VincentJ

Tim's plane not only looks great, it's a great flier to boot! He did an awesome job building it...it always turns heads at the flying field.

TCampbell

Thanks, but mine is a peanut compared to Kevin's 1/3 scale. The Gilmore color scheme is really sharp and its pilot, Roscoe Turner, had a personality to match. He dressed in in a military type uniform of his own design and traveled with his pet lion. Though a bit dramatic, he was an accomplished pilot and did win, place, or show in several of the big races of the day both in his WW44 and other planes.

Melchizedek

Tim,

Peanut, Smeanut. That's one fine looking WW44.
Mine is still a pile of sticks. Hope mine turns out as nice as yours.
Thank you for posting. Your plane is motivational eye candy.

So you and Vincent fly at the same club. How cool is that

Kevin

TCampbell

Thanks, Kevin, I'm excited to watch your version rise from the sticks.

Yes, I do have the good fortune of getting to see Vinny's planes first hand. Oh, he's a nice guy, too.

Melchizedek

Darn that internet thingy, nothing stays a secret.

Yea we hit it off real well. She was a card, couldn't take nothing serious.



Was a real looker too !
Only problem was.
She was a young thing and could not leave her mother.

Kevin

Melchizedek

Got a chance to put some sticks together.

First up I decided to do a sub assembly of the wing middle.
There is a 3/8 inch ply plate that will be the foundation of the landing gear.
Looks like the underside of the middle wing ribs will get cut away. Although not completely certain I decided to leave the ribs uncut and wait and see.
The upper edges of these ribs were epoxied and the lower edges were tack glued with CA so removal will be easier if necessary.



It was good to get the prints on the bench. Frame up is my favorite part of a build.


The middle of the wing is flat. One rib in from wing joint wing starts 3 deg dihedral.
I set that rib at a 3 deg lean using blocks to hold angle.
Wing joint rib was set the same way but was shimmed up off the table at the correct elevation determined by the main spar.



I added some corner braces to the front rib at the wing joint. There will be a merlin lock at this spot so beefing it up made cents.





There is some variance on the drawings. I thought at first it was because the drawings were blown up.
The wing rib detail is a heavy 3/32 slimmer (top to bot) than the detail at the fuse. and the rib detail is about 1/6 longer than the wing plan detail.
The issue I think is cause it was hand drawn vs. cad. Also symmetry is off.
Below will give you an idea, although this is the most obvious example I have found yet.


I will proceed with the drawing a general idea and measure everything to be certain.

Kevin

TCampbell

Looking good, Kevin. While the CAD produced schematics have fewer or no discrepancies, there is just something beautiful about hand drawn plans. Looking at the wing sheet in your third picture reminded me of how small the aileron are in relation to the wing. Out at the end there gives it some leverage, but I find mine reacts slowly to roll input.

You mentioned the corner braces are for a merlin lock. I'm not familiar with those. Is it a piece of hardware that will secure the wing to the center section?

Melchizedek

Hey Tim,

I'm glad you mentioned the roll rate of you WW44. I was thinking thems there control surfaces is puny.
I guess WW thought all rocket ships have puny control surfaces .
I will ponder adding a bay. Forgive me purists

The Merlyn locks are a way to bolt the wing together. Their name comes from the guy who came up with the idea.

Starting 7 posts down he gives a tutorial on how to do them -------> LINK

This will be the 3rd plan I will have used them on. Love this method.
Going to add a stop to this set that keeps the bolt in the tube (lost bolt inhibitor).

Kevin

acerc

Kevin, giving a link to a members thread on SB does not work unless whom ever clicks on the link is a logged in member before clicking the link.

TCampbell

Wow, that is a really cool system. People are so clever.

Melchizedek

Thanks for the heads up Robert.
I stay logged in. Did not realize no log in no can see.
I will see what I can do for those that don't wish to become a member (it is free incase you are wondering)

Yes, Tim
Clever indeed.

Kevin

Melchizedek

Ok,

Disclaimer

This is a depiction of another's work. All credit goes to Merlyn (can't remember his last name) and RCSB.
If you are not a member and love quality builds, do yourself a favor and spend some quality coffee(or favorite beverage) time over there.
I seldom post over there cause Red Bud trees feel shy around the Oaks






Kevin

joebahl

My Feedback: (2)

Thats Merlyn Graves a old friend and mentor of mine Keven . Soooo i missed Xmass and New Years on you other build and was reading it to get caught up today and found this one .lol Ahhh the days of my crazy youth with three large building tables and large amounts of balsa and tools spread out on all of them in different stages of that new plane i fell in love with and had to have one:-) Like this build also Keven and your making it look to easy. BTW the Beach Starship that Merlyn is working on in those photos i was there at its first maiden in IN and he ran out of runway and the corn field took off his left wing along with other bad damage ,afterwards he said in all the excitment of trying to get it to rotate he had forgot to use the brakes he put on it .lol joe

Rocketman612

My Feedback: (85)

Regarding the WWR ailerons Hostetler enlarged the ailerons about 25% and mine with the recommended throws was lethargic in a roll. I had built the aileron leading edge with a better bevel to get more throw if needed and I did increase the throw with good results. Had good flights yesterday. Pete

Melchizedek

Welcome back Joe

As for "making it look easy"
Well they say "a picture paints a thousand words."
The other side of that coin says , a picture can leave a thousand words out too !

