troyp,

you might want to reconsider replacing the plastic straps that hold the landing gear on with metal ones. With the metal straps, on hard landings you may actually rip the gear out with part on the fuselage still attached, leaving you with some repairing of the wood structure. The plastic ones will probably break away like they did, not damaging the botom of your fuselage. My plane has aluminum landing gear. I use nylon wing bolts to attach it to the fuselage. On rough landing, the nylon bolts will shear before the wood fuselage bottom is damaged by the gear ripping out. You may want to invest in a half-dozen or so sets of the nylon straps, then when you have mishaps such as the one you had, just replace the straps and you're ready to go. Just a thought. And congrats!