EZ AHAB

There was a $5 fee for 2 hazmat boxes and the shipping was $38.12. This was for 2 gal of resin and 4 quarts of hardener.

For what it's worth, I just ordered and received MGS L335 and both hardeners from Wicks with no problems. They were a little cheaper than ACS, at least in this area, and their customer service is always excellent.

Here are Jon's winglets. I'm still working on the lower ones.

You should send the buyer my way for CNC cut wing, canard, and winglet cores when he's ready. http://www.canardzone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2000 I should be into full production by the time he needs them.

It's the same Dow product that Wicks sells. I'm fairly certain it's the same that ACS sells as well but they didn't know the product number. I only weighed 1 of the blocks I bought on Monday and it looked like it was close to 2 lb density. I believe the material properties vary a bit between batches. A "batch" is at least 36 7x14x109" blocks. It looks like it is probably manufactured in a huge blocks which are then sliced into smaller ones. The material properties may even vary somewhat within the same block. I plan on weighing and measuring all the blocks I have to test this theory. The foam I bought on Monday is a bit darker blue than a few pieces I bought from the same supplier over the holidays. Based on my own experiences and info I've gleaned from the canard pushers, Cozy newsletters, and the internet, I think the density varies between about 1.6 to 2 lb/ft^3. This would explain the discrepancy between the densities listed on the Wicks and ACS websites.

Thar be foam here! This is about 3 airplanes worth.

I'm an Air Force Pilot.

Cruise was outstanding! Now it's back to work. The CNC machine is back in operation and progress continues. I've been working on the winglets since I have to cut some for Jon and because they are even more difficult than wings in some respects since they have so much taper. I've cut both left and right ones at 1/2 scale in small cell extruded polystyrene and they turned out really nice. Note how perfectly they line up with the red printed lines in the photos. Since there are no physical templates used with a CNC hotwire, I use these drawings which I print from a CAD progam, to ensure the machine is cutting the shape it is supposed to be cutting. I'll be cutting the full scale winglets by the end of the week. I've also been working on my foam toting trailer so I can get a motherload of foam perhaps on Monday. I would have finished this long ago but it takes forever for paint to dry when it's cold.

Hello from Belize! Having lots of fun and it's nice and warm here:) I'll be back Sat night.

Progress report: I accidentally short circuited a motor driver the weekend before last and had to order new parts. While the machine was down I decided to do some modifications I've been needing to do in order to cut full scale wing cores and for LEZ canard cores. I added a couple of inches of useful travel to both x and y. That is now 98% complete. I just have to tweak the leadscrews a bit to make sure they don't bind. Oh, the motor driver is now fixed too. I also bought and have been working on a foam toting trailer. I found that I couldn't get many of the large blocks in my Suburban (only 4 and I had to cut 2 of them into smaller pieces). My trailer should haul 20+ blocks! This project is probably at 75% completion. The cold wx has been slowing things down a bit as it takes forever for the paint to dry. I believe I will be able to get foam from my supplier at about the same price as it would cost for someone to ship me their foam, that is, at the rates UPS charges. I still need to research the best way to ship this stuff since I know that UPS is expensive. If anyone has any good ideas, let me know. My wife and I are going on vacation from tomorrow till next weekend. We are going on a cruise in celebration of 10 wonderful years of marriage (you wouldn't believe what she lets me keep in our garage......oh, maybe you would;) ). Anyway, I know a lot of people are anxiously waiting for me to start full scale production and I didn't want them to think I'd slowed down. Quite the contrary, I've been very busy lately. There's just a lot of grunt work to be done getting everything ready and I still have my "real" job to do as well. Well, everyone keep warm. Now where did I put my bathing suit?

Yes, the canard I cut is the Roncz 1145MS sized for a Cozy Mk IV. I've got a little bit of work left to do to make the Long-EZ variant. You would think it would be easier because it's smaller but it isn't. At any rate, I hope to be ready to cut Long-Ez canards by the end of the weekend. If you want to order one, you can send me a private message or email through the forum and I'll get you my email address. I don't like to post it directly on the forum because of the spam it attracts.

