Jon Matcho

Where is the "green with envy" smiley?

How's this?

The UPS man just delivered my shiny new "Sticky Stuff" epoxy dispenser along with a couple of gallons of (full #%@%$ retail) MGS resin and hardener and another whole box of other goodies, sitting on my bench waiting for attention.

I hope you got a picture of the UPS man! That seems to be a highly sought after picture. I have my wife ready at home, instructed to get a picture of the UPS guy when he shows up with my Box O Flox.

 

 

Oh great, if I want to make sure my "sticky stuff " is accurate, I have to buy a scale anyway!

I'm going to be starting out with a scale, just because I have no idea how everything will be working out. Once I get going, I might get the super duper mega-pump shown in the ACS catalog.

 

 

Thanks to y'all...I'll check in from time to time..

What does that mean?! You're not allowed to build and NOT post! You have responsibilities now.

I use shrink wrap vinyl to provide the positive pressure in place of a vacuum bag.

Awesome. I didn't know the stuff was available beyond tube-sized electrical coverings. Given the uniqueness of this technique, I would tend to think of this as shrink wrap bagging. The only concern I have for this is whether the majority of the pressure exists at the edges as opposed to the surface, similar to how a rubber band would apply its pressure if wrapped around a wing. I think the perfect use for this would be with parts that are approximately cylindrical.

 

There's yet one more technique that may or may not be applicable. As a RC modeler, we hot-wire foam core wings as well. We would save the "throw-away" portions of the foam so that when we skinned the wings later, we would wrap in ply or wax paper, and place back together in the shape that the foam was initially. You then put weights on the foam block, which applies distributed pressure on the assembly. This may or may not work for hot-wired Cozy parts.

 

I offer the new and improved list to the group for discussion:

 

1) Vacuum Bagging

2) Pressure Bagging

3) Shrink Wrap Bagging (crashdog's technique)

4) Box Bagging (the "keep the throw-away foam" technique)

 

It's not important which names to use, as long as we all use the same names.

 

 

...carbon fibre bicycle frame.

Wow, another expensive hobby of mine. Would it be possible that you have a Web page out there showing the result of this project? I recall finding an example a while ago. Regardless, I might be interested in making my own $3,000 bike frame if you have any pointers.

(Sorry Wayne, I know you tried to get us back on topic, but I thought best not to spawn another thread at this point.)

 

If anyone is falling for any of this nonsense, please feel free to private message or e-mail me directly and I will be happy to answer any questions or concerns you may have.

 

As Wayne has posted here, and many members have mentioned to me privately, public rants and quibbles like this do nothing positive for this forum, let alone our community of planners, builders, and flyers.

 

With all that said, I need to dispute the following statement with some actual facts.

 

 

We had/have a great community that was growing and helping people and Jon Match became administrator and started offending people and everyone stopped posting.

I became Administrator of these forums on November 11, 2003. Since that time, I have read nearly every post in order to come up with the now current hierarchy. The original forum hierarchy left something to be desired, leaving members posting 95% of the time in the Coffee House section (I have since filed many to their appropriate sections). Messages were being thrown around liberally in chat room fassion, occassionaly off-topic and without substance.

 

After feedback by several members, I agreed to take the task of raising the bar on the quality vs. quantity factor, improving the overall value of the forum. While "chatting" is fine for certain forum sections, like the Coffee House, I also did not want this mode of communication to become the forum-wide norm. To offload the post-chatting, I created the Chat Room section, with Chat software to quench the thirst for real-time messaging.

 

On December 17, 2003, www.canardzone.com was born, just a Web page, and a wrapper for these forums. It was just thrown together as part of the Web address, mainly to connect with search engines. Given the time available, the site unfortunately only supports Microsoft Internet Explorer versions. However, the forums remain fully accessible through many browsers, thanks to the vBulletin software itself.

 

I have also put in a fair amount of time to move the site to a dedicated environment, address security concerns, upgrage to include new functionality, and market the site. This also included further visibility to search engines on the Internet. This past Sun-n-Fun, I brought ~200 Canard Zone business cards to hand out to prospective builders. I left half with Nat at the Cozy booth, and handed out the rest to people I met. I brought 50 back.

 

Most all of this was based on members suggestions and feedback.

