“FUN” WITH STRINGERS Today was a rare occasion of just having to gut it out. In some of the builder logs that I read, some people really enjoy the straightforward task of making stringers or ribs for various parts and pieces, but for some reason these stringers just drove me… Read More »If you don’t have anything nice to say, it’s probably about stringers
Today was a good motivating day for me. I have finally put the never-ending elevators up in storage (I’ll have to get a picture of how I’m storing things put up here as well – perhaps that can help someone else along the way trying to make this happen in… Read More »It’s beginning to look a lot like… well… not much
What a marathon, but it really feels great to have one of the first moving parts of the airplane done. When I first began the elevators I had no idea how involved they would become, but this truly was one of the more involved and challenging parts of the build… Read More »Elevators = DONE
After much back and forth, I decided that for the process of attaching the trim tabs to the piano hinge and subsequently to the elevators, I needed to make a call to the bullpen and bring out a real ace. I think you’ll see I made precisely the right call.… Read More »Called in a real trim tab expert
Lots of action today in a pretty good sized build session, so let’s jump right in. I started by looking back from the very beginning of the elevators section of the manual to make sure that I have accomplished every task along the way since I had jumped around a… Read More »Two steps forward, one step back into tank sealant
With the rudder squarely in my rear view mirror, I knew the day would come again soon whereby I would be expected to roll some leading edges and rivet them together. This was a particularly challenging skill for me to embrace last time and I ended up drilling out a… Read More »They see me rollin’… leading edges
These elevators have a surprising level of complexity to them and have taken longer to assemble than I had originally estimated. With this part of the process, it isn’t the large volumes of repetitive work that slow you down, it is the small detail work that takes a long time… Read More »Stairway to Heaven – aka “The never-ending elevator”
Today started off innocently enough with me getting back into a rhythm after being out the past 10 days on vacation (which by the way was magnificent – thanks for asking). I completed riveting the leading edge spars on each of the elevators and then moved on to the counterbalance… Read More »Tank sealant and rivets – breakfast of champions
NEW TOYS For starters, yes, yes I am quite pleased with myself for that delightful pun. If you have read even one other post prior to this, you’ve already prepared yourself for it so hopefully it didn’t sting as much. All kidding aside there was some excellent progress made yesterday,… Read More »A real “uplifting” session on the elevators
As you can probably tell by the title, my priorities were elsewhere this evening. I didn’t get started on the elevators tonight until after the Cub game ended. Normally this isn’t a big deal, but after taking 2 of the first 3 from the Nationals, I could barely keep focused… Read More »Cubs win NLDS Game 2! (and a few brief rivets)