The wings and stab are now sheeted with the leading and trailing edges trimmed and sanded. The next step is to install the wing tube socket in the fuselage. Alignment of every part that goes into a pattern plane is fairly critical, but this is arguably the single most critical joint in the build.

I start by ensuring my line-up table is level and flat. I have adjustable feet on all of the legs to get everything flat. I use a combination of my digital level, straight edge, and thread strung across the top of the surface to ensure accuracy.

I made all of the holes in the fuselage for the wing and stab sockets prior to mounting the fuselage to the table. I made hole on one side slightly oversize to allow adjustment without having to take the fuselage out of the jig every time.

Next, the fuselage is mounted to the table and is adjusted to zero pitch and the fin perpendicular to the building surface. I used the firewall jig station that was used in the construction of the fuselage to anchor the front end of the fuselage. I used two jig stations, turned 90 degrees, as clamps to hold the aft end of the fuselage.

The wing socket along with the lightply doughnuts are installed in the fuselage. The wing tube and the wings are installed. 1/2" balsa spacers are used between the wing roots and the fuselage sides to allow for the socket that extends out of the wing root. The wings are set in jigs to hold everything in place.

Measurements are first taken to set the wings at zero degrees incidence, then set the wingtips equal distance from the surface, and then from each wingtip to the tail and the nose. I use T-pins, set with CA to mark all of my measurement reference points. I have used a steel cable with an adjustable pointer to check the wing to tail measurement in the past, but for this build I upgraded the cable to a carbon rod. I used both, and the results where the same between the two.

Once everything was set I carefully applied Hysol to glue in the sockets and the doughnuts, making certain no glue gets onto the wing tube. Once all the glue is on, I recheck all measurements, and then kick back and wait for the glue to cure.