Don't touch it!
 

At the end of the night when you are finished building your horizontal stab, with elevators attached, and you turn to take one last look before turning out the lights and you notice one of the towels it is resting on is crooked just keep going on to bed, its been a long day? Otherwise you may try to pick up that brand new shinny just completed horizontal stab and have it slide off the bench and onto the floor. It then takes at least another ? hour before you?re turning out the lights again.

Ready, Set, Stop
 

As soon as you strap on all of your safety equipment (glasses, ear protection, dust mask) your wife, friend, neighbor, acquaintance will pop in and expect a two way conversation. :rolleyes:

Beginner tip #12...
 

When drilling the arms rests in place while standing on the outside of the fuselage and leaning in, be sure not to push the skin with your knee... You might actually drill into your kneecap :eek:

Getting Callers Off the Phone
 

When you're in respirator, ear plugs, and every imaginable piece of safety gear and your phone starts ringing and your realize you NEED to answer it, the best way to get a caller off the phone quickly is turn on the air-compressor and START TALKING REALLY LOUDLY INTO THE PHONE. WHAT?!? I COULDN'T HEAR YOU?

It makes for short conversations. ;)

Or overseas
 

Be careful who you choose if you don't know any different. FedEx, ah recognize them, they'll do. NZ$80 for an HS skin and spar. NZ$200 on shipping :-(

beginner truisms
 

The lazy man works the hardest.

The lazy man works the hardest.

A simple plan is worth a pound of flesh and countless hours.

Make a plan and stick to the plan.

1. When dimpling alone make very sure male dimple is aligned BEFORE striking with hammer, the extra dimpled hole can ruin your day
2. Make sure you have space behind the bucking bar for your hand/fingers BEFORE squeezing the rivet gun trigger
3. Really, really clean up the lightning holes in the wing ribs so you do not find out how sharp they can be when bucking the bottom wing skins
4. Never ever think that just because you bought a RV builders tool kit you have ALL the tools you will need.
5. Get the following catalogs: Vans, The list, Spruce, you will need them all
6. You will run out of a particular rivet size right when you have the day off, the family is off having fun and you are half way through a critical task
7. Get some OOPS rivet early, you will need them

Never leave your 4 year old alone for more than two minutes within reach of your plastic bins full of an426-3 rivets. It's facinating to a kid how all those rivets fit into one bin instead of 6.

Tip N+1: The lengths of AN426AD3-3, 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5 rivets become visually indistinguishable after 11 p.m.

Tip N+2: Adjacent lengths are never visually distinguishable when mixed in the same container.

John Siebold