I lost about a week of my spare time trying to resolve a problem with one of my laptops so there weren't any new posts.

I gave up on the laptop issues and got back to working on the B-36.

As I mentioned previously, the retracts came back from Century Jet Models and they fit nicely now. I finished up the mount for the second main gear retract. It looks just like the previous mount so I won't post yet another retract photo.

I moved on to the wing mount area.

To secure the wing mount area I needed to have the wing level and the fin vertical. I needed a large flat area where I could have the wing halves joined and set on the fuse. My workshop is a bit too small for this so I temporarily moved the B-36 to our basement. A while back I carved a semi circle in some large pieces of finger foam and I use this as a fuse cradle. With the fuse set on the foam I used a large framing square and a bubble level I confirmed that the floor was level and that the fin was vertical. I used the trailing edge of the fin as my guide. I set the joined wing on fuse and added spacers under the foam to bring the fuse up far enough for it to meet the bottom of the wing. It was not lifting the wing at all. The wing was supported by the extended landing gear. The four wheel bogey main gear has springs on it to help keep the wheels level which was almost enough support to allow the wing to stand on its own.

At each wing tip I measured the distance from the front edge of the tip rib to the floor. I was very please to see that they were within 1/16" of an inch. I believe the measurement was 5 - 15/16". I will double check that measurement and post a confirmation. If the two tip ribs had been a bit more uneven I would have removed one of the main gear retracts and added a very thin spacer under it to raise one wing tip. The main gear isn't very far out on the wing so a small spacer would make a large change in the height of a tip rib.

I examined the underside of the wing where it meets the wing mount on the fuse. I marked the area that needed a slight bit of sanding and sanded it. After sanding I set the wing back on the fuse and double checked that the fin was vertical. I was surprised that everything was right on. I expected this to take a half dozen iterations to get it right. I guess it was my lucky day.

I don't want to time out with this reply so I am going to post this and continue on with another reply.

Mike Roerig
[email protected]