October 21, 2024

I'm still here! I know, amazing isn't it. I've been able to start building again but I had to do some re-learning and re-tooling. The garage is back in workshop shape and progress is being made. I've been working since about May/June of this year. The progress dates in this log don't capture when all of the work was done but mostly captures periods of sustained activity. My Falco story continues.

After sitting around for almost ten years, I finally got my stabilizer fully skinned. There are lots of little details and skills to this process but I'm glad to get this behind me since I was "stuck" on it for so long. The short version of the process is the thin plywood skin is glued on, steamed around the leading edge and then glued, faired along the leading edge, and then repeated on the other side, sanding the leading edge round at the end. Here are some pictures of the process.

With that behind me, I was able to start some new structure! The rudder was next. Here's the build up of the rudder. It's float sanded now and ready to be skinned. I'll try to post another update when it's skinned. After that, the fin will be built next.

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