I am located in Abilene, TX. As far as the E-Racer root templates go...I don't have E-racer plans. I do have original plans for the VariEze, Long-EZ, and Cozy Mk IV but nothing else. If someone wants something else, I can cut it for them, I just need a set of templates to digitize. I can cut pretty much anything you want given a template to go by. I plan on making several other parts for my EZ with my machine. For instance, I plan to build a new cowling using the machine to cut out a foam mold.

Progress update. I've been working feverishly on digitizing the remaining templates and figuring out how much of what size foam to buy for wings, winglets, and canards so I can set up a realistic price list. Both of these tasks are nearing completion. I've been finding better and better ways to get more use out of less foam which saves both material and shipping costs. I've found a somewhat local supplier of foam that I can use to keep costs down as well. Here is my "introductory" price list: Roncz Canard $200 Winglets $150 Wings $775 Everything $1100 This price includes foam but not S&H from me to you. S&H will be the shipper of your choice with an additional fee to cover packaging materials. I'll be looking into this in more detail in the near future. If you already have your foam, you can ship it to me to cut at a reduced rate. Be advised that the only finished core I've made so far is a Cozy canard. I've got a bit more work to do on block layout stuff for a LEZ canard but that should be done very soon. Next will be winglets and then wings. I will take orders on canards now but please stand by on everything else. I already have 2 orders for wings and I don't want to get a bunch of orders before proving myself. I would like to know if you are interested, however. That will give me a good idea of how much foam I need to purchase.

Basically, yes. If there is no taper or sweep, such as the canard for the most part (except for the spar troughs), the path that the machine moves the wire holder is the same as the shape in the foam. If there is taper and/or sweep, it's a lot more complicated. The machine must move the wire holders along different paths than what is cut in the foam. For instance, for a wing with taper, the axis on the root side must move the wire holder along the same basic airfoil shape but at an exaggerated scale. On the tip it will move it along a much smaller scale. You have to align the foam in the machine just right so that the path traced out by the wire will be just right in the foam. This may sound like a lot of math, and it is, but luckily that's what computers are good at:) It's just a more complicated extrapolation. Luckily, I built my machine large enough to not have to do this. I purpose built it for making EZ wings. If you were to go buy one this large it would probably cost on the order of at least $6-$10k++. Even then, of the ones I've seen advertised on the web, they still have a very rudimentary wire tensioning device that doesn't look like it would work well for cutting profiles with as much taper and sweep as EZ wings. When I first started building my machine I put little thought in how the wire would be held. I just thought I'd use a wire with a spring on one end like all the ones I had seen had. It turns out that that works ok for small amounts of taper or sweep but not so well with the amount EZ wings have. Developing my own design of wire holding and tensioning device has been quite a project in itself. I have gone through a number of vastly different iterations but my current design seems to be working quite well now:D All my "templates" are digital only. I can print them to compare with the plans just to be sure they are properly digitized but I don't need to cut them out of ply or anything. When I cut the foam there is no physical template attached to the foam. Yup, they sure have.

I received Jon's foam yesterday and cut his canard cores tonight. Let the photos speak for themselves: Bruce, I got your foam today. I'll probably cut the cores this weekend. Steve

That's a pretty broad question. I've spent the last 2 years developing all the hardware for my machine, electronics included. I always have to do things the hard way:D If I had been working on my airplane instead of being distracted with CNC stuff, I probably would be flying my EZ and working on a Cozy by now. Here's a link to my website with some photos of me etching the circuit boards: http://members.cox.net/ahabsworkshop/Electronics.htm In essence I have a PC that sends signals to drive the 4 motors and the wire heat via the parallel port. This runs into a breakout board that buffers the PC against power surges in the CNC electronics (something I learned about the hard way:eek:) and breaks the signals out to each individual motor. Each set of motor signals then goes to a separate motor driver that actually runs the motor to the proper position. As for software... after testing a number of different software packages I finally settled on GMFC Pro. It has the capability to do everything I need it to do without being extroadinarily expensive. It was "only" about $200. As far as digitizing the templates goes, this has turned out to be rather complicated and time consuming. I can scan them and make the computer vectorize them automatically but it doesn't do a very nice job. It gets confused easily with all the text and such on the drawings. Instead, I've found the best method is to scan them and trace over them manually in CAD. After I have a vectorized version, I can print it out to compare with the original paper copy. This is a rather tedious process but, with a little tweaking, it gives excellent results. This works well enough for simply making a CAD version of the templates but there is really quite a bit more to it than this when you are building a digital template for use with a CNC machine, especially a hotwire. Then you have to take into account wire progression, kerf compensation for differing wire speeds and temps, wire paths, etc. I had no idea what a complicated endeavor this would turn out to be. The good news is that it works pretty well now. I have been very pleased with the results of late.

