CHAPTER 40 - New Home

For two years I marked time and didn't concentrate much on the project. We were waiting for Judith to make partner (or not) before we located a permanent home. In July 2004 she finally got the word (though we had begun looking several months earlier) and we serendipitiously located a lovely house at just that time. I had already had the structure primed and riveted, so in the intervening time, I fitted the horizontal tail parts together and did some work with them, such as fitting the trim tab cable. One of the jobs I tackled was fitting the fiberglass tips on which went smoothly to the point that you can see in the photo. After that, I glassed the front of the counterweight area closed. Now the major job is to fill and smooth everything over.

I also fitted the tail cone and drilled it to the fuselage structure. About this time, I discovered that my painter had moved. However, I wasn't really that pleased with the paint he had been using anyway. He had done a nice job of shooting the parts, but the primer didn't stick very well compared to the AZKO that was used on the wings and tail. I had been using SEM from a spraycan for touch up and found that it was very durable, so I decided to experiment and sprayed the interior of the skin with it. Once dry I found it to be about as resistant as the AZKO to scratching and flexing. I decided then to become my own painter for the first time on my project, though I still expect to have the exterior professionally painted.

This and the myriad details of closing on a house kept me busy until it was at last time to move. I handled most of the move with my pickup, but I hired a company to deal with the heavy furniture and, of course, the airplane. They did a fantastic job and were quite thrilled to be moving their first airplane. It took four people to move the fuselage in the jig, but everything arrived at the new house without incident. The second photo shows the kit safely in the new garage; this is relatively a huge amount of room for me! I had prepared ahead of time by installing threaded rod in the ceiling joists of the garage and making a hanging rack to store the tail pieces on. The garage came with a tremendous amount of shelf space and kit parts were soon put away. The last photo shows the tail in the rack and the shelves over my workbench.