Originally Posted by Jim Deck

IF ever a frame cried out for transparent covering. this is it. Looks like Mark has produced a winner so far. Well done, sir.
Now, will the weather in your neck of the woods allow a maiden before next May?

Well, now, Jim... That is a sore subject... Winds today were 38 mph sustained with gusts to 52... Tomorrow may be better...... rrriiiiiggghhhtttt....

Who knows, next weekend may be wonderful... but if it follows the pattern we've had most of the year... summer included... it'll blow a gale...

However, taking the attitude of the ol' Lemonade maker... I have MUCH building to do... so much wood... so little time...

Darth Chubby Hubby... (again, don't ask... I gotta quit making bets... and YES... she's looking over my shoulder to make sure I don't welch... )

Thanks for the kind words Jim.

So far I have not seen anything that would cause concern in the build even though the parts I sent Jack were not the exact same version as the plans. the plans are the latest version. So I think I'll start finishing the instruction manual and start getting things ready for the first run of kits.

One note...I lost a hard drive last spring and have lost the names of folks interested in a kit. If you sent me your name prior to early summer please rend me an emails and I'll start building a new list.

Unfortunately I lost the past 15 years of my computer life on that hard drive. Fortunately the only stuff I had an offsite back up of were my sailplane files. I had a backup hard drive that was a mirror of my main drive but whatever corruption that happened on my main drive were backed up onto the backup and I lost stuff. I just got done making a new website and am still adding products.

Thanks Jack and all you other guys for your help and encouragement on this project.

Mark Miller
mark@isthmusmodels.com
www.isthmusmodels.com

My thanks to you Mark... after all, I'm the one enjoying the build... Hey, I even get to fly it, too!

Here is the box label....

Mine will be transparent green and cream with gold trim... Should look pretty nice...

The tails are permanently on the fuselage and the glider needs to be finish sanded, center section glassed, ( I decided not to glass the nose), covered, final control hookup, balanced, and MAIDENED! Should be a winner!

Now... where's that 240-grit?

Well, yesterday was actually a decent flying day. I decided to load the new Xplorer up and go out and play. Tonight, I plan to glass the center of the wing, finish sand everything and get ready to cover the model. It should go pretty quickly. I will post pics when I do anything out of the ordinary, like the spoiler hookup and so on... I'm not seeing too many questions so hopefully, most are being answered by my words and pictures... but if you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask...

Jack

Hi Jack,

I have enjoyed watching your build as I always learn something when I see other people's techniques. I will be very interested to hear your flight reports and your impressions of this 2 meter plane. The sailplane market needs more, updated 2 meter designs. GL's and Sig Risers are fine but they are 30 year old designs. Other than the Miles and the Chrysalis, there are not too many modern 2 meter woody kits out there, it's nice to see something new.

Wayne

Hey Jack, I thought you had finally got out of the garage to do all your building, but alas, and alack, i saw the family truckster in one of your pics!! So sorry my friend, I hope you have a good portable electric heater to keep you going!!
It ain't nearly so cold here in the Cotulla, Tx area! looks like my building ain't going to be curtailed by Mother nature!!
All the best, Jack!!
Allen

Originally Posted by Windependence

Hi Jack,

I have enjoyed watching your build as I always learn something when I see other people's techniques. I will be very interested to hear your flight reports and your impressions of this 2 meter plane. The sailplane market needs more, updated 2 meter designs. GL's and Sig Risers are fine but they are 30 year old designs. Other than the Miles and the Chrysalis, there are not too many modern 2 meter woody kits out there, it's nice to see something new.

Wayne

Yep, been enjoying the build also . I too would like to see some more "modern" 2 meter woodies, but I need electric power. I'm flying a Cularis now and love it, but would like to have a good 2 meter woodie.
Mark, I checked your website, but see that you are having issues with posting product. Do you have an electric 2 meter?

RCA....I'll be adding the model kits back shortly. What kind of electric 2 meter are you looking for?

