RE: Balsa USA Smoothie Build
I had the day off work yesterday (Friday) and it was my intention to use it as a building day. As luck would have it, when I got a drink of water at around 10am, the kitchen faucet broke, not letting me turn off the water. So, my day was spent changing out a sink, faucet, garbage disposal and drain pluming, because nothing ever matches up.
As for the Smoothie build, I've really just been doing a little sanding. I found a low spot in the side of my turtle deck. Evidently I was a little aggressive with my sanding and my reward was adding some spackling to fill a low spot. I also skipped forward in the plans a little and sanded down the tail filler blocks.
I like to build my kits so that end up going together like an ARF after all the components are covered. So, I used scrap balsa and tacked spacers where the horizontal and vertical stabs would be (that way I can shape them and not worry about nicking the stabs), and then tack glued the blocks in place for shaping. I also used this time to fill around my pushrod exits as needed.
My covering and fuel arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, the smaller 200cc tank still wouldn't fit in the required space. I had to cut out the former right in front of the wing so that the tank could slide through (like many planes out there) and I'll reinforce the former later.
I didn't get near as much done as I wanted to this weekend, but things are coming around pretty good. I guess that's it for now... Jerry