Yesterday was a struggle. It started bright and peachy. I was excited about finally getting to put something together.
Things were going well I thought. I had the center wing together with rear spar and trailing edge glued in.
Something did not look right. I did a corner to corner check. It was out of square.
Checked to see if everything was sitting right with the drawing. It was.
The rib drawing line at the wing joint is not square to leading edge.

Now this rib is at a 3 deg lean and off the table. This complicates checking for square.
The only way to do it is to project the plane of that rib to the table.

I go get my framing square and sure enough.
The frame has to be taken apart. I thought, I do not want to have to make all these ribs over again.
I was able to get the 2 rear spars out with just a little crack to a rib. That was fixed.
I was able to break free the trailing edge with just breaking the trailing edge tip of one spar. I scabbed a piece on to it.

Cleaned the spars up and began reassembly using my trusty square. Unbeknownst to me, there was a little glue *** stuck
to one leg of my square. So I commenced reassembly out of square in the opposite direction. This was found out this time wile the glue was still wet.

Third times a charm. I was not a happy camper to say the least.
If the wing ribs were balsa Id of had to just throw it away.

Corner to corner check and all is well, with just a few bruises.

Learned a few things for the next build. Silver lining

Kevin

Melchizedek

Pete, Love that third shot. Money shot it is.
Beautiful plane you have.

Thanks for the input on the ailerons. Amazing that Hostetler increased them 25 %. They are amazingly small.
I will probably increase them but not certain yet.

Kevin

Melchizedek

After yesterday I made sure the wing wasn't going to scoot out of square will I glued more stuff to it.

The sheer webs (3/32 ac ply) were fit and glued in place.



Then plug molding was cut to fill the trailing edge slot between the spars.
Given that there is scant little spar at the trailing edge, I decided to make this plug beefy to reinforce the rib tips and leave a nice ledge for wing sheeting.





Corner braces were added to the rear Merlyn lock location and at the trailing edge.



Kevin

acerc

I don't know what is going on, whether it is RCU or what, but when I click on the attachments it says invalid attachment.

Melchizedek

I don't know either Robert.
I had problems with this post.
I will go back up and re-edit it and see what happens.

Kevin

There, fixed it, I think

acerc

Much better!! And while I'm at I guess I can say, nice work.
Or better yet, very nice work.

Leroy Gardner

+1, Leroy

VincentJ

These type of set backs are always bound to crop up from time to time Kevin, you learned from it and that's what was important. Even with the mishaps, your build is a fine example of good craftmanship...keep up the good work!

Melchizedek

Thank you Robert, Leroy, & Vincent


You are spot on Vin (about the set backs)

My intention is to post an honest build. So other readers who would like to stretch there building skills (like me ) see the warts as well as the successes. (Don't read into this that others don't do the same ). Just like you said Vincent. Mishaps are part of the journey.

I want also to go back and explain post #55.
It goes without saying, if you have to explain humor, it ain't.
But I did not want anyone to get the wrong idea.


The line " she is a young thing and can not leave her mother "
Come s from a folk song " Billy Boy, Billy Boy.
The age is asked after that , and the retort is
" three times six and four times seven,
twenty-eight and eleven
she's a young thing and can not leave her mother."

I just didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about the young thing part.

I'm familiar with this song from a 1948 Disney movie " So Dear To My Heart "
I used to watch this movie with my 3 girls when they were little.
This movie would be considered corny and probably would not be made by today's standards.
It reflects an America that was. I know, America had its warts then as it does now but there was a moral plumb line that has since been torn down.

The movie has object lessons all though it like.
Honesty, hard work, stick to it tivety, the perceived impossible is not always impossible, faithfulness, etc.

If you have little grand kids or little kids or see it for yourself. I highly recommend it.

Reading Leroy's thread. There was a discussion about build threads becoming stail and that stories of the man behind the plane can keep them fresh.

This post is on that account.

Kevin

joebahl

My Feedback: (2)

Yea iam not even going there ,my gf is 18 years younger than me .lol joe

Melchizedek

Was able to make a dent in the port wing panel.

First thing was to set the center section square on home plate and prop the other end up off the table to accommodate for the dihedral.



After the center section was locked in place outer spar was slipped into place and locked straight and square.
When the spars were made. I incorporated a spine to keep things tight and in line. The spine is only for assembly.
It will be discarded once outer panel comes off the table. I will not cut through this. It will slip out.



I did a lot of head scratching on how to go about assembly in coordination with the wing tube.
Each rib got a 1/6 ac ply reinforcement plate on each side of tube hole. The tube got an 1/8 ply puck glued into each end.
Then a keeper plate was made for each end.

The furthest outside tube end butts to a balsa spar. So I thought it would be wise for the keeper on this end to slip into the spar and not just but to it. this keeper is 1/8 ply.



Also a filler stick was added between wing socket and spar and the socket.
When everything sat well it was epoxied in place. I used one of those sig glue syringes with the curved end.
Ladled the epoxy into it then went to town.





Lots more to do to the starboard panel but feel real good with progress thus far.

Kevin