After doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, building fin jig parts, lawn mowing and repairing all of the junk that goes along with it, I finally returned to this project. Macklin's rendition of the Skonk Wulf by Shrox is almost finished...except for the launch lug, painting, decals and flight prep. I should be 100% by Christmas. Maybe?

I deviated somewhat from the sequence shown in the plans and instead chose to mark and fabricate the fins first, as this would give the glue plenty of time to set while I worked on other aspects of the build. Next I fabricated the centering rings and made a 24 mm motor mount. Since I didn't have an Estes E size motor hook on hand, I used a standard hook for A-D motors, but installed with the hooks pointing outward using epoxy and fiberglass strapping tape. When I fly this exotic creation (if I get the nerve), I'll make a masking tape thrust ring on the motor and then retain the motor with a couple passes of masking tape.

It took a bit of improvisation to use my fin jig to set the "underfin", because the distance between the bottom of the aluminum alignment rails and the point of tangent on a BT80 is only about one inch, barely enough to capture the work piece. To solve this problem, I gauged the rails further apart by use of two 1/8" x 1" aluminum flats and two 1/8" x 2" x 2" angles which were set within the rails and sandwiched the fin. This allowed the fin to be adequately held while being glued. (See pics)

All in all I am very pleased with this kit and the way it is turning out. Were there things I would do differently were I to build it again? Sure. Aren't there always?

Here's some more pics.

Attached Thumbnails