Gday Kirk,
hmm sounds like you may be oversanding. If you are not going to glass (why the phluck not???) then a light sand, a thin coat of dope and then light sand again should be all that's needed.
Monocoat? Ughhhhh yuk hate the stuff! Give me glass and paint any day.
As for the canopy I would have to go measure the one in the kit then do a calculation based on my 3 views which are 1:72, think the diff is a factor of about 12.5. Anyway knowing TF it most likely is not exact scale but as long as it is pretty close I'll leave it as is.
See we don't have an off season from flying, especially here in Brisbane in God's own country in the State of Queensland - don't worry I'm no Bible basher and no offence if you are!! ok time to change feet.
back to my point which was, ummm sound like Billy Connolly without the wit hehehe yeah yeah ok back to my point the weather here even in winter only gets to a min of 18C and max up to say about 30 at times during the day so we have no limit on flying - sooo no huge period when all we do is build. Some snow would be nice though but can not see that beach and snow would go together!
My biggest limitation is time, balancing work, family and hobby plus any other activites is a clever trick. Yes those long flights are the pits and the company i am with you have to be aDirector and above to get Business class so I get to enjoy 24 hr trips crammed into cattle class. sometimes I upgrade myself using points if the flights have room but lately the Oz - UK sector has been chockers so no chance of doing that of late. Going up to SIN is no big deal, it's only about 7 hours from Brisbane and I normally just snooze all the way after a couple of wines.
Let me know if you get down this way anytime and I'll show you Brissy..
cheers
Peter