January 14, 2007

I'm back from a lovely vacation. It's always good when you start the new year on a wonderful trip. It's been pretty cold in Los Angeles lately, down to the 30's at night and 50's during the day. I'm not sure how much gluing I'll be able to do until it warms up a little. I could bring some things inside the house to glue but sometimes that just doesn't work. It's also been really dry lately. The heater in the house dries the air even further and I can see the tail ribs mounted on the wall bending slightly as the plywood web shrinks. I've noticed this happen before, but as the air settled back to its normal humidity, they straighten back up again. Hopefully, the extended dryness won't preclude them from straightening back up again this time. I think when I get to the skinning stage of building, I will definitely invest in a moisture meter and a hygrometer, just to be aware of those things.

I'm working on the second rib for station 6 using the same jig. It significantly cuts down on the build time by having that jig already made. I've only spent about an hour and a half on the second rib and it's almost time to glue it...which I can't do because it's too cold.

A couple of friends, Jon and Matt, expressed interest in helping me out so I gave them each the responsibility for a rib (or 2 by reusing the same jig). After some football and beer we went out to the garage and I walked them through making the jigs. They are working on the station 7 and station 8 ribs. Look at my slave laborers go.

Since my gluing opportunities are not that numerous, there are some odds and ends I can work on like wing trailing edge ribs and making more jigs, that don't require gluing. I still need to put the shear plywood web on the main stabilizer spar as well because I still don't have the right thickness plywood for the center section of the web. Maybe I'll go get that this weekend. I really need to get that thing off the table so I can use it for different things.

School has started back up again, and work of course, so again, building time is limited. I'll be done with my degree in May so hopefully that will free up some time when I'm not at work. I'm not in any big rush though, I'm enjoying building these parts in my spare time. I guess I'm mostly just a weekend warrior for now.

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