Still Here. Lot's Going on.

I've been absent the last couple months due to big changes in my personal life. After 30 years in Arizona, the time has come to move to be closer to family. After looking for almost 3 years we finally found an airpark home in Weatherford, TX just outside of Ft. Worth that checked all our boxes. My supportive wife saw over the years the time I was spending in the garage on the plane. She knew that activity would be moving to a hanger soon and saw the value in having a hanger, and me, close to the house. And I was certainly fine with that! So, we've been pretty consumed lately getting our AZ house for sale, packing and prepping to move to the new TX home in Jan. I'm pretty excited to move out of my 3-car garage and into a 50x60' hanger. My cars will appreciate being garaged again too! The moving logistics are daunting. My big concern is getting the plane and components moved 1050 miles damage free. After researching I'm enlisting Stewart Transport to move it. In addition to delivering all the Quick Build kits from Vans and other manufactures they also move completed and partially completed airplanes. Based on my prior experience with them they seem to know what they're doing. I spoke with a pilot who's had his RV-10 moved...twice...by Stewart across the country with no issues. He sent me photos of how they get a complete fuselage in the truck. Still, I'll be on pins and needles throughout until it's all safely in my hanger. But I think it's the safest and best option to transport it. My time in the shop here has suffered due to all the change. Hopefully come late January I'll be out in my hanger and being productive once again. But I have gotten a few things done. I finished up sealing all the baffling with RTV and getting both ignition blast tubes installed. I also got the Aircraft Specialties oil drain line installed behind the induction snorkel. It fits great with plenty of clearance. Yesterday I got the prop reinstalled and could finally see if the cowling template I used worked in setting the correct cowling/spinner gap and vertical cowling/spinner height. I couldn't have been more pleased with the results. All the specs seemed spot on and it looked really good. I've also been spending time prepping the wings and fuselage for shipment and boxing up other components. Stewart is even shipping my wing cradle so when it gets to TX I'll have a place to put the wings. I had to remove the horizontal stabilizer due to its width. In doing so the vertical stabilizer has to come off too. But I was faced with wiring that went through the aft vertical stabilizer spar for the tail lighting. Other than cutting off the connector there was no way to detach this wiring harness. But keeping the vertical stab in place wasn't going to work since the front of it bolts to the horizontal stab. After pondering it I created a fixture out of some scrap that bolted to the forward horizontal stab attach points. This provided a mount for the forward part of the vertical stab to bolt to. It also allows me to use all the attach bolts in the aft fuselage bulkhead. These are required to prevent fuselage damage that can occur when its bouncing on the gear and those bolts are not installed in the aft bulkhead. And I could keep all my wiring intact. That's all for now. I'll report back when I get established in TX.