I just got back from my trip to Oshkosh (followed by a vacation) which was awesome, as always! I talked to a lot of vendors while I was there about things for the plane and got a demo flight in a CarbonCub SS (extremely similar to what I’m building) for some extra motivation (thanks, Rick, for setting that up)!
I had tried to delay the shipping of my finish kit until I returned from Oshkosh but I think there was a bit of a mixup and it shipped on the original shipping date. I got a call from Old Dominion freight that it had arrived in Denver 2 days before I was supposed to leave for my trip. They were unable to deliver it the following day (before I left) but were able to hold on to it until today.
The driver was extremely nice and gave me an hour notice that he was coming - I think this was partially due to the fact that he was concerned about how I would unload it. I was able to arrange a towing company to come with a flat bed tow truck to unload the crate in the exact same way that the first kit crate was unloaded (I had to use a different company this time though). The tow truck and delivery truck showed up within 5 minutes of each other and the entire unloading process probably only took 10 minutes - it went extremely smoothly. There was a bit of damage to the end of the crate but fortunately nothing inside was impacted.
The finish kit crate in my driveway
After the crate was delivered, I was able to open one of the ends by removing a few screws and start to unload it. As before, everything was well packed and there were a number of cardboard boxes that I unloaded first.
The crate open and ready to unpack
Eventually, I did have to remove the top of the crate as well in order to remove some of the larger items like the tires, the windshield, and the struts. This was easily accomplished as well with a few screws in the top so I think this was probably the intended method for unloading.
The crate with the top removed
I was able to unload everything into the garage and began going through the packing lists to catalog some of the parts. I still have a lot to do but was at least able to move some of the boxes into the shed and make a bit of a start. The shed is quickly running out of space though and I think I’ll need to re-organize it before I organize too much more, especially since I need to find a place to store some of the bigger pieces. Some of them might stay in the garage for the time being.
Contents of the finish kit in the garage
Over the next few days I’m hoping to finish cataloging everything and getting a bit more organized so that I have space to make some building progress again. I should also mention that I had already received some boxes of backordered parts from CubCrafters via UPS by the time I got home from my trip so I’ll need to organize those as well.