So I've decided to take of all tape, repair the damaged parts, move the servos forward & center,
make a coroplast batterybay cover,install gold-n-rods, spackle, and re-cover with Oracover.
It'll take a while, because I'm a slow builder, and I don't have all materials yet.

But here's the start. I took out the Rx, sp400 motor, and ESC and put her on the scales.
Pity I do not remember what the weight was when new.

Then I took off all tape. Frightening how easy that went. Even the servos came out easy
after the tape was removed! Anyway, this was after just over an hour peeling.

The nose damage (sorry, my 4 year old digital camera does not do closeups very good).
Here I think I'll push in some EPP balls and spackle. Or just sand the nose rounder?

This is more troubling; the TE is crumbly. Close to the tip the wing is very soft (bends easy)

Had some spare time (and spare EPP), so I made two plugs for the old servobays. They're a
press-fit, so I put a minimal amount of glue on the underside of the plug.

The small openings from the servolugs were left open on purpose. With a Q-tip I moistened
the inside, and put some Gorilla Glue in there. The idea being that the expanded glue will keep the foam
plug in place by glue and pressure.

Once it's dry I will even out the top surface with spackle. That'll be tomorrow.

And the fun continues...

I cut up some EPP in small pieces, mixed with 30minute epoxy, and covered the nose.
Tomorrow I'll sand it...

Spackled the part where I used to have the servos, just to see how this stuff works. Spreads
on easy, and dries in about 10-15 minutes. And the best part is that, when dry, it bends! :) I left on
purpose some on the card-key and tried bending it. No cracking at all!

This is going to be the new servo position (I think)

or maybe this

Then again, it could be here...

OK. I've decided. Then I cut out the foam all the way to the bottom. Measured how deep I wanted the servo,
and cut of a sliver of the square of foam I cut out. With some epoxy I glued it back in place.
I know there are purists among you who have used dremmel tools etc., but I realy wanted to see
how difficult/easy this method was, since I've seen it used on several other wing building instructions.
Well, it was very simple. And should the occasion occur again, I'd do it again.
No fuss, no mess.

Now came the task of planning the pushrod placement.

I taped the wing to the table, and taped the golden rod to the table and to the wing (where I want it to connect to the elevon).
The two marks on the outer wing are the 42" marks. I wanted to connect the pushrods in the
middle of the elevon when the wing is cut down to 42". (Thinking ahead for once..)

I sliced a V along the lines, to take out the top of the foam. I kept that sliver for later use.

I then started the time honored method of cutting away little bits and pieces of foam to make a channel for the pushrod.

That was way too messy and slow. I plugged in my soldering iron, and waited a couple of minutes.
When it was hot enough to feel the heat when I held my hand real close I carefully traced the channel.
You have to be real careful doing this. If the iron is too hot you will melt a channel into the foam big
enough to hide Blackbeard's lost treasure. Even with the iron on the correct heat, you still have to move along
fast and steady to prevent burn marks. Not for aestetic reasons, but the burned parts are very rigid,
and will break away when sanding.

Since one of the reasons for this project is trying different methods, I purchased a hot-glue-gun for the next stage.
I first tried on a piece of scrap foam, to see if the heat would melt the foam.
Well, the glue itself will not melt the foam. The nozzle of the glue-gun however is a different story...
Another thing I tried out first, was to see if the hot glue would effect the plastic of the pushrod.
It didn't. So, without further delay, glue was applied. I got carried away a bit, and will have to cut away
a lot of the top layer of glue, but it works great!
On this picture you can also see the piece of fibertape I used where the pushrod comes out of the foam.
Thank you Mafu for the excellent hints you posted

Having had the experience on the right side, the left side went a lot easier. And neater too!

I think they are almost symetrical.

A close up of the servo end. Plenty of room for servo arm movement here. I'll have to cut the top of the
servo arm of to make it all flush. The servos themselves will be covered with a piece of foam.
I may keep a small opening where the servo arm is; just in case.

And a close up of t'other end.

Keeping the theme of "different methods", I sprayed some 3M77 into a plastic cup (mistake, but more about that later)
and with an old brush I brushed the liquid glue onto the pushrod, and covered the whole mess with the sliver of foam I had kept.
I covered the wing with greasproof baking paper and weighed down the whole glued area. The glue is not
quick drying I so I could take my time. At least I thought so. I was right about the drying time.
But the glue had melted the plastic cup I sprayed it into. So I had to work with some haste to save the glue,
and the diningroom table (in that order). The next batch I'll spray into a paper cup.

The finished product. Almost no sanding necessary.

I have ordered from Mark Chamberlain a new motor tube, because I noticed the original one had a crack on top,
just behind the spar. The fiber tape and silver covering tape hid the crack from sight.

