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CONSTRUCTION BUD NOSEN GIANT AERONCA
DAY 1. Day one on eBay. Wow, a Nosen Aeronca and the bid is only $25 with no reserve. Bid on that baby. Next day the bid is $125. I sure would like to have this kit. I’ve wanted one for almost 20 years now. I bid $150, $175, $190. I hope nobody else keeps raising the bid. I wait and sure enough I win. I pay through Pay Pal and the kit arrives in excellent condition 4 days later. I open the box and notice that the construction booklet is only 3 pages. The plans are in excellent condition and I find the plastic for the windshield rolled up in them. It is a bronze yellow and has been coiled so long it springs back into a roll when I attempt to unroll it. So I trash the plastic. The wood looks good, and is die cut. Most of it is good but some pieces are in need of a little work.
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DAYS 3 THRU 6 It took 3 evenings to cut out the pieces and sand the rough edges off. It looks like everything is there even the wires for the landing gear. There is no cowl but instructions are there for forming one out of wood. I elected to purchase a fiberglass one on eBay for $24 plus shipping. Construction begins. I unroll the plans and pin them to the work bench then tape wax paper over them to protect against glue dripping.
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DAY 7 I get out the needed ¼ inch sticks and start cutting and gluing. Just like the good old days of building the old Comet kits. This is the result of one short evening of work.
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DAY 8
I took a day away from building. Each side of the fuse has to be built separately. As I had mentioned earlier, be sure that you don’t build 2 left sides or 2 right sides. I ordered some 21st Century fabric from Tower so that I’m ready when the time comes to cover it. Got matching paint too.
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DAY 9 AND 10 Today I added the light ply reinforcements to the inside of the cockpit area. The pieces were labeled incorrectly, so it was necessary to lay them in their respective places and label them correctly prior to gluing into place. I messed up and glued a piece in the wrong place. After removing the piece it was only suitable for the trash can so I used ¼ inch sticks to create a new part. No problem. It will probably be stronger than the original. UUGH. I thought I was done re-cutting die cut pieces. Formers 1 and 2 are ¼ inch ply. Well, not really. Each is a combination of two 1/8 pieces that have to be cut and released from their respective die cut boards. They then have to be glued together to form those ¼ inch formers (see photo on Day 11). Actually, the die-cutting was pretty good here. While waiting for the epoxy to dry on the ¼ inch formers I decided it might be a good idea to put gussets on the joints that are butted. I used 1/32 plywood. These are added on the inside of the fuselage. Not much weight is added by doing this but it definitely insures joint strength. I only hope that these gussets don’t interfere with the bending of the fuselage sides when I lay it over the top view. (The gussets had no effect on the bending.) Next, F2 former was glued into place. It’s not in the instructions to do that now but I’m doing it to insure that I have a 90 degree angle. I found out that the 90 degree angle could have been achieved by waiting until both sides were finished. Had I waited, it would have been less cumbersome sanding both sides. (However, I did end up with 90 degree angles and a very straight fuselage.)
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DAY 12 Tonight I finished the second side and gave it a good sanding. The pieces in the first photo aren’t used unless you are going to build up the cowl rather than purchase a glass one. Four sheets of ¼ inch balsa siding are included in the kit. Two pieces are somewhat hard balsa and 2 are pretty soft. I elected to use the hard stuff just below the window so that it would provide strength for securing the firewall.
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DAY 13. While I was waiting for the airplane fairy (the guy in the Brown truck) I did a little more work on the fuselage. It’s starting to look like something now. So far the build is going quite well.
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DAY 14 – 18 Ran ¼ inch square strips down the bottom and put the ¼ inch dowel rods on the side. Trying to get F1 to fit without alterations can’t be done….at least not by me. So, I built up the sides on the inside until they were a match to F1. You may consider buying a couple of sheets of 3 x ¼ x 36 or maybe 4 x ¼ x 36 balsa to build up this area. I’ll have to sand the cowl area to shape. I also put ¼ inch square hardwood to reinforce the attachment of F1. This hopefully will give me the structure that I need when I put my Super Tiger 3000 on it. I have the engine so why not use it? I don’t have to run all out. I went to my LHS and bought a main landing gear. I’m no good at soldering so this is a much better alternative for me. The gear I bought is too wide but the other dimensions are correct so I’ll cut it down with my Dremel and file it of smooth.
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Day 19 Sanding the cowl area was easily done with my Black and Decker mouse. After getting the fiberglass cowl to fit I then sanded the tail section of the fuselage to shape.
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Day 20 - 25 Mounted the engine and cut out the holes in the cowl. Cutting the landing gear down to size has turned out to be more difficult than I had envisioned. Tomorrow I hope to finish it up. The progress is starting to slow down.
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Day 26 – 30 Working only a half hour or so each day accomplished the following. I decided to use plastic control horns for the wing strut fastening points on the fuselage. I never did this before so I hope it is a wise move. The landing gear was mounted and the underside of the plane was sheeted.
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Bud Nosen Giant Scale Aeronca Build - 
