Howdy Everyone, 1-10-96 Once again it's time for an update; but boy have things changed. For example I'm sitting at a new desk at work because the building I worked in last Friday burned down on Sunday. All of a sudden I have a lot less clutter! Actually only half the building was destroyed, but what wasn't burned was covered by really goopy black soot. Very evil smelling! Other late breaking news; my brother Mike (F16 pilot) is back from Bosnia. Next stop for him is New Mexico. Ok this is a update of SkyArrow building, and not a saga of my little Trials. Christmas really didn't feel like Christmas, but did we get some stuff done on the plane! Major tasks completed since last update: 1) found a Imron paint match. 2) floor boards bonded in and painted, seat mounts installed 3) front nose rips bonded, and painted. 4) rear landing gear mounted, break lines yet to be installed 5) 1/3 of the control parts machined, but not installed 6) bottom of fuselage seam sanded and finished painted 7) canopy quick release mounted 8) canopy emergency release mounted 9) 1/2 parts machined for nose landing gear Lessened learned this month: Don't trust a machine to do a color match. We went to a paint store to get a paint match, and they pull out a $10,000 paint color analyzer to do the match. But it turns out that the color it picks is only the closest match to it's database. So if you have white, and it has only blacks, it will pick the closest black. Not very handy. So that was $100 down the tubes. Well not totally down the tubes, we'll use it for a white'ish base coat. You have to hand pick the colors and manually match it if you really want to get close. It took the expert paint guy at another store 2 hours to get it right. He did a pretty good job. So if another SkyArrow builder needs the color, we have the recipe. I've ordered another $1000 in machine tool parts to finishing machining parts out. This includes a new chuck for the lathe. I got tired of turning out parts that look like a crankshaft! I would not have ordered a new chuck, except all the little pieces are pre cut to length, which means you have to machine 1/2, take it out flip it around, and machine the other half. I would have rather had a 3ft rod of aluminium and told make these 20 little pieces, rather have have 20 pre-cut one. I also have lined up a buddy with a cutting laser to cut some of the parts out. True I could beaver out parts with a sabersaw, but how low tech! Not to mention what a pain in the butt to sabersaw 2" holes in thin stainless steel that will be used in the firewall. Well now that the seats can be installed we have been taking turns sitting in it. It is motivational to do a little "garage flying". This update's cool trick: Using an old HP X-Y pen plotter with a tungston tipped "pen" I was able to scribe my aluminium plates for milling. I really didn't do this to save time so much as it was just the idea of using a pen plotter to do the mark up of all the oval holes, slots and an index keyway on 2 of the plates. Worked really well! Questions to be solved: should we put landing lights on it? And if we did where in the world would be put them? Do we really need an oil cooler on the Rotax 912? (Rotax says don't do it. The kit is supplied with one). Many things for my puzzler to puzzle on! Well until next time....keep an eye on that old gas water heater, it just may go up! Jim