[79FT]: Building Things

Aside from the typical "on this blog, you will see my musings on my various projects", blablabla...

Initially, I've set out to combine fulfilling the FAA requirement to document building of an experimental airplane with the desire to actually have the log be public. Being a nerd, doing it in the form of a B-Log (Builder's Log.. what did you think that stood for? :) ) seemed to be natural - so I did.

My thinking was... there's not so many truly comprehensive builder's logs out there... so I'd make one.

By the way, I have collected the builder's logs I think are super-informative under the Links menu... As you can see, not so many.

I ended up creating a semi-custom piece of software that does this for me (I hate KitLog...). You can read more about it here.

Over time though, I decided that I wanted to document more than just an airplane build, and to include my other projects... It seems at least that in the near few years, my building will involve anything but an airplane, and having record of these endeavors would be nice... I guess, mostly for myself; but hey - if these pages will help you, be my guest!

However, this eventually is going to be an airplane builder's log...

Anyhow.

I have caught the building bug when I first saw an RV-8 in Watsonville, and wanted to build one ever since.

I like giving people rides though, and I likes having more than one victim in my plane, so, after many hours of deliberation, reading through VAF forums, and researching designs, I've settled on an RV-10, since that was the only 4-seater RV. It had to be an RV, of course, since it is the best !/$, it is the most popular design, and it looks so much like my Grumman Tiger that I just loved (and still do, even though I had to sell it). Ohh, the fun N28797...

All that until I got a ride in a Stearman. After that, I was 100% hooked on open cockpit, biplanes, and aerobatic -- and by then, I also have researched much more, realizing that I want to build to build, and therefore, scratch-built was a way to go.

Choosing between various 2-seater bipes, initially I settled on a Steen Skybolt.

For a long time I haven't had any means, place, or tools to build, so I did the second best thing to building -- I started redrawing the plans in 3D CAD, building my plane virtually. That helped me understand the plans and make sure things fit if done to plans' dimensions w/o actually wasting any material.

Eventually, I set up my first shop, and was getting ready to start doing some actual work - you can see some entries around here on my CAD work that I was doing in preparing to start building the wings. That's when the first version of this site went up, too; because I was seriously logging work.

And then, the dreaded Life Getting In The Way.

I started building my house (I bet there is a page on this site about that somewhere... I just haven't put it up yet as of this writing :)).

My shop was now busy with me building my kitchen cabinets. That took a year. Finishing the house after having built it took another year.

During these years, I flew a Skybolt. I also flew a Marquart Charger. And I learned a hell lot more about biplanes.

And I decided... that I'll most likely build a Charger. I like the looks of it better than a Skybolt, and, being a lazy pilot, like the fact that it's much easier to fly than a 'Bolt. I'm a $100 burger type, not a competition acro type, after all...

But that's in the future. I will be building my shop for a while. More on that on these log pages. I will then be building furniture for my new house.

And then...

Finally...

Eventually...

I'll start building the damn plane.

PS: This page was initially written in 2014 and updated in 2018 to reflect changes to my thinking and the site