 

As you can see from the charts below, posts and membership are hardly on a downward trend -- they are at record levels, even when paired with efforts to effectively reduce the post count (chat room posts). In spite of some of the misguided and destructive comments made in this thread, it seems to me that the forum is thriving with activity. I'll let everyone judge for themselves.

 

 

New Registrations -- 2003-01 to 2004-03

 

 

New Threads -- 2003-01 to 2004-03

 

 

New Posts -- 2003-01 to 2004-03

With all the talk about Wicks vs. Aircraft Spruce & Specialty, I wanted to put both to the test and share my experience purchasing from them at SnF 2004.

 

This was my first major airshow outside of the local baloon festival. For starters, I didn't quite expect SnF to be an all-out trade show. I don't know what I was thinking, since what else would vendors be doing there? In any event, like all tradeshows, I found it rather dizzying at times.

 

Both booths were quite busy. While the ACS booth appeared larger on the vendor map, it was setup as a storefront with glass counters, so perhaps the space was not as well optimized as it could have been. The result seemed to be that you did not have as much access to view their products.

 

The Wicks booth on the other hand, was accessible. They had demo products strapped to display boards hanging on the wall. It was good to touch and feel the tools. There were also other products lying around that you could bring to the counter yourself for checkout.

 

At Wicks, I received personal attention, and only had to tease the sales rep that he wasn't giving me enough "love" when he got distracted with another customer. I initially put my order in on Saturday, and came back to add an item or two on sunday. I was amazed that the rep, whose name I forgot, remembered mine. I received a show discount, personal service, satisfaction, along with some "love".

 

At ACS, I had to belly up to the counter, fighting for attention it seemed (there were a lot of people doing the same). I don't blame ACS for this necessarily, but they may want to reconsider their booth layout next time. I asked for MGS and whether they had a show discount. The sales guy said, "no", more or less, I think since I wasn't buying a glass panel. Accepting this, I had him add one more gallon of MGS285 to the order. He came back, along with letting me know that I'd get both at a good discount. I left satisfied, with a show discount, and with good service similar to that of a busy auto parts desk. No complaints, but no "love".

 

I can say that I would definitely order from both again, depending on how I felt. If anything, you do get the feeling that ACS is bigger and busier than Wicks, but that's not a bad thing. The general advice I received was to buy the first few chapters of material from Wicks, which I did for the most part. Going forward, and once knowing the exact quantity of material I need to complete the next chapter, I do think I'll settle into shopping more on price. From what I can tell, price is comparable between Wicks and ACS. If an order requires some pre-sales, at this point I would probably call Wicks first.

 

To be continued...

LP, congrats, you have taken yet another thread into the toilet. I would throw you a rope to climb out of the hole you've dug yourself into, but it seems you're way to proud to consider acting the least bit social.

 

For the record (again), nobody has been banned from, although LP you seem to be trying your hardest. Prior to me there was little-to-no administration, and now there is just a touch. I do not necessarily need to be political about every maneuver, but I shall endeavor to do that in the future. In the end, my responsibility is to keep this forum intact and growing for the next 10+ years, and if I need to be blunt about it along the way, I will.

 

Here are what my initial thoughts and differences were that I tried to communicate to you guys:

 

to dust: please let others have a chance to post -- you're a valuable and contributing member, but you're not the only builder with something to say and it's becoming hard to "hear" anything else at times

to LP: please be nice to others

 

I did not communicate this as well as I could have, but this was my intent.

 

The forum appears to be done with this thread, as am I, but you can have the last public word if you like. It's up to you if you want to fan this fire further, or we can get back to contributing some substance.

 

I decided to build a Cozy because these forums and the www.cozybuilders.org site and list simply existed. I have great appreciation for Marc Zeitlin generously giving us that means of support. Go to a fly-in, shake hands with some of these good people, and you just might change your tune.

You can grab the video here: http://www.agelesswings.com/LONG_EZ/ez-ffxcre.wmv

 

It's 7+ MB in size (FYI for the bandwidth challenged).

It would have been very nice to know this when you took it over...

Now that's something I didn't know

Perhaps a bit more ceremony would have been appropriate, but I thought this was well understood by everyone. Sorry for any confusion.

 

 

I left this place for a long time because you are such a jackass Jon.

 

I came back because I was told you had been reigned in.

