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As I said above, I don't have a fuse jig so I used an internal crutch to to keep the fuse even. I redid the pattern in a more efficient way by drawing HALF the interior and then making two matched sides (sanded together). This is then slipped inside the fuse. I held it "closed" with rubber bands until I have glued in the cross-pieces and F10.
I always hate this part of the build but I think things turned out pretty straight.
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Oops! I sort of skipped over the minor step where you inlay the little lite ply rudder post supports into the 6mm balsa fuse ends. Anyway, I think this shot shows how they are done.
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quote:
ORIGINAL: CTDavies
That is looking very nice, Abu. But how on earth did you get that plank out?
The key is not glueing F5 in place until AFTER you slip out the crutch! Actually, I didn't know that ahead of time so I made it out of balsa in case I needed to break it up to get it out!
On Donnie's Spad he actually left it in to give the rear of his model more rigidity.
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Have you decided on a trim scheme yet? I'm sure you are aware of Bob Pearson's profile drawings website. If not check it out for some great schemes. http://www.cbrnp.com/profiles/quarter1/index.html Don't miss his Soviet Snipes which are really neat. I liked those so much I printed them out and they are framed on my studio wall. Allan
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I haven't settled on a particular aircraft yet but I'll definitely be doing one of the RAF, PC10 Snipes. I'm already doing a Russian Nieuport (in silver solartex) so the post-war Snipes and Russian/Soviet planes don't especially appeal to me at the moment --though I love the novelty of them. The post-war Snipes have a particular elegance to them.
At the moment, I'm leaning towards aircraft #E8015 that is shown on the cover of the datafile. It's one of the early production Snipes. I think one of the things I like about the early Snipe is the rudder that clearly sets it apart from the Camel. BTW, I've already mentally resigned myself to the inevitable "wow, neat Camel!" from good-intentioned people at the flying field.
Curiously E8015 is shown on Bob Pearson's site as being all PC10 while on the datafile artwork it's shown as having grey decking and cowl. I like the flair of the red wheels covers with a white rim. Also apparently the lower half of the cowl was unpainted metal which would be nice with my metal cowl.
But I'm still deeply undecided.
< Message edited by abufletcher -- 10/26/2006 1:40:11 PM >
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OK. I managed a little more building after classes today (yes, I do actually have to go to work). The location of of the side formers for F5, F6, and F7 are obvious both from the shape and the plan. The exact positioning of F8 and F9 is a little bit more nebulous and it's a good idea to temporarily put in one hard stringer going from F6 back to F10 to lock in the alignment of F8 and F9. BTW, any stringers running from F9 to F10 will need to pass through the diagonal cross-piece so slots will need to be cut.
The top formers are easy since they're all just centered and sit squarely on the top cross-pieces.
< Message edited by abufletcher -- 10/26/2006 8:41:29 AM >
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Joined: 2/13/2004 From: Zentsuji, JAPAN Status: offline
After some discussion with Chris, we decided to redo the structure of the fuse tail. The balsa seemed just a little too weak and didn't provide for a strong enough attachment point for for the eyebolt that will anchor the skid bungee. So a little quick thought yielded a new, stronger design. We started by cutting out new tail pieces out of the scrap from the lite ply parts. The new shape avoids having to inlay the little lite ply ends into the 6mm balsa parts -- and provides more strength. Then the 6mm balsa uprights indicated on the current plan are replaced by a rectangle of lite ply. These new parts were epoxied and/or CAed in place and then little bits of triangle stock was used to reinforce the joints with F10. A large piece of hardwood triangle stock was used as an anchor for the eyebolt (which was epoxied in place).
One nice feature of this new tail unit is that remaking it allow me to do a very precise alignment of this section that is a little hard to do when you're worrying about bending the fuse halves to shape. The plane of the tail pieces needs to be aligned level with the wing plane and to allow an exactly perpendicular rudder. The vertical tube seems just a bit out of vertical alignment in the photo but it's dead on in person. The tail post also needs to be parallel to the firewall (and thrust line) so all of this needs checking before everything is glued in place. There's still some room for minor adjustment to these angles later but it's best to get any major deviations taken care of at this point.
Chris will include this new tail design on all future Snipe kits.
The tail post is of 5mm brass tubing and will eventually be epoxied in place. However, we still need to give some final thought to how the post connects with the skid. On the orignal Snipe the tail skid was at least marginally steerable via a control horn and cables on the bottom.
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RE: CD ScaleDesigns Sopwith Snipe build - 
