I've been able to get the back-end wrapped up. I glued the rudder post in the fuse with V-poxy, I didn't clamp it tight because the fuse seemed to be in the correct place, maybe 1/8" of space around the post for a good bead of glue. I got the rudder glued in as well after the post cured, cut out the rudder pull-pull wires and mounted some nice exit guides, fabricated and mounted a rudder servo tray with room for the RX, routed and pre-fastened the servo wires in place, mounted the CF landing gear, getting close to being done, I'd say I'm near 85% or so.

The remaining steps are fairly easy, mount the wing servos, sand the wing pins down a tad for easier fitting of the wings, finish the chin cowl mounts, re-mount the motor (removed while I made dust), mount the ESC and come up with a good battery mount after setting CG. So far it's been a fair amount of work, I won't lie, I would have preferred this stuff was all completed like most ARF's today. I suspect they billed this as "set it the way you want it" or maybe this early generation of composite planes simply didn't warrant them doing this much as it would take them the same 40+ hours it has taken me, not sure but I know in the end I saved $$$ so I suppose that's not a bad thing.

Mistakes, there is one and looking back I don't know how I would have avoided it the first time since the manul is little help and no pictures are there to clarify. I mounted the rudder hinge pins a little too far forward of the correct pivot point. What I mean by that is looking at it now, the pivot point should be inside the radius of the rudder, I glued the pins so the pivot point was at the edge of the radius, making the rudder need to be mounted a little futher back (more gap) then it could have been to have proper clearance. This is a minor cosmetic issue and I doubt it will have any impact (no pun intended) on the flying characteristics but still, it would have been nice to see an image in the plans with a dotted line signifying the hing pivot point. I could easily cut the pins, drill them out and re-attach, just not in the mood after it all came out so well (with the exceptin of the position of the hinges).

Here's the latest pics...

Jack