Let's understand the variable here: LargePrime left. With everyone being polite and allowing the forum to grow, we actually managed to take a step forward.

 

 

You have neither the social skills or the knowledge base to do this well.

We all can work to improve our social skills, including myself without exception. As far as your own social skills go, if you had made such an offensive remark to anyone else here on this forum, I'd be left with few choices, including consideration to ban your account. You have done this before to others, and have been asked nicely to refrain from your offensive posts. Please stop, for everyone's sake.

 

As far as my knowledge base, I do know one thing about building a Cozy (just one, so have not yet decided to use my knowledge up yet). Regardless, take a look at my posts to date -- dealing mainly with the forum software itself. I do NOT claim to know any more than the next newbie reading stuff here or on the Internet. I leave the experts to that and look forward to their replies.

 

In terms of my software base of knowledge, I am qualified. I was chosen by Nick for my knowledge and experience with implementing Web-based discussion groups. For most members, this has proven beneficial with an improved forum setup.

 

I'm sure we'll all be better for it if we can hit the reset button on all of this and continue onward building our planes. This is a Discussion Forum for ALL planners, builders, and flyers to participate in.

Interesting path of discussion here, starting with a genuine desire to index all things Cozy, then taking a detour into parts unknown, and now landing with the realization that this would be quite an undertaking. Maybe someone should write a book?

 

As far as undertaking a Best Practices project, it has my support as much as the other FAQs and Tips that are out there, along with Wayne Hicks' excellent list of references in this thread. At the end of the day, there is no single source of information for which you can receive a list of ALL questions with ALL possible answers. You will have to work at it some.

 

To put this in perspective, realize that Long-EZs (the basis of the Cozy) were once being built at an active pace, relying only on periodic newsletters and phone support, and years before browsing the World Wide Web was an option. Relatively speaking, the information is already at our fingertips.

 

 

As it stands, it is just a little more than a chat room.

I submit that the true value of this forum is not as just another repository of information on canard aircraft, but a support group for those who face the daily challenges of a difficult task... yes, for lack of a more profound description, a "chat room."

The "chat room"...

Please let us not refer to this site as a chat room. We have a section named "chat room" with a chat software to offload the "noise" from the threads. There is even an interface to Instant Messaging tools for those wanting to exchange text messages real-time with others. These forums are to help those building canards using Rutan-based composite construction techniques by providing an online community similar to the e-mail-based discussion available at www.cozybuilders.org.

 

 

I would urge all of us to contemplate the purpose of each post. A post with obvious practical value for fellow builders should be noted by SOMEBODY for future readers either by the one posting or the reply poster or by someone who realizes the answer is a "keeper".....

An excellent guideline! Think before you post. Try to provide value, because we, the membership, want value. Everyone, feel free to rate any thread you read. One vote per member is recorded, and you can change your vote as the thread evolves.

 

 

I say Ungoli because this is his forum and he currently lets jon run it, but we know nothing of his future plans and decisions

On the other hand, our use of this host is a donation from someone, it may be that others with access to the commercial sources will be so benevolent. The whole issue of who pays for what and how in this sort of collabrative model is a very real problem, probably best treated in a seperate thread in a different forum.

I want to clear up what might be some confusion. Nick Ugolini came up with the idea for these forums, and put them in place with John Slade's help and support. Nick has since turned over forum ownership and responsibility to me. Nick Ugolini, John Slade, and Marc Zeitlin continue to serve as "backup administrators" and subject matter experts.

 

I have put in a considerable amount of time and money towards improving the structure and capability of these forums, and I do appreciate the words of encouragement passed along. I feel that the forum now has good structure and functionality, which will prove useful for those considering to build or are now moving down the path of actually building.

 

This site may not meet everyone's vision, but I think it is working just fine as a meeting place and knowledge repository for the likes of us. If there's anything in particular that can be done to improve this site, please feel free to let me know.

Went up to Sun-N-Fun. Very disapointed in the number of Canards represented. 2 Velocities, about 8 Ezs and 2 Cozys on the line plus Nat's Cozy on the Display line.

This number went up a just a bit as of late yesterday (4/16). I didn't keep an exact count, but I saw Cozy IVs, Cozy IIIs, Velocitys (different models), Longs and a Cosy Classic. For those planes that are here, there is no shortage of great and interesting ideas to use.

