First, Build a Shed

[TahoeTim]

I will do my bottom stringer last while it's upside down for covering. You don't have to follow the manual page by page

[colospace]

I really appreciated being able to rotate in my fixture during the covering process. I only put my gear on once all the fabric and tapes were on (no paint as I used Oratex).
Sure was a super feeling to see it on its gear once I got to that point.

[jrevens]

Same as Gary... I didn't want to mount my landing gear, only to have to take it off for covering. I waited until the fuselage was covered (with Oratex also).

[Cherrybark]

Progress seemed to slow to a crawl over the past few days. One of the tasks was installing the floor boards. While match drilling the board and playing with clecos for the first time, I thought "Hey, now I'm really building an airplane!". I'm re-reading other build threads while moving through the build. Esser had the same thought during this stage. It's interesting to be traveling the same path as others on the forum. And I cannot repeat too many times how much I appreciate others documenting their builds.

Like a few others, I fooled around with boats for several years. West System epoxy comes immediately to mind for coating plywood and I had the materials on hand. Most boat work is outdoors and their "Slow" catalyst is favored for extended pot life. In an A/C environment, you have time to kill ever after "painting" all five boards. I used a cheap chip brush and threw it away after each coat. With West you can recoat after the surface reaches "masking tape tacky" so three coats on one side is possible in a day. This is a very useful product and the odor, not objectionable at all, brought several boat projects to mind.

The boards fit too snugly after coating and needed a little trimming. And the center console isn't going to fit without a little sanding. A little touch up epoxy will take care of the raw edges.

Should you decide to try West System, their dispensing pumps are highly recommended. The most common hardener is a 5:1 ratio and the pumps make measurement simple. The pumps can be left in place when stored.

When the front board is actually down that left side doesn't look so bad.

[Cherrybark]

While reading Esser's thread I came across his work to reduce drag in the control stick by shimming the aluminum block on the right hand side. This block needs to be nicely aligned with the white "nylon" block on the left side. Seems easy enough but I fiddled with washers and sanding the nylon off and on over three days before being completely happy. Other work was getting done but the drag kept nagging at me. Everything would be beautifully smooth, final torque, drag! No clue how many times it took but the controls work smoothly now and it was definitely worth the effort.

Tip. The tubing above the cockpit is the same diameter as the control tubing. Cutting a piece of sandpaper and "blue" taping it to this tube makes it easy to do quick sanding of the nylon block. Sand, slide the block onto a clear section of tube, tighten, test for drag, rinse and repeat.

After the third or forth disassembly I realized the nyloc nuts were going to need replacing. Happily, assortments of common bolts, nuts, pins and other "consumables" are just a phone call away. I ended up with washers under all four corners of the aluminum bearing block. As TahoeTim pointed out on the other tread, adding washers often requires slightly longer bolts so threads will extend beyond the nyloc nut. The final assembly included these longer bolts and new nyloc nuts.

[Cherrybark]

It's been years since I did any safety wire work. Here's my version of wiring the flapperon mixer bolt.

[Cherrybark]

After tacking ribs in place with super glue and taping, I whipped up a batch of Hysol, picked up my trusty pate knife and made fillets. A smear of an alcohol dipped finger and I was pretty pleased with the results.

I put stiffeners on every rib that couldn't be glued to a metal rib. It's a little weight but I'm more worried about having secure ribs during covering.