Pete, we built the canted gear on DE Stubby. But, I don't think it needs a canted gear.
I believe the canted gear came about due to some situation on someone's DE that suggested that the tail was too light on the ground - maybe had a nose-over tendancy. Believing that, we built ours based on the DeLoach design, but maybe did not use his exact numbers. I put the fore/aft axle location at 4" in front of the main gear leg attach point on the fuselage (when level). If there was no cant, the axle would be directly under the main gear attach point. Sitting on the ground, the axle is even further forward relative to the leg attach point.
The result is the tail is very heavy on the ground. Keep in mind that is true despite the fact that our DE is slightly nose heavy due to an engine with all the attachments. Weight and balance numbers show that the tail wheel force on the scale at flying attitude is 34 lbs. If you drop the tail to the ground attitude, the load on the tail wheel increases even more. I don't know the exact number, but probably over 40 lbs, based on my experience picking the aft end up using the tail wheel assembly as a handle.
We put a tail pick-up handle just ahead of the vertical fin leading edge attachment, and it is a real back-breaker to pick up and maneuver the airplane on the ground. You are probably lifting 50-60 lbs at that point.
On the other hand, the tail does come up reasonably fast on take-off roll, so it's not a problem for that reason. And, it does look good, looks fast with the canted gear.
Overall, though, based on our experience, I don't think our DE needs to have the canted gear. I believe that it would have plenty of tail-wheel load with the straight gear to have good ground handling and taxi characteristics.
The straight gear is simpler to build. Plus, there are some minor geometry issues with the canted gear that the straight gear does not have.
Hope this helps with your decision on the gear design.
