I finally got back out in the garage after being knocked out with the flue for a week. Last night I just decided to try and get my old scroll saw working. I am not real thrilled with the formers that I have cut out with the jigsaw and I especially want to be able to cut some consistent curves when I make the sanding tool for the fuselage curves. I have to say that I have found a site that talked about the details of building the Corvair engine. I am still a way from working on that, but I loved the detail on the website

http://www.roysgarage.com/new/Welcome.html

I hope to be back out in the garage this weekend and getting moving on the fuselage

In spite of being sick I was able to do a little work here and there. I finished sanding the vertical tail and I attached the edge where the copper wire for the antennae goes. I also worked on the two stands for the forward fuselage bottom. I am not happy with the x-30 foam material. I will have to use some micro to get the gaps and uneven parts right. I am going to finish work on the wire first. The key part of the stands is to make sure that they are level in all three directions. The height off the floor is not as important as the levelness.

So here is another fine mess. Here you see a close up and a big picture of the vertical tail that I am working on. This material X-30 combines two liquids and the reaction between the two is an expanding foam which hardens like a rock pretty quickly. At first I thought it would be use to attach the blue foam to the ribs. Then I thought it would be a good material to even out the foam and fill in the gaps. Well none of that has worked very well. The foam expands wonderfully. In fact I don't know why the foam isn't used to just fill in the whole section between the ribs. But anyways it does not spread very well at all. I poured it into some holes and it expanded and filled the holes, but spreading it to make a smooth surface just did not work. So I ended up with some very lumpy application which when attempting to sand it down to a smooth surface doesn't work because it just cracks off the foam. You can see on the close up where I tried to create a smooth layup of this material, but it just clumps together like lumpy soup and gets more uneven not less. At this point I am thinking of ripping out the blue foam and using just a dab of X-30 in a few spots. But I don't know yet.

Last night I started playing with the X-30 foam. The directions were to mix it, apply it, and stuff the blue foam in between the ribs. Well I mixed too much at first. I was not expecting the expansion. Then I tried spreading it on the ribs before it had hardened and it just did not spread very well. I found that it poured pretty good so I made up smaller batches and poured it in the gaps. When I finished some of the the left over expanding cups (you can see them in the picture) hardened incredibly hard. I wonder why you don't just pour it in between the ribs and let it go. Oh well I am just following directions. Notice the two floor bottoms standing up. That is one too many.

I spent 20 minutes just cutting out the forward fuselage bottom from the layup I had done. The second one because remember the first one was 2 inches too short. As Brian nicely pointed out. I need to more careful all the time. I am now exactly where I was before Christmas. I lost a month and a half. I am not tracking my time I am just trying to work. I was spending too much time finding the right podcast or music and keeping track of the work that I lost a little sight of the goal of eventually flying a plane.

I have been working a little more. Once I get this piece cut out (it is already fiberglassed just not shown in the picture) I will be back where I thought I was before Christmas.

I have no picture today. I actually glued something last night. Unfortunately I have to redo the bottom of the forward fuselage. I don't know how I messed it up so badly. 2 inches!! It felt good to get out there and glue something. All I did was attach the 6 inch addition to the 24 inch foam. Tonight I hope to layout the bottom and sand the joggles. Saturday I hope to lay up the fiberglass and then maybe next week I can start setting up the formers.

1148 Days 1924 Hours

I can't beleive it has been over a month. we were out of the state for about 2 and half weeks and with Christmas and New Years it has been difficult to get back out to the garage. Well last night (after cleaning up a lot) I started looking at where I was at. I measured the bottom side of the forward fuselage and it was 2 inches short! How can that be? I cannot believe that I made that big of a mistake. I am going to have to do it over. Arghhh. What happened? I have no idea. All I can do is keep moving forward.

BTW I got x-plane and a flight sim yoke for Christmas. I hope they motivate me to get out to the garage more and not keep me from working on the plane.