Leslie and I flew back to California a week or so ago for what we call “admin” – stuff that just needs to get done back in the States.

For me, a major project was to find a new home for the wings of my Tiger Moth project because our existing hangar is being torn down to make room for a larger hangar.

Ali, a good friend of mine who finished building his beautiful Wheeler Express as I was starting my plane, graciously offered his hangar for storage while the new hangar gets built.  Good friends Allan and Gary helped me take the wings down from the old hangar.

Ali and Gary (hidden) are mounting one of the wings in Ali’s hangar.  My replica Tiger Moth (a 1930s era bi-plane British trainer) has 4 wings (upper and lower on each side) so we stored 2 wings on each side of Ali’s hangar.

All snug in their new home for a year or so!  The “tail feathers” are strapped to the side of a wing.  When I return in the future I still need to build the fuselage, add the engine and instruments, cover the whole thing with fabric – then have fun!

Other “admin” stuff that got done was getting yellow fever (for Panama), typhoid, and booster shots, our annual physicals, and on and on.  Also need to do taxes before we leave – oh joy…!

With the start of our transition to “giving back” over the next several years, I needed to put my Tiger Moth project into hibernation.

A lot of people have asked over the years “When will you finish your airplane” and I’ve usually given some crazy, long term answer.  But truth be told, for many of us builders, the answer isn’t in when the project will be done, but rather the process in and of itself.

Being in a hangar with Gary, Geoff, Doug and other long term builders, a lot of the time has been spent in great camaraderie – talking airplanes, flying and life.  I’m surprised I’ve actually gotten as much done as I have!

But this past fall, Leslie came out and helped me wrap the wings, tail feathers and other parts and hoist them into the “attic” of the hangar. I needed to spend a full weekend clearing out (and off) my worktable, pack up all my tools, organize lots of little “stuff” and basically leave everything clear and clean.

Wings hanging in the “attic”.

A completely clean and cleared work table! But a couple of months later, it’s loaded with parts from my hangar mates!

I was sanding the edges of the horizontal stabilizer when I noticed red – hmmm – that didn’t look right! Didn’t realize that the edge of my sanding block was chewing into my palm as I aggressively sanded a radius on the leading and trailing edges of the stabilizer.

I’d been sanding for maybe a couple of hours and was pleased with how the radius was coming along, until I saw the blood.

How’d the builders in the 1920s and 1930s get their radius curves? Not really sure but today you’d just use a router and it’d be done nicely in a few hours.  But for some crazy reason I decided to manually sand the edges, and I found the experience of manual labor (and the smell of sawdust) to be therapeutic and a nice break from my “real” work as a Realtor.

The sanding is almost done now. I really like how the curves of the radius are turning out. The right side of the picture is the “fixed” part of the stabilizer. The left side (with the indent) is the elevator that goes up and down, which is what controls the up and down (pitch) of the aircraft.

When all the sanding is done, I’ll brush everything with sealer.

Very slowly, working a couple of hours on the weekends, I’ve been shaping the horizontal stabilizer and elevator for the Tiger Moth. They’re pretty much done now except for sanding the edges to give a rounded look. Here’s what they look like so far on Saturday:

The elevator is the back part of the horizontal stabilizer. It’s the part that goes up and down, controlling the pitch of the aircraft.

Like a bird’s feathers, the pieces are light as Leslie shows.

Playing with french curves on what looks good for this corner.

Once I figured out what curve I wanted on the left corner, I transferred it to the right corner by measuring several points – one marking point is where the pencil is pointing.

Now come a few weekends of sanding, then sealing the two pieces with varnish.

…radio had an interview I listened to with a mortgage lender who said that of his last 13 transactions, 12 of those deals had appraisals that came in LESS than the agreed upon purchase price of the deal.

His advice to sellers? Only sell to a buyer with a large down payment and don’t have the deal contingent on an appraisal.

That is true advice. Appraisers look “backward” at closed transactions and the market place has moved smartly ahead because of very limited inventory, which is resulting in multiple offers for properties – often for all cash.

But enough about business.

On Saturday I was heading out to Camarillo airport to work on my long term Tiger Moth project, where I’m currently building the elevator.

I started adding the interior framework, then moved on to cutting out the little blocking pieces on the bandsaw. Because of curves on the backside of the elevator, all those blocks are a little different sized, making it impossible to mass produce them.

So after standing for almost four hours, walking around the table, bending over, always measuring, I got tired and said enough already.

But I was back on the job Sunday afternoon and continued cutting out more blocking pieces. Finally, it was time to mix up the epoxy and start the clamping of all those pieces together. Another well spent weekend at the airport!