The new tube hasn't arrived yet, but I already removed the old tube with a lot of cutting and careful
pulling with a pair of tweezers.

To my unpleasant surprise I found that the cf rod is cracked in several places. And that's only on the part I can see!
It now appears that the spectacular one point landings and bounces did not go without any damage after all.
Each time the motor dissapeared inside the tube, trying to come out the other side, the spar got knocked.
At a glance there was no damage, but now that I have removed the tube it is clear that I should have done
something about the sliding motor. It must be noted that I have one of the early 'Corns, before they came
with an inside tube to stop the motor from sliding inside the motor tube.

So yet another mod to add to my list. But first I will have to dig up the whole main spar and replace it. I hate making a mess :-(

I started of with some exploratory surgery, in the hope that only the visible part of the rod was damaged...

Alas, the split went all the way into the foam.

I dug out the old rod. By pure chance I had a spare CF rod from another project.

I hot glued the spar in place.

Then put masking tape on either side of the slot, wet it with a cloth, put some dots of Gorilla Glue on,
covered the slot with some spare EPP, covered the whole thing with greaseproof paper, and put some weights on it.

And here's the result.

I ordered a PolyQuest 2600 3S battery pack from Aircraft-World.com. It fits almost perfectly.
To be on the safe side, I will dig a bit of EPP out, so the pack will be well below the bottom level.

And another mod; the batterybay cover will be made from coroplast for further protection.

Spackled one bottom part

And a new location for the Rx. I wanted it further forward, but still well protected. So instead of
accross like in the plan, I put my Rx lengthwise. And a carefull observer wil notice I moved the Rx from
the left side of ther battery bay to right side. This was done for the pure scientifically conjectured reason
that I had already spackled the other side and forgot about the Rx...

A Rx cover was made from the part I cut out, I wrapped the Rx in greaseproof paper, and epoxied the Rx cover in place.

Then the antenna was routed about 1cm from the LE, and the rest of the bottom was spackled.

Next task; sanding! (I hate making a mess)

I've rough sanded the bottom (with a sanding machine) in 3 half hour sessions. That stuff is tough!

To stiffen the wingtips I decided to insert a carbon fiber flatrod in the tip.
2 25cm strips were cut, and a line 5cm paralel to the TE was drawn.

To make sure I wouldn't cut too deep, I taped a new blade at the 6mm mark (the flatrods are 4mm wide).

I made a incission along the line, and press fitted the rods.

Once in place, I put in a few drops of thin CA, to "fix" the rods in place.

And then spackled the area.

And while spackling, I did some more troublespots on the wingtop.

I took my time sanding the wing's top and bottom. Oh, who am I kidding? It took a long time sanding,
'cause this spackle is SO tough! To avoid ruining things I decided not to sand longer than 30 minutes a go.
I first rough sanded with 60 grit (with a sanding machine), and than gradually moved to 600 grit wet sanding.
Smooth as the proverbial baby's bottom!

Time to attack the TE. I cut two CF flatrods to size.

I put a few pieces of masking tape on the wingbottom, ready to tape down the cf strip.

I weighed down the wing, so it would lie straight, and wouldn't move by accident.
A thin layer of 5 minute epoxy was applied, and the masking tape folded over to keep it all in place.

When one side was dry the other side was done, and lo and behold; both sides are straight!

At a closer look you can see that the TE is crumbled. I will fill this up with some light weight spackle.

There seems to be a wingtip missing as well...

For some more wingtip protection I epoxied also a cf strip to the wingtip.

LOOK MA, WINGTIPS!

BACK TO THE SERVOS!
After trial fitting (making sure the servo press fits) I covered the servos in masking tape.

Then in cling film.

and then in a tough plastic bag.

I mixed some 5 minute epoxy and Soda Bicarb (50/50), and poured a dollop in the servo bay.
Then pressed the servo in place, waited for the epoxy mixture to start setting, and pulled
the servo out. Et voila!

With the servo out of the bag and clingfilm (I kept the masking tape on) the servo fits very snug.
And with a lid glued in to cover the servo, it will not move.

One small glitch though. I misscalculated the servo depth, and with the pushrod on the third hole
of the servo arm, the tip of the arm sticks up, out of the top surface.
I will leave it as is for now, since I don't want to lower the pushrod, and end up with not enough
elevon movement. I can easily lift the servo lid, pop out the servo and change servo arm.

With the servos in a different place, I also had to re-route the servo wiring.
You can also see here that I put a thin layer of epoxy in the battery bay, after I deepened it a bit.

I trial fitted the aluminium plate, marked the holes, and drilled the holes in the foam.
I then wrapped two matches in greaseproof paper and inserted them in the drilled holes to prevent glue from closing them.

