Matt and Bob,

I used rubbing alcohol and scrubbed the tube with a cloth. Then I roughend the end by sanding and then cleaned with alcohol again. The many little cuts in my fingers from splinters etc. really showed up when dowsed in alcohol. My day job keeps me at a desk so the skin takes a pounding when wood working and such. Especially when I'm being stupid and holding parts instead of clamping them when sanding and cutting. Fortunately it's been some time since I stuck an exacto blade through a finger. Scar is still there though.

I may still drill through the front and install bolts in the back. Is there a down side to this? Bottom line was that I didn't have the proper bolts with domed heads to add them and I got in a hurry wanting to finish. It defintely will be tough to mount in the Focus if I leave it like it is.

I didn't take any progress photos mostly cause I didn't think it would turn out anywhere near as good as it did. I did buy a circle cutter at ACE for about $10. It made the second and third disks much faster. Oh yeh, I cut three. The first which took forever to make was cut from 1/8" aircraft ply. I decided it wasn't thick enough. And, after cutting and sanding and sanding and sanding to get it round, I had to find a better way. Thank you circle cutter. I'm sure it will be of use in the future. Oh, and it made cutting the balsa spacers a piece of cake. The only issue with the dense balsa spacers was that the CA didn't wick completely through. I thought about drilling small holes all over both disks to perforate the depth but I chose not to do that. I hope it will be okay.

Cutting the rubber with a single edge razor blade on a plastic cutting board worked really good. I have a part of a cutting board left over from cutting firewall backers for flat bat combat planes. I finally found a use for it. That thing was stuck behind a box and will get used a bunch more for cutting balsa etc. DUH. Never thougth of that before. You know, cutting board means preparing vegitables, fruit, and meat. It doesn't usually come to mind to cut balsa, rubber, covering, etc. But using the cutting board with a stiff straight edge after a couple of practice cuts, I was able to make the final inside band with one cut. The outter band I trimmed in place once it was glued.

Looking forward to pointers on the engine. I'm going to start with the Xoar props mostly cause of the weight. Man are they are nice lookign, too. Balanced it by spraying clear gloss on the lite blade. Didn't take much either. Very nice props.

Thanks for the kind word guys.