 

Regardless, all other comments seem to be valid... the weather kept us out for a while, the lemonade is expensive, and we were cut off while in the landing pattern.

Brad Hawley wanted me to post a "For Sale" for his partially completed project. Please contact Brad directly for more information.

 

 

Received from Brad Hawley via e-mail

Cozy MK IV project for sale, completed thru chapt 7, “Fuslae Ext”. Plans #0053, Manuals Sect I & II, News letters 26-44, metering epoxy pump, misc. info. Experienced builder, N. Cal. area, Brad, hawley@foothill.net 530-346-7750 $2,000.

BTW, the 'Links' button was causing trouble and so I had to delete it. We'll have to implement another solution.

 

For those with Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 6.0 or higher, you can find some links at the Canard Zone Home Page.

 

Another great site with links is The Unofficial Cozy Builders Site.

I do believe post view counts are working correctly. The issue may be browser related, where if you want to see the new view counts, you need to refresh the page.

 

FWIW, keep in mind that the same user can continuously refresh on a particular post, forcing the view count to increase.

I would like to combine the Coffee House and General Canard Discussion, as well as move threads, and address the General Interest section.

I have addressed these sections as follows:

 

• General Canard Construction has been moved from the Main Entrance to the Building category.
• Fly-ins, meetings and events has been moved from the General Interest to the Main Entrance category.
• The General Interest category has been renamed to Forum Administration
• A Feedback & Suggestions section has added to the Forum Administration category
• Both Coffee House and General Canard Construction need many more messages filed into the new forum sections. I filed many, but many remain.

I am now officially at the point of diminishing returns for adjusting the forum hierarchy. I'm left only wondering whether an area is sufficient for "avionics" discussions. Check this post for another discussion on this topic: Changing Forum Hierarchy

 

I deleted the cookie for the canardzone and now it works. I thought I would pass it along in case anyone else had the same problem.

Drew, that is most appreciated. Another member reported some odd behavior related to logging in, and this might be related.

 

I suspect that browsing with or without the www in the URL may cause problems when it comes to cookies. In essence, the browser may consider the sites to be different, or at least get "confused".

 

The easiest solution is to clear the Canard Zone cookie(s). I tend to delete all my cookies every now and again, which often loses several of my site preferences (like my prefs at www.weather.com), but "so what".

 

Thanks again for pointing this out.

I may have designed it, but to be honest I miss the Cozy picture.

Yah, the page is almost too 2D right now. I'll look to get a canard image on the right side of the header. However, I personally like marbleturtle's avatar image better. Maybe we can talk marbleturtle into contributing that to the forum?

 

 

One thing I've noticed is that I'm missing posts. "Get new" doesnt seem to work the same..... ah - I take that back. I see you've fixed it.

I did have to modify the "quick links" post, as vBulletin changed the way the URL parameters work. So if you have any saved links, you'll need to use those from that post. Aside from that, everything should be working as well as before and then some.

 

Enjoy

www.pprune.com/forums

And I thought that our forum list was long.

 

 

I like the logo also Jon

We have John Slade to thank for that. I just tweaked a couple pixels.

Besides the new look, what's new in the forum?

You should notice quite a few usability improvements, not to mention the new look. For a full list of features now available click here.

 

Beyond the underlying forum software itself, a new forum hierarchy has been implemented to better suit Rutan-based canard building in general. Here's a repeat of the announcement for posterity:

 

 

The Canard Zone Forums have been upgraded with new software. Several items of additional functionality are now available along with an improved user interface. You can find a complete feature list by clicking here.

 

In addition to the software, the forum hierarchy has been improved to incorporate feedback received from many members. Discussions prompting this aspect of the upgrade are listed below, as well as many other discussions in the Forum Tips & Announcements section.

• Changing Forum Hierarchy
• forum info management
• three new main areas needed
• Choosing meaningful subjects - categorization

All of this adds up to some major changes, and with change may come some issues and challenges. Please forward any issues you may have to support@canardzone.com and I will address as soon as possible. If you feel a forum section should be added, renamed, clarified, or moved, please speak up. Your feedback is very much encouraged and I promise to make best efforts to work out all the kinks.

 

Thank you for your input, and keep those comments coming. I look forward to finishing up this particular upgrade with the help and contributions of the membership.