I cut a few carbon strips and mixed some more epoxy. I put a tiny amount of epoxy (just a
few drops in strategic places) on the foam, to anchor the few strips of carbon. I put them along the
center line of the wing, since the foam is very thin here. Then I spread some epoxy on the
sanded) aluminium plate (first cleaned both the wing and plate with some rubbing alcohol)
and placed the plate on the wing, in line with the pre-drilled holes. I covered the plate with greaseproof paper
and put some weights on the wing, till the epoxy had cured.

Done.

Next step; fiber tape...

I very lightly sprayed the wing with 3M77 (twice) and applied fiber tape in the usual fashion.
You've all seen that before, so I didn't take any pics of that. If you realy want to see
fiber tape pics go to my first Unicorn building page.

After fibertaping, I again lightly sanded the wing and the fiber tape.
I cut out two pieces of Oracover, making sure they would slightly overlap the LE and TE.

I masking taped the bottom of the wing, and taped of the servo openings, and then lightly sprayed the top
surface again. Misting would be a better description.

I then carefully applied the oracover sheets and used a covering iron on "low" to fix the Oracover.
This is the first time I cover such a large area, and made a right mess of
it. Afterwards I used a heat gun lightly, and the worst wrinkles dissapeared. But it still looks
like the neck skin of an aging filmstar in dire need of plastic surgery.

I found that several times 5 minutes of heatgun application gave the best result.
It's not as smooth as I want it to be, but for a first ever effort of such a large surface
it looks pretty darn good! An added bonus; it seems much stiffer and stronger then the previous
packingtape covering.

I made a coroplast batterybay cover. I think it looks better than the floppy flimsy piece
of plastic originally used. It's stronger too! To get some more aircooling around the battery
I made a little airscoop. I cut a hole in the coroplast, cut of the tip of a plastic spoon,
and glued the scoop in place.

I got sidetracked a bit there, and made some bullet proof elevons
I cut out 4 pieces of 2mm balsa in elevon shape.

Then I seperated 4 Carbon Fiber strips (they come pre-scored)

This is what they look like up close...

Two strips per elevon like so.

I mixed some 30 minute epoxy, spread a thin layer evenly on the balsa, and placed the
two CF strips on the epoxy. Then I placed the second piece of 2mm balsa on top of that,
wrapped the whole business in greaseproof paper (don't want an epoxy mess on the table now, do we?)
and clamped it together.

Despite using as little epoxy as possible, there still oozed some out. Good thing I used
the greaseproof paper. Most of it I could cut away very carefully with a fresh X-acto knife.
The general area where the control horn would be I soaked with thin CA.

Once epoxy-fied, those flimsy carbon strips are realy tough!

I bevelled the elevons' LE, but I didn't go overboard on the TE. Just rounded it somewhat
and left it at that. I used Oracover for covering. The plan was white with red stripes.
But I ran out of white Oracover, so one side is white with red stripes, and the other side is red
with white stripes... I then cut of the elevon tips, so the prop won't hit on the inside,
and the winglet won't interfere on the outside

I then loosely attached the elevons to the wing with two pieces of tape, to mark the control horn position.

I removed the elevons from the wing and attached the control horns. Much easier to do it this way,
then doing it with the elevons attached semi-permanently to the wing.

The elevon tips were covered with some fibertape.

This is the interior layout. ESC in the motor tube, Rx in the sidepocket, and the
Polyquest 2600 3S1P in the (forward extended) battery bay. The battery is an extremely snug fit,
and I don't think I need to put velcro on the battery.

I glued velcro on the end of the bay-lid, so the lid sticks slightly up. Should improve the
flow of cooling air.

And just so you know what's under the hood:

I opened up the area where the servoarm is, and fed the Golden Rods through. Clipped the
clevises on the arms, with a piece of (see-through) heatshrink to keep it all in place.

I spend an evening with the family in front of the TV. But I couldn't help myself.
I sliced a gazillion 4cm by 1cm pieces of fibertape, and then put them in pairs for the hinges.

To prevent binding, I made sure that the elevons could give more then maximum throw,
and were attached without tension.

The piece of cardboard you see lying on top is a template I use to get the 1/4" reflex.

Once the reflex was set, I put heat shrink on the clevises.

Remember the first picture, when I started? Remember the 450 grams (15.9Oz)?
Well, all this renovation has added a whopping 212 grams (7.5 Oz)! Eeeeek!

AUW with the Mega, Phoenix, and LiPoly is now 988 grams (34.9Oz). You think it'll fly?

Find out here:
Flight Report
After that flight I decided to make some alterations with the way the motor was mounted:
Motor Mount

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