Thanks, all of you, for taking the time to reply.

The last couple days have been too windy to fly, so I got some of the prep done. A trip to habitat for humanity and to home depot snagged me an 8'x4' flat door and a sheet of thin firm foam for pinning.

Today I took the 80 mile drive to Harbor Freight and I got some nice folding adjustable folding saw horses, a scroll saw, and all sorts of clamps.

It was only another 12 miles to Coyote Hobby, the nearest large RC shop, and I needed some small hardware for a senior cadet franken-plane I've been messing with.

Anyway, the guys there are super-friendly and the quick trip turned into a long discussion where he gave me lots of info. I got to looking at what they had that I needed for this project. What they didn't have they could ship to my door by next week- free shipping, and good prices. It was nice to be able to lay eyes on hardware I was considering.

I snagged heavy duty cotter pin type hinges, control horns, 4-40 rods, metal solder on clevises for one end and normal threaded ones for the other end, sullivan skylite 7” mains and 1 ¾ tail wheels, 40 oz fuel tank, spectrum 9110 powersafe receiver with a telemetry module, servos, a ton of covering, assorted hardware, and tools.

One particularly cool thing he has are custom aluminum anodized gas jug fitting caps that fit standard Blitz fuel cans. Also, rather than do the typical purchase servo extensions that are always a bit too long, I bought 50' of 20 ga servo wire, male and female ends, and a crimper tool.

I went with the cotter pin type hinges over hinge points mainly so it would be handy to remove control surfaces for painting or recovering, and I like the security of having them glued and pinned in. I also snagged one of those slot cutter machines.

Basically I got everything I need except: Engine, prop, spinner, and tow release.

I think I'll get this tow release (not cheap, but nice looking billet)

I'm also thinking I'll ask him what super-duper low price he would charge me for a G-38 with some props and a spinner... By the time the big box of balsa arrives I could have the engine broken in and tested... though I wonder if I should consider going bigger (if I do someday tow something large, or put floats on the beast). Also I'd prefer electronic ignition over magnito.