversion-/261521423614?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ce3e43cfe), or you could shop around and wire it yourself for a bit less.

                      Next you need 3 motors http://www.kelinginc.net/NEMA23Motor.html ($50 x 3), and a board for talking to the controller http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-MOTION-CONTROLLER-for-Mach3-UC100-/161360698449?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2591d8dc51 ($150)

                      You’ll also need some other stuff like limit switches, etc. (budget $100 at most).

                      Let see, you are around $1300, but you also need Mach3 ($180), perhaps a computer, and possibly CAD and CAM software. The software alone can go from $200 to $10000, but in a recent development you can get Fusion 360 for free (http://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview), register it after 30 days as an enthusiast or small shop (less than $100K in revenue), and renew every year. Or register as a student or professor, and renew every 3 years.

                      So we are really talking about a minimum of around $1600, plus computer and software. When you consider the price of the mill and a small computer, you are going to be in the neighbor of $3000 easily, without tooling.

                      When I purchased my minimill I had no idea it would lead to CNC, or that it would be as much fun as it has. Knowing what I know now I would have bought the biggest mill I could afford, since the upgrade cost is not much different.

                      To be honest, this minimill has been perfectly capable of machining everything I threw at it so far, although you have to become creative at times on how to hold on to what you are trying to machine due to the small table size. As an example look at how I had to machine the brake pedal brackets. It took 6 repositioning to machine them, versus just 3 had the table been slightly larger. This increased time and frustration quite a bit, but it is what you have to deal with with a hobby level mill.

                      As minimills go, the Little Machine Shop one is the best of the bunch, so you are already ahead of me there. Give me a shout if you have more questions.

                      Ciao, Marco.

                      Delete
                  3. LutormWednesday, September 30, 2015 at 5:24:00 PM EDT

                    Thanks for that detailed response! It pretty much goes along with what I've been thinking, although I don't think I'll go the Mach3 route. I have some experience with the embedded motion controllers like grbl and TinyG, since I've used them for a cnc router, so I'll just hook it up that way, at least for a start. I'm not that worried about the electronics part since I have much more experience there than with the mechanics.

                    A larger table would probably be nice, but it looks like the cost, space needed, etc, start going up quickly and the marginal increase in capability sure won't be anything near going from no mill at all to a small one! I think the mini mill is a very reasonable compromise.

                    Thanks for mentioning the Fusion 360 alternative, by the way, I hadn't heard of that. I've been using Cubify Design (http://cubify.com/Products/design) which is a cut-down version of Geomagic Design for $199, to design some parts. I'm quite happy with it, it's very capable, but has the huge drawback that you can only export parts as STL files. While most CAM software seems to handle STL, it approximates everything with planar segments, so round shapes won't be preserved. I'm not sure how big a deal this will be in practice, since you can set the resolution. I guess I'll just try and see.

                    ReplyDelete

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