Thanks for the tip catspaw. I am also going to add some tri-stock just to beef up the landing gear brace.

I applied the fiberglass strip to the wing center section so have moved on the fuselage.

The fuselage doublers have been glued to the fuselage with 30 minute epoxy.
I'm glad the manual says to "Make sure you make a left and a right side!"

Former F1 glued with 30 minute epoxy and clamped tight. The remaning formers are dry fitted.

Engine bolted to mount, mount bolted to firewall. Alignment looks good. Had to make a small notch for access to the needle valve.

Started gluing at the rear, moving forward. Waiting for the aft to dry before I start on the front.

rw: You sure do have a nice collection of clamps!

I was marveling at that as well; he sure knows how to hold things down.

hahaha - ok... I guess I 'over-do' it sometimes...

You can use them for many things: belts, bread 'twisties', to hold clothes on the clothesline, radiator hoses, earrings, billfold, to hold your nose closed when swimming, etc.

The next thing I did was measured, cut, dry fitted, then glued in place the stringers.

I then dry fitted the wing.
It was too tight so I had to remove some wood from the aileron torque rod hinges and the fuselage where they met.

I glued in triangle stock to the firewall and fuselage doublers. Note the cutouts for the blind nuts.

I fitted and glued the wing mounting dowel into the wing.

Before drilling the wing mounting holes, I used string to make sure that both ends of the wings were the same distance from a point at the end of the fuselage. I had to 'scoot' the wing sideways just a little to achieve this. I then drew a line on the fuselage and the wing to use as a guide before I drilled and tapped.

Notice a small gap between the wing bottom and fuselage - I don't think it will be a problem.

The landing gear is off center. I won't know how badly this will affect taxiing until I get the tail wheel on, but does anyone have a suggestion for a fix? Should I be able to slightly bend the aluminum where the wheels screw in?

RW: Based on my ARF version of the four* and reading other threads, the small gap between the leading edge of the wing and fuse is normal. I fuel proofed the area and added a small strip of foam that seals the gap when the wing is installed.

Re misalignment of the landing gear. I'm sure you're aware of seveal solutions, but I think I would just ream out the two outboard holes to allow alignment. If the screws then won't prevent it from shifting, I would add two more outboard holes and secure with 1/2 inch self tapping screws.

Thanks for the tips, I will follow your advice.

Out of the box, one elevator was shorted than the other so I had to cut the long one to the same length as the short one. I then had to cut the horizontal stabilizer to match.

Here's the servo tray in place and a shot of the entire servo bay with push wire and rods attached.

I covered the Tail feathers with Monocote. I will be adding some black stripes and decals later. I may try to mask and paint the black stripes. I got some black paint that I will be using to paint the inside of the canopy so I will experiment with it on Monocote.

I test fitting the tail feathers and measured the length of the push rods for connection to the rudder and elevator.

I then routed the throttle cable and fuel lines through the firewall.

Former F2 had to be notched to allow throttle cable to pass through.

Boy, that stinks! I would have contacted SIG and asked for a replacement. Just to make them aware. Probably would ahve trimmed the other side though like you to save time.

Yeah, I don't think trimming that little bit off of the tail will matter or I would have contacted SIG. What the heck, I'll drop them a note anyway, like you said, to make them aware. Who knows, they make send me a coupon for a discount on my next purchase

Having just built this kit a couple months ago, I highly recommend reinforcing the vertical stab with tri-stock. The instructions show it as an option, which I initially chose to ignore. After dropping a sleeping bag on my plane (doh!!!!), and breaking off the stab (clean break), I went back and installed the tri-stock braces and the thing is rock-solid now. I just cut back the covering, epoxied on the tri stock, and re-covered. It took about 15 minutes.

I also installed a tail wheel bracket, because I though the stock method of just hanging the wheel off the rudder looked a little flimsy.

Enjoying your build, keep those pictures coming.

