Sbonder

I am still in the process of converting my furniture shop to a model shop, but got to thinking about ways in which I can use my woodworking skills to enhance the kit I will start with before jumping into scratch buliding. (likely BUSA 1/4 Sopwith Pup)

Question 1- does anybody replace materials with carbon fiber or bamboo (which in some applications is lighter and stronger-though more flexible) that basswood? If so, which and what issues concerns come up? Suppliers?

Question 2 -if you make your own parts to modify or build from your own plans, do you joint and plan the wood? How do you get the wood true before dimesnioning it? I jsut sold my 12" jointer/planer, but still have handplanes.

Thanks in advance.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

That's the beauty of building. You can change or reinforce anything along the way.

And the more tools you have, the better off you are!

EscapeFlyer

My Feedback: (1)

I just heard about 50,000 of us turn green with envy...

Plans building sounds right up your alley. You can cut all your own parts and modify them as you see fit.

To true up wood sheeting, straight edges are a must. The better the straight edge, the better the results. You will use all sizes. The bigger the project, the bigger the straight edge. They can be spendy, but worth every dime.

Check out the build threads in the Classic Pattern forum. A lot of great help in there. You will see foam wing building, and all wood built structures. Loads of helpful info.

One example here:

[link]http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3973867/tm.htm[/link]

No matter what you're building, you can glean so much from these build links. From tools to supplies.

Brian

Sbonder

Thanks.  What about truing the face, relieving twist, etc on non-sheet goods.

EscapeFlyer

My Feedback: (1)

I've used a Craftsman planer on balsa and it worked great. You can use it.

Scroll saws and Bandsaws, drum sanders, belt sanders. We use all these for that.

I use my 12" 90 degree disk sander A LOT.

Brian

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Well, I just started using my wood shop/club when I cut my kits. I use the orbital osculating sander for a lot of the curved parts. I cut my own hardwood stringers and use the table saws. I have always used my own scroll saw but my last plane I used the shops band saw for most everything, it was much faster. When I buy my sheeting there is almost never a true straight edge so this time I used double sided carpet tape and taped the bundles together then used the plainer but a table saw could have been used. The choice of wood is up to you. I dazzled the guys in the shop when I was cutting hardwood stringers. I was cutting 1/8X1/8 and 10 foot long. I make sure I have a big stock of hardwood stringers in 3/8X3/8 1/4X1/4 3/16X 1/8 and 1/4X1/8. I have them cut in 8 and 10 foot lengths. Good tools are a big help but in the past I just bought my wood in bulk from places like Lone Star Balsa and now National Blasa then used the scroll saw and sander I have in my own shop. My wood working clubs shop is a lot better and I don't get near the dust in my shop I used to.

SunDevilPilot

The two most used tools in my shop in regards to model airplane building are my scroll saw and my 12" disc sander (A new addition!). I previously had a 6" disc with 4" belt combo but I wanted a little more substantial disc sander. Like I said, the disc sander is one of my most used tools so I wanted one that was a little more precise / sturdy. I now have a Jet 12" disc sander and am at a loss as to how I lived without it for so long.

I also use a few hand planes now and again for rough shaping of wing leading edges.

Once in a while a table saw proves useful when truing up the edges of balsa sheeting. WIth a properly setup saw you can get a perfect sheet. I generally use a straight edge on a balsa sheet, draw a straight reference line, use a hand plane to get the sheet close, then finish cut with a table saw.

Just a couple examples of woodworking tools at use in model building.

I would like a spindle sander but for now I use a drum sander in my drill press, which is another "must have" tool.

(A few photos of my current project, a 1/4 scale Sig Cub..... Build thread in the kit building forum)

SunDevilPilot

smithcreek

My Feedback: (25)

Unfortunately you sold the most useful piece of machinery if you want to dimension balsa blocks or planks down to 1/4" or so. Joint the face or edge or both cut whatever you want with a band or table saw then run it through the planer for final dimension. I've never had a problem though running a piece over the jointer or through the planer. I'm a luthier by trade so I have all sorts of wonderfully sharp hand planes and it's always a crap shoot whether a particular piece of balsa will plane well or not at all. Some of it is so soft it just deflects even with a just honed blade.

Rodney

The mention of bamboo in the first post reminded me of a question I have had that has never been satisfactorily answered: What is a good reliable adhesive for bamboo? I have never found any (and I think I have tried them all) that will give a strong bond on bamboo. By strong, I mean where the bamboo will break before the joint breaks.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Sorry, I said I used a plainer to straighten my sheeting. I meant to say Jointer/joiner to get a nice true edge.

cwrr5

My Feedback: (32)

Good question! I was curious about that myself, never had much luck gluing bamboo to anything. Anyone know of a good source of bamboo as well?

box car

I think the glue you are looking for can only be had in Australia. One is called EPIGLUE and the other is TECHNIGLUE and the cost is out of site.
Ken

ARUP

DUCO and Ambroid Cement work great with bamboo! Even though I've never used it, Sigment is applicable here, too, since it's the same type of glue. I think the gluejoint will still fail before the bamboo. Bamboo is great stuff. No wonder early aviators used it so often. I use it to make treenails for planking my wooden ship models.

box car

Bamboo is a fiber type wood. When you glue it only the top fiber has glue making it easy to pull apart.
Ken

Scratchie

saramos

Hi Sbonder,

Here's a place where you can find a lot of good advice on building. http://www.airfieldmodels.com/inform...urce/index.htm
As for truing an edge, if you have a 4' long piece of 1 x material with a jointed edge, or length of aluminum square tubing, you can use self adhiesive sand paper and make a sheet edger. (instructions can be found on the airfieldmodels website.
If you have a torsion box assembly table, you've got a good surface for building. I've topped mine with 16 guage cold rolled steel and use magnets for building. I got this design from airfieldmodels too.

