Glider Wife

Wings In The Garden

2009-08-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

Soda-blasted Agcat

2009-08-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

This is what we're aiming for ....

Slow Going

2009-08-19T05:06:00.000-07:00

After experimenting briefly with the soda blaster, we've returned to using aircraft stripper on the fuselage. Better to get something accomplished. The Boston Whaler and one trailer are off the lawn, but the wings aren't yet in a position to work on. For one thing, we don't yet have the concrete slab done, and that may be an issue for other reasons. While other things are up in the air, Scott and I take turns applying stripper in small sections. This is how things stand today:

Moving the Shed

2009-08-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

For several years we've had a "portable" steel-frame 10x20 shed at the foot of our driveway, just past the non-functional garage entrance. When we put it there we didn't realize how rain and melting snow run-off would keep it damp. Bikes, lawnmowers, skiis, furniture -- all kinds of things have been stored and ruined in it. We've talked about moving it, but like most projects of the sort, very soon turned to something else and deferred any action. Now Scott has decided to have a concrete platform poured adjacent to the garage, so to prepare the area we emptied the shed, detached the frame and moved it in two parts another twenty or so feet down the hill. Scott moved the platform mostly by himself but grudgingly accepted some help from Madeline and me at times. By the way, the mosquitoes down here are bountiful and vicious, and not very impressed by insect spray.

Here's a view from the corner deck. You can see how soil filled in under the platform, rotting some of the plywood floor. We found a neat skeleton, too -- possibly a fox -- and a (live) toad.

Soda Blasting

2009-08-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

Well the much anticipated soda blaster arrived! Scott bought the model that can be used with other abrasives (e.g. walnut shells and glass beads) as well as baking soda, but we rigged it for soda and tried it first on a piece of flat aluminum. I'd had fantasies of spending a day blasting one whole side of a wing, but was soon disabused of the notion. We may need to try a different grit of baking soda and/or more compression. I'm sure our technique is also somewhat lacking. I suppose there's a good reason people pay $10k to have their aircraft stripped.

Introducing Mike, the trailer elf

2009-07-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's official. Mike Slaney has agreed to spin straw into gold, i.e. to metamorphose the open Schweizer trailer into an enclosed HP-14 trailer. In exchange, he (and wife Patty) have now acquired our firstborn motor boat, the Boston Whaler, BW II. First, though, he had a test: somehow he had to fix the incorrigible little yellow Gem's broken frame. This is Mike in the hangar at Sterling Airport just after we determined that his repair would, indeed, work. Mike got to meet Tom, the airport manager, and Fred Looft, a glider pilot and instructor. It was all too much fun for one day -- or so we thought, until we towed BW II to his home where we met Mike's and Patty's goats, chickens and cats.

Here are the goats, whose names, I am sorry to say I've forgotten. The harness is for going on walks.

Yes! It's Another Trailer!

2009-07-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

You'll notice the HP-14 wings are up off the lawn, resting for the time being on the 1-23 trailer. If you look closely, you'll also see the ruddervators in the Boston Whaler. But -- wait a minute -- what's that grey thing! you ask. (You did ask, didn't you.) It's another trailer, an actual glider trailer that we bought from a wicked nice guy in (I think) New Hampshire a couple of days ago. Of course it's not for the HP-14 so it will require modification. The 20' boat trailer has been demoted to the lower part of the driveway and may yet be turned into a quasi-landscaping trailer for golf/electric carts if the trailer fairy visits. Are we supposed to put a hitch ball under the pillow if we want the trailer fairy to come?

The Plot Sickens

2009-07-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

First a little background on the Boston Whaler. We bought it in 2003 to use at Scott's parents' place on a saltwater creek in Kittery Point, Maine. Before we ever had a chance to tow it up there, we had to repair the dock ... but the steep steps leading to the dock were rotten, too .... and then mum died .... then dad died ..... and BW II (not BW, which is Bunnie Wunnie, who deserved his own blog but never got one -- just another example of living in the wrong era) languished under a tall oak in landlocked central Massachusetts covered by a tarp. Evenutally Scott decided to put BW II up for sale, partly to reduce the toy population and partly to raise spondulicks for the new toys. So BW II was hauled up to the curb, the tarp rolled off, the acorns washed out, the engine repaired

And then something funny happened: Scott found an advertisement in Craigslist by someone who was interested in trading his welding services for a small boat, say, perhaps, a 13-foot Boston Whaler. Might this be the trailer fairy Scott had seen in his daydreams?

Meanwhile, the HP-14 wings had to go somewhere -- somewhere soft and safe, like a lawn. Hey, I have one of those!

But wait -- there's more .....

What does a 13-ft Boston Whaler have to do with gliders?

2009-07-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

Nothing. At least in a normal household. But there's a strange branch of evolution operating here. Notice behind the little boat are two trailers. The black one is the trailer for the Schweizer 1-23, aka "Blue Whale" or Baby Beluga, depending on who first spots her in the sky. The other is a recently acquired boat trailer which Scott hopes the trailer elves will convert to an HP-14 trailer some night whilst we sleep. But wait -- there's more.

Once a pool, then a garden .... now a shop

2009-07-07T15:51:00.000-07:00