Here are the cut tailwheel parts as well as some progress on the shock. For those of you that don't have a lathe, you can buy 9/32 aluminum tubing and then use JB Quik to add an 11/32 brass sleeve at the bottom of the shock plunger.
Some potential changes that I've recommended to those using chilie drawings are:

1) Steerer tube that attaches to fork - I built as drawn at 3/16, but might have left at 1/8.
2) Bearing tube that attaches strut assembly to bulkhead plate - I'll definitely build this at 1/8 and not 3/16
3) I think the spacer disks that go inside the outer tubing that houses the steerer are missing on the cut sheet.
4) I decided to mod the top of the shock plunger to attach directly to the extension arm the way Luke did it in one of his early build threads.
5) The wheel forks are not drawn to scale. They need to be reshaped prior to adding the microballon resin. I didn't get mine perfect, but they aren't too bad.
6) The downtube needs to be shortened below the forks.
7) The Parts "A" and "B" are slightly long as well.

I also added a bushing at the top of the fork to mate up perfectly with the bushing at the bottom of the down tube that supports the wheel assembly. I found that this 1:1 mating between the two parts gaving me a frictionless action and a nice clean look. I photographed Wenol as well. It's a fine metal polish but good for lots of things including polishing scratches out of canopies. When I have two metal tubes like the wheel post assembly and the shock assembly that need to work well together, I put a toothpaste size dollop of Wenol on the mating surfaces and work them back and forth for a few minutes. Afterward the parts are like they were born together. I use a little acetone or denatured alcohol to remove the lovely grey sludge that results.

I also finally found a use for the huge block of balsa that Top Flite sends you to make ailerons and flaps - it makes a lovely starting point for the tailwheel jig.

More to come...


Tom