I am in the process of building a forward swept wing canard. It is called  FIREBOLT it was in the AMA mag way back in84. I built one about 25 years ago and it flew great. Any way i'm building another one now. It should be ready in a few more weeks.
I have also built many many canards of my own design. Some flew good and some not so good. I use the TLAR method of building ( that looks about right}
Years ago i flew with the BAMA FLYERS show team i had 2 canards doing the stars war act 1 was a x-wing sort of like the x-wing fighter and the other was DARTH VADER in a solid black canard. It was a lot of fun
Any way if i can help let me know
John

You sure can...
Later today I will pose a picture of the main wing.  I got the halves joined yesterday.  It has a slight forward sweep, and dihedral at about what you would expect for most trainers.  I'm using your TLAR design technique, and concentrating on keeping it light weight.  Here's the Gryphon  which has a 68" wingspan...  the new canard (SnellEnte) will be about 42" wingspan.
I have micro servo's already programmed for Elevon, and was planning on using one side of the servo to run the elevons, and the other to go forward to the Canard, but use far less throw on the canard (Elevons +/- 1 inch throw Canard +/- half inch) and starting point for CG will be 20% back from LE of main wing.  All based on the Gryphon pictured below





KKKKFL

Here are some shots in the midst of building. forward sweep is slight.



Dihedral




last shot, note root template next to the body.




Still under the self imposed weight limit wit gear in...

Gonna install two hatches one forward and one center.

Will probably get much closer this weekend.

Now where should I start with the CG?

KKKKFL

CG depends on canard, which you have not added yet.
Will you?

You can see the location in the pictures. Blue marker outline with a pivot point about 2 inches back from the nose and exactly 10 inches in front of the leading edge of the main wing (the pivot point). Canard will have a 3 inch root and 2 inch tip and span of 6 inches on each side (12 inch total).

A very slight sweep, but basically a rhomboidal shape.

I just need a guess as to where to start, I'm thinking only an inch back on the main wing, to keep it nose heavy which is a better condition to start from.

KKKKFL

Canards are tandem wings: both lift.
Then, the neutral point is somewhere between both wings.
CG must be forward of that point.

Elevator to be located in the front plane.
AOA of the front plane always bigger than the AOA of the main wing, so the front plane stalls first.

Use this on-line calculator, using the wing of the regular setup that is represented as the front plane or canard, and the stab as the wing of your model.

http://www.geistware.com/rcmodeling/cg_super_calc.htm

For the Canard CG Calculator, use http://adamone.rchomepage.com/cg_canard.htm. It will give you a safe nose heavy condition. Once you are comfortable with the flying characteristics, you may want to move the CG back a little. Someone asked for this info in a PM. This is the reply. I currently fly a swept wing canard with an OS 46AX pusher engine and main wing mounted vertical stabs with two rudders. You can search for photos on RCUnivers, on the SPAD Forum, as Swept Wing Canard. It is a SPAD, made from Coroplast rather than balsa wood. Easy to build, tough as nails, no covering required, low cost.

Franco I can maybe help with cg location since i'm also building a forward swept wing canard. Let me know the length of the fuse and the wing span and i'll compare it to mine as where the cg is
On my other canaeds with a straight wing the cg was 2-3/4" in front of leading edge of wing. hope this helps
John

Here are some shots... got a good bit done over the blustery weekend. First an over all... I put a yard stick under the wing.




Next a close up


And lastly a kinda top shot.



Inside the front canard controls are on a sliding tray. The tray is hooked to the gear servo right now so I can alter the AOA of the front canard by 3-5 degrees. Its in the full up position in these shots.

The CG is about 1.5 inches back from the leading edge at the root, but I think it might need to move back. Weight is still under 30 ounces with everything in it which is my goal.

KKKKFL

Should have added these:
Span is 47 inches for main wing  root is 12.5 inches tip is 6 inches
Canard is 5 inches at root and 3.5 at the tip span is 14 inches
From the canard pivot point to the CG its 12.5 inches  and total length is 30 inches.

I will take any guestimates as to what the throws should be.  Remember the elevons in the tail are part of the soup.
The Canard has both pitch and  roll and can be independantly moved to provide more or less AOA.

KKKKFL

That's a fairly small canard. Run the CG location software to find out where it suggests that your final balance be located.

Actually my eyeball tells me that at 1.5 inches back from the leading edge and with the forward sweep due to both the sweep and the taper you may need to move the CG forward a little or leave it where it is now. But that's just a gut feeling. Run the numbers through the calculators the others linked for you.

You can see on the side of the fuselage where I initially had the root of the canard slightly longer (Blue line), but it didn't look right.  I then looked at the total area of the horizontal stab on my AT-6 and sent with approximately the same area...  talk about guesstimate...

If I find I need more area, the nice thing is it will be easy to build a second set.  Might do that just for drill and have a big-un and a smaller one.


KKKKFL

Odd though it sounds since you have a symetrical airfoil on the main wing you would be best off by selecting a CG location that results in a fairly low stability margin. The less work the canard has to do the better.

Also if you make a new one may I suggest using a "proper" airfoil? Since the rear wing is symetrical by the looks of it I'd suggest a Selig 8020 airfoil. He designed it as a stabilator airfoil for gliders to operate at fairly low reynolds numbers and have low drag for modest angles of attack. It's also more stall resistant than many other options.

The main wing is not symetrical.. it is actually a copy of the old Carl Goldberg semi-symetrical airfoil that was used on the Senior Falcon and on the Falcon 56... I'll look at the Selig 8020 but would guess that its pretty close.. If I had to describe it, at about the 20%-25% point, the bottom starts to flatten while the top continues to curve upwards.(look closely starting at the4th rib out and you'll see how its pretty flat) At 50% the top starts dropping towards the trailing edge, while the bottom has a straight line back. Of course these are approximations.

KKKKFL

If you're using that Goldberg airfoil then your canard should also have some camber to the airfoil for best overall balance of the two surfaces as it will be called on to do some of the lifting work. And most writeups I've seen call for the canard surface airfoil to have a little more strongly cambered an airfoil than the rear wing. Now you can get that by either using a full flying surface, as you're doing, that has a cambered airfoil or you can do it by using a fixed forward surface and flap/elevator. In that case the flap/elevator is acting as a camber altering surface to add or remove camber as needed. The only trouble with a movable control surface instead of an all flying surface is that the hinge line can force the section to stall and lose lift earlier than a high camber value all flying airfoil with a good airfoil.

Just dumb luck on my part...  the Canard is fairly close to a Clark "Y"... flat bottom curved top.

In the past I have usually err'd with too much control, since it's easier to move up or down on a clevis.  And, now with the specktrum radio, I have control over servo range as well.  My preference is to have lots of servo travel, and take out over control by moving outwards on the clevis.

KKKKFL