It’s been a while. Back at the beginning of March, Rod, the founder of FlyOtto and OpenAirplane was in town for some news interviews. He and I hung out and went flying for a couple days. Then I was off on spring break last week. I had a great time in Mexico with my wife, boys, mom and dad, and my uncle. Wonderful trip.

Meanwhile, the horizontal tail was just begging to be finished. Before I could get to it, I had to clean up the shop a bit. You’ll see there’s a new toy on the bench, a bench sander. This is sorely needed as it’s impossible to make a clean flat finish with the wheel grinder. I had a couple “oops” moments where I scared some aluminum pieces (minor marks) as the spinning wheel pulls the material in undesired ways. This new sander should solve the problem and streamline future metal work.

This new addition forced a refactoring of the work bench to allow more stuff. Now there’s room for 6 tools mounted on the surface.

The horizontal stabilizer has a couple hundred holes so it took a good deal of time to get them all drilled. I took it apart and started deburring. Will continue tomorrow.

Upgraded workbench