I’ve made a lot of progress on the right wing last week! The day before NYE I’ve pinned the main spar and the ribs on the building board:

And now, a little over a week later, I’m almost at the point that I can join the wing halves. I only need to add the sheeting of the control surfaces and the shear webs. Tonight I glued the retract rails in place:

Looks like the retract fits even better than the first one: it goes in almost completely when retracted! It’s only a matter of tenths of a millimeter, but this proves it’s possible to get it in completely. When everything still works out like this when the glue is cured, I’m going to adjust the other side again to get them both to fit like this.

Too bad I discoved one of the Robart wheels is almost unusable.. a bit of a disappointment for such a quality brand. It’s completely misshaped and so it doesn’t track well. It even touches the strut in two places. Think I need to order another set.

And today, all the way from Illinois, this arrived. It was well packed, delivered within two weeks (I ordered it on boxing day) and shipping was only $2!

I ordered this cowl because it’s from fiberglass, it’s finished and already painted. The cowl in the kit is from ABS plastic and consists of three parts. You need to cut those parts free and glue them together. And the checkered pattern is difficult to paint well, or at least time consuming. I think the quality of this ARF-version cowl is reasonable and it fits quite well, so I think I’m going to use this one. Although I will probably still try to build the one from the kit, so I can decide on the end result (and weight) of both cowls.