Well shucks. The powder coating place was short staffed. A kid with a forklift can do in a few minutes what a speed shop will take all day to repair.
Tomorrow is going to be replacing tubes to get the fuselage back into coating.
Slow progress. With the Winter weather I cant heat my big shop. I have just been occasionally tinkering on the project on my back porch. Mainly, Ive made up new birch ribs after enlarging the tail. Im using the Sheet metal tab from the kit option with RC Allen servos. Ive made Birch/balsa parts to fair the tabs and servos into the tail.
I need to work the stringers into the wide-body kit and install the rudder cables with a couple of light turnbuckles Im adding. Im thinking it maybe easier to get started covering and painting before adding a lot of systems/pumbing.
Im putting new floors in the house but managed to sneak in a little time on the Kitfox. I did some light CAD work. The geometry of the trim tab control horns isnt going to work for me so I drew up some new parts with the pushrod connection little further outboard. I bundled them with a new trim tab for my biplane. While I was at it, I didnt like the idea of refinishing the adjustment brackets for the rudder horn down the road. I drew that part as well and sent them out to be cut from stainless. Those should be back in a week. The aluminum caps for the trim tab ends dont fit well. I made arrangements to 3D print some end caps with a friend.
Cole helped me flip the fuselage over. I spent some time extending the side stringers into the wide-body sheet metal, made a couple of new standoffs and got the side stringers all glued up. When I got to reattaching the bottom stringer, I noticed that the rod end for the flap pushrod was going to push below the stringer at full deflection. I kind of hated the shape as-is. I ended up making a couple of short standoffs to create clearance for the pushrod, then tucked the bottom stringer in a bay early rather than having it hang aft of the tow-bar forward mount.
Ive planned out how to Hotwire a new set of male molds for the wingtips and should be getting into that soon. Im just heating a small area here for T88 and hysol work. Winter is hanging on and it snowed today. We are supposed to see 60f this weekend. Warm wx should let me get started with some fabric, fiberglass and paintwork soon.
1 step back.
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