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Start with the cutting stations.
Cut the 4" wide craft wood into 3 1/2" square using a table saw. Make sure you cuts are square and true. I trimmed a diagonal across one corner, about 2" in on both sides.
Using a round edge bit in my little table router, I bevel the inside edges of the station arms to prevent gouging the balsa fuse side.
< Message edited by handglider -- 8/2/2007 9:42:02 PM >
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Mark a centerline down the 2' wide MDF board. Using a triangle or carpenters square, mark perpendicular lines at all former positions. Use the plans for reference for the former positions. Also mark perpendicular lines at the wing tube and stab tubes.
At the firewall you need to angle your line with a protractor for the 3° of right thrust.
< Message edited by handglider -- 8/5/2007 4:24:30 AM >
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Cut a piece of particle board the size of the cross section of f9 with the fuse sides, using the stab tube fuse doubler as a guide, cut that angle into a supporting piece of particle board. This is where the table saw really helps.
Assemble this at the tail post position as per these pictures.
< Message edited by handglider -- 8/2/2007 11:30:34 PM >
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Place the taped together fuse crutch along the center line against the tail block. Place a small strip of the craft wood infront of the firewall to hold the fuse in position. Tack that small piece of wood in place capturing the fuse in position.
Mix up a small batch of 5 min epoxy. Start at one end of the fuse and glue the stations to the base, one station at a time ( both arms of the station ) hold the stations in place with the center guide of that former in alignment with the center line as it cures. Be neat with the epoxy as not to get any on the fuse side. work alternately gluing one set of stations from the front and rear of the fuse until you have all the stations in place always keeping the laser cut center guides of the formers aligned to the center line of the base board.
Just take your time and glue the pairs of station arms in place along the fuse. Once you get started its really easy.
< Message edited by handglider -- 8/2/2007 9:36:19 PM >
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Once completely cured, remove that front block in front of the firewall then pull the fuse from the jig. Add clear tape along the edges of the stations and along the base of the board. This will help prevent the fuse from being glued to the jig. I guess if you are a messy gluer you could even wax the tape.
< Message edited by handglider -- 8/5/2007 4:26:16 AM >
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We are done building the fixture jig. It's about a 2 hour project and you are set to build VF3 fuses perfectly consistently for life. If you hire me to do your building this will be the method I will use, and rest assured you will have perfectly matched fuses.
To assemble the fuse you need to install all formers, the front flooring between f2 and the firewall and the landing gear block at the same time when it goes into the jig. Trial fit all these parts and assemble the fuse dry.
You will use CA for the balsa formers and slow setting epoxy for the firewall, the front lower flooring, the landing gear block, f2 and the tail former f9. I use West Systems with a little chopped fiberglass, it acts like rebar and gives more surface area for the epoxy to grip on.
Apply epoxy to the firewall, the front lower flooring, the landing gear block, f2 and the tail former f9, just hold the fuse together and side it into the jig from the front. I also apply epoxy to the mating fuse areas.
At the rear of the fuse strap the tail into the tail block of the jig with 2" wide masking tape as you can see here. insert the wing and stab tubes and check alignment.
Take your time and make sure you have tight seems, no gaps and enough epoxy in those areas. Once satisfied with alignment tack glue the balsa formers in place with thin CA.
After an overnight cure for the epoxy. Side the fuse out of the front of the jig, I then go back over the balsa formers with thin CA and then medium CA.
That's it yer done with the basic fuse build.
< Message edited by handglider -- 8/2/2007 11:23:00 PM >
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And here it is, a perfect VF3 fuselage and really nice at 9.8 oz. Almost light enough to make this an electric build, it will be interesting to see how light Mike's electric build is at this point. I do have a heavier firewall and I think Mike is drilling out the landing gear block for lightness. I bet he's around 8 oz +- at this point. You can build and hit this weight no problem, just use the right amount of glues, wiping away all access, no drips or runs. Keeping it clean is the trick here.
The goal is to have the finished and completed fuse with paint to be around 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 lbs. So I seem to be right on track so far.
This is less than 5 hours of work to this point.
Next I will be installing the upper half formers, a few more doublers, the rest of the flooring, the deps system, the rear fuse bracing, the fin floor, the lower canopy deck stringers and sheeting, the firewall bracing former, the front firewall stringers and sheeting, and the turtle deck and belly cores that I just finished.
Stay tuned at this point things start happening fast and the plane really grows big.
Also thanks all for checking out this build thread, it's amazing that I have almost 1000 hits in 48 hours of starting this.
< Message edited by handglider -- 8/3/2007 12:08:57 AM >
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RE: Black Magic VF3 Build Thread - 