There are two tools that I don't have that I would like to acquire. One is a Microlux tilt arbor table saw, and the Microlux drum thickens sander. I think with your bacground that these would be two tools that you would find very useful.
These can be found at http://www.micromark.com/
under power tools - saws and power tools - sanding respectively

I think between those two sites, you will find most the answers and items you have questions about.

Scott

Sbonder

Thanks.  I used bamboo without issue in some furniture.  For all of my furniture I just used white elmers, which is what some of the best furniture makers i know use.  But, we are using tight joinery too, so the glue was far less of an issue.  I'll likely experiment some with glues.

saramos

That Byrnes saw looks really nice!

Scott

Hydro Junkie

Saramos, if all you're going to sand with the drum sander is balsa smaller than 5" wide and 1/2" thick, then the one you listed above is fine. If you're going to do anything larger, you need to look at this one:
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=17140
I have this one, http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=17143 and have found it to be a very versitile tool and able to handle small and thin material as well as very large projects that the little Micromark sander could only dream of. As for the little table saw, that may be one I need to get my hands on as my 12" Craftsman is overkill for a lot of my smaller projects[X(]

Sbonder

As mentioned in another post of mine, I still have my heavy wood joinery bench. I am keeping it for the knocking around, and cutting. I am going Friday morning to Sears to get one of their 6' long workbenches that are 42" height. They will be 50% off (or so I hear). I plan on getting the butcher block top. Once in my shop I will level the whole assembly and top it with plate glass and a metal sheet so I can use magnets.

Granite is becoming real popular in the furniture building world. A decent number of jointers are now being sold with granite tables instead of steel because they stay flat, are slick and low maintenance. I would think that if you can get a piece of granite at a good price it would be a great work surface.

saramos

It's kind of interesting that with many of the new woodworking tools like CNC routers that there is more and more crossover from metalwoking to woodworking. Precision ground granite blocks are used in metalwork for having a truely flat surface for measurements. I used heavyduty shelf units as a base for my buildboard. I just posted photos of the workshop in my photo gallery. It'll take a few minutes until RCU updates the gallery.

I'm doing a little upgrade on my buildboard over the holiday. I'm adding T tracks on the two long sides so I can run a straight edge across the table and whatever future uses I can come up with. Progress is slow because I'm recovering from a back strain. I'll post photos in my gallery of the upgrade when I complete them.

Sbonder

Very cool. I had T-tracks set up on my chop saw staion, which was great. Also had a t-track that ran through the center of my table saw sliding table, whcih was fantastic. I used it for clamps of a wide variety and mounting jigs.
I found a chair of sorts that you actually ended up sitting forward on your knees. i used it when i had some back issues and found that i need to sit at the bench for cutting dovetails. really eased up the back pain. i think it was called a kneeling chair. might be worth a shot.

ARUP

If you want a flat surface for building then get glass for you worktop. Dave Platt has some instructional vids that shows his process.

Red B.

If you have a furniture shop and woodworking knowledge to match a torsion box table is what you should build. It is fairly quick and very easy to build, and when done correctly will be good enough for any aircraft project you may have in mind. The good thing is that you can customize the size to fit your needs and available space.
If you are unfamiliar wth the torsion box table, here is a good introduction: [link=http://thewoodwhisperer.com/episode-18-assembly-table-torsion-box/]http://thewoodwhisperer.com/episode-18-assembly-table-torsion-box/[/link].
At one time in my life I used a granite optical table that was dead flat and incredibly heavy. When I moved house a few years ago my new workshop floor could not take the weight of the table so I switched to a torsion box table and for all things model aircraft it performs just as well as the optical table did at a small fraction of the cost and weight.

As for kit modifications, IMHO there is a place for bamboo and graphite, especially in WW1 constructions. One very worthwhile modification is to laminate fin and stab outlines as well as wing tips from thin balsa strips. The result is much stronger, often lighter and better looking than the origiginal design, which is often pieced together from many parts.

carlgrover

I build furniture when I'm not building model airplanes. The most useful tool in my shop is my jointer. I like it for truing up the edges of balsa sheet for wing sheeting. If you have a handplane you can obviously do the same thing. Just put it in a vise or make a holder for it and run the balsa over it. I use a Stanley #7 mounted in a stand for getting parts to fit just right. Usually a swipe or two is all it takes. Pretty handy if you have a spar that is a little too high over wing ribs. Two passes over the handplane and it fits nicely.

I also use a chisel for all kinds of things, bandsaw for cutting out parts and with a fence I use it like you would a tablesaw for making spars, drill press, and a powered sander. If you have a real small hand plane they are great for shaping too.