Adam's Sopwith Pup

2/28/08 12:00

Lots of progress! Spent 8hrs over the weekend continuing to "tool up" - - assembling tools and the like. It was good to spend some time in the hangar with music playing... listened to the classic old Salty Dog album "Every Dog Has Its Day" a couple of times. On Sunday morning Janet and I picked up a very nice old workbench that Paul Poberezny has given me. That was very kind of him, like so many others he's being very encouraging of my new endeavour. Did some practice with the scroll saw and table router on bits of scrap wood, and practiced soaking and bending some capstrip at home. Felt like a real homebuilder with pieces of spruce sitting in the bath, although Charlie Becker said I won't really have "made it" until I'm using the toilet to bend my wood! Visited the hangar on a couple of evenings this week and the really big news is that I have cut my first official piece of wood on the project... hooray, after 2 months and 40 hours of preparation the real work has begun!! 200 feet of capstrip and several birch ply boards arrived from Aircraft Spruce today, and I used the table router to cut a 3/16 wide and 1/16 deep notch in a 6 foot length of capstrip. Worked a treat, and the plywood fits the notch beautifully. Just 194 feet to go. Next step is to start making the plywood webs, hoping to make progress at the weekend. Talked to Jim during the week, he has joined the 1 1/2 Strutter group at East Fortune and thinks he can obtain a supply of trailing edge material from Bruntons of Musselburgh. Heard back from Roger Freeman in Texas who is creating me a quote for the metal fittings.