We’ve had the empennage boxes in the garage for over a week now without touching them. In that time we’ve done a lot of cleaning, sorting, and miscellaneous other things around the shop in preparation. This weekend we finally opened the two boxes and completed the inventory. It’s really exciting to see airplane shaped parts in the shop now!
We found two parts missing; in one case we were supposed to get a left and right piece but got two lefts, in the other case there was a bundle of 8 ribs that only contained 7. Vans will ship out any parts missing from the kits as long as we contact them within 30 days of delivery, so we should see replacement parts in a couple weeks.
After the inventory we took some foam and razor blades to the living room and started cutting. It’s really time consuming to lay out, trace, and cut all the tools in the tool box but it’s really rewarding to see the finished product. It’s certainly not necessary to shadow box the tools but it helps us be more organized, professional, and will hopefully prevent anything from getting left in the airplane.
There’s so many drawers left to shadow box and a few more tools to buy but we’re getting close to having the shop sorted. The next fun thing to do is attempt to put together one of the practice kits from Vans. I’m looking forward to this first step, laughing at how bad it goes, and improving our skills. We’ll let you know how it goes.
Cheers,
– Kacy