August 12, 2005

So I finally got my spacers right. It was a serious pain in the butt. These things are so small with such a subtle angle that it was difficult with the tools that I have to get them in the right shape. This time, I was a little more careful with the set up before the gluing. Again, learning from the mistakes I made the last time I found a good way to ensure the "antlers" were in the right position so that when I went to glue there was no question that they were in the right position. This is the correct shape for the glued frame and a close up of the spacer glued right in there.

Frame #5 gets the entire surface, fore and aft, covered with a thin layer of plywood to help with the strength, but like the others, I'll do that later.

Moving on... I started working on frame #6. Frame #6 is a pretty complicated frame with lots of internal bracing and a curved brace on the bottom. In the distant future there are some components that will be mounted to the aft face of this frame so it has to be robust, exact, and stable. I had a good idea for attaching the antlers in the right position after the frame #5 fiasco so I'm not worried about that too much. I am worried about bending the bottom brace into the right shape though. I asked some other Falco builders about this part when I was at Oshkosh and they all said that this thick spruce brace would take the bend no problem. Since they say it's possible, it must be so. I imagine it will take some soaking though. But first things first. Today I just worked mainly on some of the many small internal bracing pieces that build up the frame. Sorry, nothing exciting to take a picture of.

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