Nebbie: It's looking good! About how much time to you spend every night building to make this much progress so far?

-tycho

Time spent nightly varies. Maybe 1 -2 hours on weeknights. Sometimes as much as 3 on the weekends. I usually do as much as I can that evening until I run out of things to do. That doesn't make much sense as I read it, so here is an example. The first night on a wing, I pin down the main spar, then use a few ribs to line up the bottom trailing edge sheeting and the bottom turb. spar. I then fit all the ribs. After everything is where I want it (checked with straight edge, etc), I glue and pin the ribs down. That is all that I can do on the wing that evening, so if I want to work on it some more, I may start on the fuselage sides, etc. Just remember, the numbered order on the directions is not cast in stone! It mainly helps when you reach a point on the wing construction that says something like "The fuselage must be completed through step X before you can continue..."

Using carpenters glue has been good to me this build. Easy cleanup, no stuffed up nose from CA fumes, forces me to take my time and make sure everything fits, and makes me stop for the night.

Okay, for last nights progress:
1. Right wing. Completed sanding the top, and made the cutouts in the end rib.
2. Epoxied the wings together. The directions called for 1 inch of dihedral at one end rib (plus or minus 1/4 inch.) I blocked the wing up for the 1 inch, and let it cure overnight.
3. Prepared the aileron rods and glued them into the provided blocks.

Okay, some pictures:
First is the bottom of the right wing, after all sheeting and wing tip was attached. Next is fin and rudder, last is stab and elevators.

2 more pictures. First is the whole wing (and shows messy bench ). Second is closeup of the center section.

Now I just have to figure out what I am going to work on tonight

Update!

The build has slowed lately, due to not being able to work on different parts of the plane at the same time. The fuselage has been done up to the point that I needed the wing for a few days now. The night before last I glued the aileron torque rod blocks to the wing. Last night I sanded the top of the blocks to match the angle of the top center sheeting. Then I glued the wing bolt ply reinforcements to the wing and set it aside.

Then, since I was not ready to call it a night, I started organizing my shop. I purchased one of those shelves with all the plastic drawers and put all my assorted parts in the drawers. I cut out the description from the packaging and taped that to the drawers, so I know what is in there without looking closely. I realized that I had like 5 packs of the same part! This will definitely cut down on bits and pieces from the hobby shop.

I also drilled out the mounting holes on my engine so that 6-32 bolts will fit them. I am going to use the bolts with lock nuts under the engine mount.

Tonight, I will be able to make more progress than in the past few days. I will start with marking and drilling the wing for the leading edge dowel.

Progress report:

The wing dowel has been inserted and glued in place. The wing was placed on the fuselage, and after spending quite a bit of time to make sure it was square to the fuselage, I drilled the holes for the wing bolts. The kit directions have you tapping the blocks on the fuselage for the wing bolts. Because I do not have a tap set, I am using brass inserts to hold the wing bolts down. The ailerons are cut and taped into position. Last night I covered the horizontal stab. Boy, that was harder than it looks to be, because of the curves at the corners. But it looks good now. I have to say thanks to MinnFlyer for his "how-to" that is posted in the RCU Magazine. I printed that out and went step by step. It looks pretty good. I think that I will follow Minn's advice and do the corners first for the rest of the tail feathers. Now if I could figure out an easy way to trim the covering. I have a jar full of razor blades, but I still cannot get a clean cut. Oh well, time and experience, I guess.

Tonight, I will be working on fitting the canopy and covering some more of the tail feathers.

I am getting a Mid-Star 40 and I would like to know if it fly a whole lot better when built from a kit. I would take any help I can get .

Depends how good you build it...