The problem is not with adding products. I had to completely recreate my website as the hard drive crash left me with no usable main file. The software I use does not use the raw html pages but usses a propriatary file structure from which the html is exported. Do unfirtunately there is no backwards compatibility from the files on the site server. I have been working on it all summer and finally got it to the point where the design is done. I am in the process of adding products back in. This is a massive amunt of work but it needs to be done.

I investigated different software packages and systems but went back to the one I was using. It is not ideal but for a small company that cannot afford much in the way of monthly recurring fees for stuff this is the best bang for the buck. Plus it puts the photos in a similar format and size so it has a more unified look. A site I had a few years ago I spent most of my time in Photoshop editing pictures. Never did like the look.

It is all part of the model business. It would be nice to spend more time on the kits but it needs to be done.

Originally Posted by Mark Miller

RCA....I'll be adding the model kits back shortly. What kind of electric 2 meter are you looking for?

Not sure.. Something like the Skimmer. I have the smaller one and like it for those light lift, calmer days. It's too small (60" span) so if there's much lift it gets a bit scary. Or a nice basic RES 2 meter design like the Duet shown here, but with electric motor designed in. Sure I could cobble something together, but I already have 2 designs on the drawing board, so it would be nice to just build a kit the way it was designed.

I hear ya on the web stuff. I run a few sites for various organizations. I use Joomla for the kids swim team. The original intent 5 years ago was I set it up, run the back end, and the officers update it. It hasn't panned out that way, and I do it all. It's nice in that I can edit from anywhere. But even though I keep the software consistently updated, it is hack-able as evident by the site getting hacked once a few years back. So I certainly wouldn't trust to a business. The other site is for the R/C club. It uses a package like you explain. Makes for a prettier site, and good for a site that isn't updated frequently. I do keep a backup stored off line for such

Originally Posted by Mark Miller

RCA....I'll be adding the model kits back shortly. What kind of electric 2 meter are you looking for?

The problem is not with adding products. I had to completely recreate my website as the hard drive crash left me with no usable main file. The software I use does not use the raw html pages but usses a propriatary file structure from which the html is exported. Do unfirtunately there is no backwards compatibility from the files on the site server. I have been working on it all summer and finally got it to the point where the design is done. I am in the process of adding products back in. This is a massive amunt of work but it needs to be done.

I investigated different software packages and systems but went back to the one I was using. It is not ideal but for a small company that cannot afford much in the way of monthly recurring fees for stuff this is the best bang for the buck. Plus it puts the photos in a similar format and size so it has a more unified look. A site I had a few years ago I spent most of my time in Photoshop editing pictures. Never did like the look.

It is all part of the model business. It would be nice to spend more time on the kits but it needs to be done.

Mark,

I hate it that you've been in a "recreation" period with your data. I've been in hard core, hard drive data recovery for the last ten years. The only failure point that is not recoverable from is surface damage. This is where the R/W heads actually punch through the air bearing and contact the surfaces of the media stack and scatch it. We see this failure in only about 3% of the drives submitted.

If there is still a need for the data, PM me and maybe we could work something out.

Cheers,

Don
http://www.datarecovery.net

Thanks Don. I'm in pretty good shape all in all. The site is up and running and has most of the product entered. More to go but at least it works. I had my sailplane design files backed up on another drive so I didn't loose any of that. That may have been a death knell if I lost all that stuff.

Moral of the story. Do not rely solely on a single local backup. Do it offsite too.

Allen... what'ntheheck are you doing in Cotula? I haven't heard from you in a long time... We're gonna do some stuff next year.

Sorry for the lack of progress, but... well... work is a 4-letter word sometimes...

I have a hiring event tomorrow... and maybe someone will be getting a new job...... with benefits... ... I will be up in front of people making a presentation...

Ya know, the S.O. has family up Amarillo way... maybe I can pack an airplane when we head up that way.