I had not decided whether I should reinforce it or not, but you have helped make the decision for me, thanks for the tip!

I thought about the tailwheel and you may be right but as you saw I decided to go with the stock build. If I land too hard on the tailwheel the rudder will probably break off, but I'm not supposed to land hard huh?

I followed mclina's advice and added triangle stock to support the vertical stabilizer.
Shown are gaps that will be filled in with Expoy and Micro Balloons.
Then you see the gaps filled with 30 minute epoxy (picture says 20 but it is 30) mixed with the Micro Balloons.
Next you see the strengthened area slightly sanded, ready to be covered.

I did not notice this before, but the bottom of the horizontal stabilizer has a slight bow preventing it from seating flat onto the fuselage. I placed a sheet of balsa under the stabilizer, sanded, and then glued it to the tail. I will add some filler before expoying the empennage on.

The rudder and elevators are hinged in place. After covering the fuselage I will add the hinge to the aft section for the bottom of the rudder. The empennage will be moved aft slightly because in the pictures the rudder touches the fuselage.

Looking good. I see that you did not bevel the leading edge of your elevator or rudder. Does this give you enough clearance to get full throws without binding?

One mistake I made, which you did not, is that I didn't check that my veritical stab was aligned with the back edge of the fuselage, and I ended up with a bigger hinge gap than I would have liked on the lower rudder hinge. Your's looks much better.

Keep those pictures coming.

I checked the deflection and all is good. I thought about rounding the LE and TE edges and just got lazy I think - or maybe distracted... My granddaughter spends a lot of time on the bench with me working on her 'airpwane" so I spend a lot of time making sure she is careful. I keep her away from the glues, sharp instruments, etc... I just enjoy watching her build and may forget where I was in my build... hahaha

Luckily, as I was epoxying the VStab onto the HStab I remembered the part about it up with the rear of the fuse or I would have made the same mistake.

Thanks again for the triangle stock support tip. You just may have saved my plane from a crash.

There are numerous threads about covering so I won't post the process. Suffice it to say I sanded with 240 then 400 grit sandpaper. If you are interested in seeing a couple of the tutorials by Mike Buzzeo (Minnflyer), go here
http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...article_id=726

or here

http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...?article_id=67

For the wings, make sure you cover the wingtips before anything else. It makes the covering look a lot better with less wrinkles.

I used scissors to taper the ends of the hinges to help them slide in.

the masking tape is used to mark the location of the hinges on the wing and the ailerons to keep them on target.

I bought a Maxx Products HD LED Switch and drilled holes on the side of the fuselage for it. This switch is the ON/OFF switch for the receiver power and has a slot for inserting the charging cord from the transformer. That way, I won't have to remove the wing to charge the receiver battery. The switch also has 3 LEDs to quickly check the battery charge. This is only for quick visual indicator to let me know if there is a problem. I will still charge properly and also have a voltmeter that I will use to verify the charge.

She's ready for decals!
I need to secure the canopy, any suggestions? The manual says to use 1/4 inch trim tape but I don't have any. Can I use Titebond, CA, or epoxy? I don't intend on taking it off, and it is painted on the inside so I don't care about the cloud that CA causes. I just want to know if one of these will work to keep it on.

Control throws are spot on.

The manual says to balance on the main spar. By my measurement it turned out very nose heavy (3.25 inches from the LE). I will need weight on the tail. Any suggestions on where to add tail weight? I was thinking of screwing something on to the bottom aft of the fuselage, under the elevator pushrod. Opinions?

The last picture is of my granddaughter Abby. I will take this picture and make a decal out of it and place it on the vertical stabilizer. In the picture she's chalking my pool stick so the writing on the tail will say "Hot Shot".

I really like that Rx switch. I am going to have to look into getting some of those. For attaching canopies, I use that special canopy glue. Looks like Elmers, maybe it is I don't know. It is called RC-56 Canopy Glue. Try a very heavy tailwheel?