 

Best regards,

Jon

 

The new forum software and hierarchy has been implemented. I'll prepare a detailed announcement shortly. In the meantime, comment away -- I am certain that the new hierarchy is not perfect. Specifically, I would like to combine the Coffee House and General Canard Discussion, as well as move threads, and address the General Interest section.

 

If the experts can feedback on the Building and Flying sections, that would be great.

Originally posted by dust Please remove my name

From where? This thread, or all threads where you yourself and others have freely used your name? I don't have a problem referring to you as dust going forward, but I was unaware of any "rule" not to use your name.

 

 

but on this one i shall take your advice, please send me all of my posts to this forum and then delete them from the forum.

First, "no". Second, that's making quite a stretch from anything I've said.

 

In spite of this digression, I still plan to incorporate the adjustments discussed later this weekend. It's high time the forum took a step forward. I personally am looking forward to the new feel of the forum, which I am confident will be regarded as 'better' by most everyone.

Check out www.bluemountainavionics.com -- created as a one-off in a Cozy, and then turned into a commercial business.

Originally posted by Rob Wright Netflix has a pretty cool system of rating movies. After you rent a movie you rate them on a scale of 1 to 5. Consider a system for our community where each person can rate a thread based on its usefulness or some other measuring stick. From the collective whole the most important or interesting things will naturally rise to the top.

Sounds good to me, and already available. Look at the lower right of the thread display, and you should see a 'Rate This Thread' drop down. Select your vote and press the 'Go' button. If you change your mind later, that's okay -- just update your vote. Only one vote per person is recorded.

 

The analogy to Netflix is good, and also compares to online product reviews. I think I speak for most that it's important to have an aggregate rating scheme, where the input of many is factored into the rating.

 

Mike (dust), I think everyone would appreciate you going through important threads and rating them. You've been there, and have done that with more more chapters than most here. While you're at it, feel free to collect a list of thread IDs (check the # on the URL) and let me know what section they should be moved to. I'd be happy to move a couple hundred threads if worthwhile.

 

If you feel so motivated to share your own experience and knowledge, a few more ideas come to mind:

• Start your own Web site
• Create a FAQ, like the one at www.cozybuilders.org
• This has got me thinking about allowing members to create their own Blog sections here, somewhat like their own Web pages, but without the expense/difficulty.

For sure there are a lot of good ideas here...

 

 

Originally posted by Rob Wright With a numeric rating system a persons rating could be given a weight. For example a person who has completed an airplane would have a multiplier of two.

vBulletin 3.0 touches upon this, and is something to look at.

 

 

Originally posted by Jim Sower The problem doesn't seem to me to be a search engine issue. I regard it as A) a user discipline issue; B) a site design issue.

I agree with this, and recommend the following:

 

A) Stick to topic; leave the chatter in the Coffee House or Chat Room

B) I'm ready to address the site 'design' (forum hierarchy). I will look to incorporate these changes, as well as any received here, this weekend. We had already discussed these in a prior thread.

C) Search engine improvements won't hurt.

 

 

Originally posted by dust posts would have to be broken up to do it in a meaningful way.

Threads can only be moved to different forum sections, but not broken up.

 

 

Originally posted by dust I am here in the name of "dust" so that my intentions are clear, no personal gain ever...

"dust" by any other name would still be Mike Skorija. I've mentioned before that I prefer addressing people here by their real names as opposed to "login/screen names". It just seems appropriate when discussing topics of aeronautics.

 

Everyone can begin rating threads now, and the votes will be kept as part of future upgrades. I'll bite the bullet and do the upgrade this weekend. Any sections that don't seem to fit can be adjusted, and threads moved as appropriate.

A smile has come to my face, along with these guys:

 

:banana: :banana:

 

Canard, rotary, 4-place, homebuilt... life is good!

 

Congratulations John!

Everyone, there was a problem with sending mail to support@canardzone.com, but that has since been fixed. All e-mail issues have really been resolved now.

I understand the problem to be that the search engine here is not up to par. I agree, and so the solution, as I see it, is to upgrade to the next generation of the vBulletin forum software (3.0).

 

I have been watching this version for some time. It went through a heavy beta cycle, where many sites even used it in production. The search engine has been improved, and we should take a look at that before considering any other means to index and search this site.

 

I will plan to do this over this coming weekend, so please expect the site to be down for a couple of hours now and again.