Aug 20, 2011
Back from a nice weekend at the Lake of the Ozarks and went right to the wood shop. Main goal for the evening: finish rough cutting major components for the fuselage (body) & empennage (tail) sections. I will sand and shape the sections later. I was able to cut out the second fuselage piece and most of the other parts required for initial assembly. I found using the table saw for cuts any longer than 6" is considerably more beneficial than using the jig saw. The straighter cuts will make your life much easier when it comes to sanding and shaping the rough cut pieces.
I spent the rest of my time using the jig saw for the smaller sections (elevator, wing supports, landing gear covers, etc). HELPFUL HINT: If you haven't used a jig saw in a while, do these 2 things first. 1) Put on a new blade. You don't want to have to chase the blade all over your project on the finish wood. 2) Take a piece of scrap wood and draw a wave (like a continuing "S" pattern) along the length. Then, use the jig saw to carefully cut right along your wave. Just a matter of a few minutes "practicing" with the jig saw will save you from having to re-cut pieces and save you a considerable amount of wasted time.
I'm not quite as far along as I would like, but I hope to catch up here in the next few evenings. The next major task's will involve cutting out the wings and to start making my angled dado cuts on specified sections. I'll be honest, I don't have a clue how to make a dado cut. I've seen dad do it in the past and he's promised to walk me through the process.
Stay tuned to see what kind of disaster comes from my attempt at the dado.
Time spent this visit: 60 min
Total project time: 3 hr, 15 min
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