The build continues (slowly).

With the wing still bolted in the perfect position, we go to the horizontal stabilizer. We'll go back to glass and finish the wing joint later. Here is what we did...

a. Slide the stab into the slot, and center left-to-right at the front edge measuring from the fuse to the tips.

b. The slot on our plane was VERY loose, so we put in a long pin to stake the front end thru the top of the fuse to immobilize it.

c. Measure from the trailing tip of each wing to the trailing tip of the stab adjusting until it is exactly the same measurement. This squares it to the fuse nicely.

d. Plunge a pin in the rear to hold it in place.

e. With a water-based fine tip pen, mark the lines of the fuse onto the stab top and bottom on both sides.

f. Remove the stab, and use a straight edge to blade cut thru the covering about 1/16" inside the lines, then connect the surface cuts with cuts at the front and rear edges. These cut lines will be at an angle due to the taper of the fuse at the top.

g. Peel the covering all around and clean off the ink lines.

h. Re-install the stab, and put the pins in carefully hitting the same holes you made the first time. Re-check your tip-to-tip measurements to be sure it's right.

i. Get behind the plane and eyeball for a perfectly parallel line of the stab to the wing. Ours was VERY far off. There is ample gap to shim, so push in balsa wedge shavings top and bottom on opposite sides until it stays aligned.

j. Triple check the tip-to-tip measurements one more time.

k. Wick in liberal amounts of thin CA, then follow with gap filling CA.

l. There was a big gap left over on the top-right and bottom-left from shimming. We filled that with a fine fillet of white RTV silicone to dress up the joint . That looks nice and protects from fuel soaking in the joint. (not shown in photo)

Note: After the stab was in, we test fit the elevator fillers that go either side of the fuse behind the stab. With some careful trimming on the facet at the front, they seat nicely against the verical stab. However, there is a huge tapering gap opening to the rear between those fillers and the elevator. I think we will re-make those fillers. The gap is hideous. That will come later...

Also, we just noticed a big gap on one side where the leading edge of the wing is notched along the front of the fuse. The gap on the other side is reasonable. Nothing we can do about that, the location of the wing pins determines the position. We are getting a little disappointed with the lack of precision on parts fitting together neatly. We'll make her sweet, but it will take a little more work.