So here's the deal. when I installed the canard, the sweep was off by 1/8" on the left side. Instead of building up several washers on the main wing bolts to compensate for this, I chose to add 1/8" in washers to the canard. Well, that was not a good idea because after all the foam work I've done, I measured everything to the firewall which I KNOW is dead on and the canard ended up being too far forward 1/8"! This means that leaving the canard flush would have been dead on in sweep. The problem was that my spar could have used a bit more sweep. SO I've decided to fix the sweep back at the wing like Rutan suggests. This means that I now had to remove the washers and put the canard back to the original position. Not A HUGE deal but throws off the meticulous sanding contours a bit. I took this opportunity to make the cuts for the canard and canopy as well. Removing the canopy was sooooo easy with those posterboard dams in place. Just pop off the wood blocks, run a razor blade along the longerons to clear any small bonds, trim the forward portion of foam and it's off! Side note: I was a little paranoid that the fuselage wasn't perfectly straight from nose to firewall so I had my wife mark the centerline underneath the fuse in several spots. I then taped a piece of yarn to each mark and stood back to be pleasantly surprized at how straight everything was. Paranoia Gone. I think the issue is the lighting in the garage isn't even and can make things look a little off. Anyways, tomorrow I will begin glassing as warm weather is moving in and will put the garage at close to ideal temps.