I decided to do some more testing on cutting full scale canard cores out of the small amount of Wicks polystyrene I have on hand while I wait for a couple of people to send me some more foam for their canards. This is the first time I have cut this type of foam in my machine. I decided to cut a 14" span canard core with a spar trough. This would be like a short section of the center section of the Cozy canard. And the results..... Absolutely perfect! Seriously, I can find no defects whatsoever. There is no sign of wire lag at all; the core matches perfectly with the scale drawing; there are no ridges; there isn't even any angel hair! I see no reason a core cut in this fashion would need any sanding whatsoever. So, what's the next step? Well, a full span set of canard cores to start with, then winglets and wings. Winglets and wings will be more complicated due to the taper involved and a more critical setup but CNC should still excel since it can exactly deliver the correct speed ratio on each end. So far so good!

Yes, that's where I started. It wasn't nearly stiff enough to cut big wings with any kind of precision though. You'd also need awfully big drawer slides to to do EZ or Cozy wings. That design may work for models and it's a great way to start but it just isn't a practical design for full scale stuff. Here's a link to my website where I describe my own CNC hotwire saga: http://members.cox.net/ahabsworkshop/CNC.htm

That sounds like an interesting idea. Maybe I'll just cut some short sections and send them to you. That way you won't have to send them back. I'm also interested in knowing how the Featherlite cores come. Are they ready for glass? Are they already cut in half spanwise for the shearweb? Etc.

Jon, You're actually the second response I've received so far. I'll cut you 1 or 2 cores anyway but everyone else wait till I get the practice to perfect my work and then I'll set some prices.

Oops, actually AeroCad charges $1930 for a complete set of cores for a Cozy, not $1520. I was looking at the wrong price list.

I'm not quite ready to set prices yet. Featherlite charges $1685 for a full set of cores and AeroCad charges $1520. I know AeroCad still cuts them by hand and I wouldn't be surprised to find Featherlite does too. I should be able to do it for substantially less depending on the actual amount of work involved and the price and availability of the raw materials. I've never had the chance to look at AeroCad or Featherlite cores to compare but I do know that CNC cutting eliminates a lot of problems involved with cutting by hand. For one thing, it can totally eliminate wire lag problems since the wire speed is precisely controlled. It is possible to cut by radiance alone which means the wire never even touches the foam. If anyone wants to let me give it a shot, shoot me a private message. I'd like to start with a canard. Just order (and pay for) the foam and have it delivered to my address. I'll cut the core, put all the pieces back in the original box and mail it to you. I won't charge you anything. Please just reimburse me for the shipping. The first one to take me up on this gets this deal. After that, I'll work out the real prices.

Here are some photos of my machine, some 1/4 scale EZ cores, and a full scale sample of a Roncz core.

I recently built a CNC (computer controlled) hotwire foam cutter specifically for cutting foam cores for EZ and Cozy wings. I also digitized the templates for the wings and Roncz canard for the same aircraft. I haven't done the winglets or VEZ templates yet but I certainly could. I have original templates for all 3 aircraft. I originally built this machine to cut my own wings but I was wondering if there would be much interest from others in the community in getting CNC cut cores. CNC cutting eliminates a number of problems inherent in cutting by hand and produces excellent and repeatable results. I haven't yet decided what I would charge for this service but the first 1 or 2 would probably be for only a little more than material costs. That will give me the opportunity to work out actual costs and shipping issues. After that, I'm thinking it will be somewhere around $1000 for wings, winglets, and canard depending on material costs and the actual amount of labor involved. Anyway, right now I'm just trying to decide if there is enough interest to do this at all. Please let me know if any of you would be interested. Thanks

Is this still for sale? I'm interested in the wing fittings.