Had to do some necessary improvements on my tax burden this Fall and early Winter. In case you need to know or are curious, the life span of TYVEK in Northern Minnesota is 6 yrs. The shop looks a little goofy, but I plan to extend the roof out in the next few years to shelter my stuff. I also reorganized/finished the inside of my shop to make it more user friendly. I moved my table to a better location and put everything that was heavy on casters so I'm not fighting my work area so much. If anyone has not tried the incandescent style LED light bulbs by the way, I recommend them, really nice bright light.
I also spent what my wife feels should be airplane money on some tools that I've been doing without that will come in handy for the build. Used cheapy horizontal bandsaw that can be used in the vertical position, a plasma cutter for stainless and other heavier non-ferrous parts. I also bought a couple of smaller torch kits and new regulators. My old regulators needed new innards and were obsolete. My old torch kit was better suited for bridge work, (Too big and heavy for welding).
I've nearly completed fabricating all my aluminum parts for the wing. I have posted some pictures of flap/aileron spars, cove pieces, trailing edge for flaps/ailerons. Gage and Ellis are holding those. I decided to go with 8' ailerons and 8' flaps of standard chord. I showed the boys how to put a plug in a flat tire on Sunday. Both were relieved it was a screw that was extracted and not one of their nails. I am working on my drag stuts, N-braces now. I plan to order my spars and drag wires very soon. I can then put most of the wing together, make the tanks, so on and so forth. Hopefully by June 1st, I'll have something big and unhandy to hang up somewhere in my shop.
If someone has a stock drag strut and just a drag tube plug lying around and would weigh it for me, I'd appreciate it. I had to make some changes because of availability of materials and I'm curious how mine compare.
I've been following everyone's progress since I posted last. Hat's off to Bill Rusk, Lowrider, Olibuilt, and Larry Vetterman (and of course everyone else I failed to mention).
Thanks,
Jim Allen