10/02/2022
On Saturday I cleared the area in my main workshop where my constant chord foam cutting rig is. I got the fixture for cutting Q500 blanks out. I normally have it on its own table, but I'm just now getting the shop back in order and space is at a premium. I put the fixtures on the cutting table and cut 4 more blanks. I was down to one. I took a break and then cut a NACA 66-012 core. I was running a couple of cameras video recording to capture the process. I may try to turn it into a produced video. I've got the raw video from one of the cameras uploading to YouTube. I'll post the video link(s) later on.
I'm returning to sheeting wings for Q500 and probably other classes of planes. I'm going to take it further and start providing Ready to Cover (RTC) and finished wings. Foam cores will be available for NACA 66-012 (Vortex), S8064 (Viper 500), MH17B, and others. I have templates for the Ninja, and I'm going to be making templates for the Quik-V6 and V7 very soon.
Speaking of the Quik-V7 ... I had a guy named Gustavo Elizondo contact me here on Facebook a couple of weeks ago about sheeting cores and then building wings for him and his racing group in Mexico. I told him up front that the only methods of payment I take for direct orders are Zelle, CashApp by Square, and Venmo by PayPal. After giving him price and delivery, he hits me to take PayPal. I of course rejected that. I reiterated the payment methods I will accept. He tells me a check from Wells Fargo would be easier for him. Any Wells Fargo customer has Zelle. I sent him a screenshot from the mobile app. I finally sent this, letter for letter .. "I hate dealing with people not wanting to use modern payment methods" .. I had been communicating with him in Spanish because his English is poor. I'm a polyglot. I can usually read and write in other people's languages with the help of translation tools and dual translation much, much quicker than they can write English and understand it if it isn't their primary language. I had been communicating with him in Spanish. But Bluetooth had stopped working on my new primary desktop (a storm power glitch it turned out) and I was very frustrated not being able to use a decent mouse. So I wrote in English. A statement about dealing with people not using modern payment methods. He responded with "you hate ??? .. so you already have the plans and now you hate your costumer??? .. you are bad people .. but thats your problem .. understand why always complain on the internet .. bye" and he blocked me. I may post the portion leading up to my statement because he was pounding on me to take PayPal over and over again.
This I don't need. From anyone. One more time. I do not take PayPal for any direct sales. Period. Ever. Never. Again. PayPal holds a merchant's money for 21 days. I'm not working to loan PayPal money for 3 weeks. Most of my products are out-of-stock at Amazon and will be for a bit longer. Amazon can take whatever payment methods they want. I know I don't get paid by Amazon for 45-60 days. It's part of selling on Amazon. It's also one reason I haven't kept products in stock at Amazon during my health challenges. I've been fighting an extremely rare disease and fighting and clawing to survive and hopefully thrive again in the future. The bacterial infection was cured over a year ago. It and the recovery has been a hellacious time in my life. Few (if any) know what the actual struggle has been like. But I'm much better and if I wouldn't do things like sticking my most important finger in a model airplane propellor on a running engine at 20K rpm, or kick open dishwasher doors, things would be easier.
If you are still using PayPal, expect it to get harder and harder to use it. In the days of always connected phones, tablets, and computers, much better payment systems are readily available to anyone who knows how to download and use an app on a phone or computer. Scammers and people who want to dispute charges use PayPal. In the future, I expect fewer and fewer merchants to accept PayPal. It's just not worth the hassle. If you doubt what I've written about PayPal, take yourself to this link on PayPal's help pages .. https://www.paypal.com/us/brc/article/funds-availability .. this is actually much worse than some of the lines may lead you to believe. Read this part .. "Your selling pattern appears unusual or changed. An unusual sales activity includes: a recent spike in sales or a change in your average selling price, business platform or type of item being sold." .. what this means is that if you haven't sold in a while or if you suddenly get successful as has happened with me over and over again, your much need funds to pay for the product you've shipped get put on hold.
The positive here is that I'm seriously back in the shop. I'm seriously getting the shop back in order. I'm seriously working to get back to having fun building and flying model airplanes. Heaven knows I need some fun.
I had a good interview on Wednesday, and I should be returning to my banking software career very soon. In the meantime, I'm working very hard to start producing products for the hobby community again. I appreciate all of the support and understanding through these trying past few years.
Don
