2 hrs. starting the test fitting of the flap and elevator tubes and starting to rivet the gear mounting channel.

I'm now officially between jobs so until I secure some work I'll have many more hours to work on the plane.

Question: Do these 3 rings need to be riveted to the tube?  I would assume so, but don't see any instructions about it.  Four rivets each?

There's a gap on either side of the elevator control stop, so I'll probably make some shims to bridge that gap.  Also there aren't any rib holes that line up with the bracket holes, so those will have to be drilled.

Top view.  The flap tube is definitely still too tight so I'll have to do more filing/grinding.  The elevator tube less so, but still will need some work.  Note that the two middle ribs on both sides don't have bushings.

Question: I assume these will need to be riveted too?

Counter-sunk rivets in the gear mounting channel.

Done by hand.

No work on the plane for the next few days - too much work-related stuff going on...  Hopefully back at it on Saturday.

Did find out (thanks BobZ!) that I don't need the flap position indicator because that function is built into the flap actuator.  Off to Ebay it goes....

Boston Glove article has been pushed to the end of the month-ish (better than Sept. 11th, so that's good).  I'll let you all know when it's online.

Got my elevator control tube from South Africa so now I can do the test fit and really move forward.  And I noticed it has the stops pre-installed, so that saves me that step.

4 hrs. finishing up the priming, doing some organizing that I've been putting off and miscellaneous fiddling and diddling.

I've been putting off for months going through all the various bags of hardware and extra hardware I bought from Aircraft Spruce and organizing it.  Here's the result - way better than rifling through a bunch of bags to find the right hardware.

Starting to contemplate where I can put the flap position sensor.

4 hrs. cleaning and priming.

Lot of parts!  Didn't get to the 2 skins I was going to do, but everything else.

The nice thing about using the clear Cortec is that any markings (part ident) can be seen through it, so no need to remember what's what to remark it.  I found that regular Sharpie was easily wiped off with the Extreme Simple Green solution, but this "Industrial" strength stayed on.  Much better.

3 hrs. doing part prep.

A portion of the parts I'm prepping...  Today was removing plastic and deburring.  Tomorrow is cleaning with Extreme Simple Green solution and priming (Cortec 373).  BTW, I'm running low on that primer, so if there are any Zenith builders out there that can get me a quart from Zenith, please let me know!  I'll also check with my local EAA chapter.

1 hr. pulling plastic and deburring.  Least fun stuff...  Marathon sessions over the weekend to get the pile of parts ready for install.

Just a small portion of the parts I want to prep over the next few days...

1 hr. over the last 2 days (lots going on these days, so time has been scarce to work on the plane).

Don't think I mentioned it but The Boston Globe (one of the top papers in the USA) is doing a feature on me that will appear in the Sunday, Sept. 11th (unfortunate date, but no choice) paper's Globe West section.  A columnist interviewed me last week and a Globe photographer was here yesterday.  I'll post a link once I have that.

Installed the stop on the aileron servo.

Shaved my beard, then tried on my new cool Sling Bling T-shirt! ;-)

Have started gathering parts for the next big blast of priming that I'll do over the long weekend.  I'm going to do a lot this time since I feel like it's slowing me down not having parts primed are ready to go.  It's tempting to do all of the remaining parts, but that's an overwhelming amount of parts...  We'll see.