After camping Goat work

The first annual Memorial Day camping trip is over and the 10 miles we hiked on Sunday is still hurting my calf muscles ... wow.

Goat is for some reason back on the front burner. I decided today to work on the tail struts. After cutting and filing the four pieces, I fitted one end of each and have yet to cut the struts to length until I do the final alignment against the vertical tail. I also should note that Aircraft Spruce did not have 3/8 x 0.035" in stock, so I used 0.058". This puts more weight in the tail, which is never a good thing, but the extra security feels nice.

I also assembled the whole aircraft (minus wings) in the apartment again. This included finally drilling holes in the upper vertical tail attach point to accept the upper pin; this tube end was replaced when I mis-drilled the original, so I took my time. Now I can fold up the vertical tail and use the real forward pin to attach it to the lower, rotating vertical tail part from G4T14. Two birds with one stone.

The control lines are currently simply a tied up messy bundle and rather stretchy. I really should use the quick links and at least make my temporary lines the right length. I just noticed in the picture that the right rudder line is running beneath the wrong tube. Remember this setup is temporary. Also temporary is the lower attach pin is shown here as a 3/16" bolt before getting stepped up to the correct 1/4" diameter.


Oh I also took a shot on Friday of the horizontal tail ribs still with peel-ply. I'm really dissatisfied with the finish of the blue foam compared to the pink foam. I think the bond is roughly equivalent, but the finished rib in blue foam sure looks comparatively awful. It's all hidden by covering in the end of course...