Used the card templates to mark out the front bulkhead and undercarriage plate. These are the only parts that are cut from 6mm birch ply, the others are from 3mm light ply.

I was extra carefull with the front bulkhead being square as this is used as a template for the width of the rest of the formers including the undercarrige plate.

Formers 2 and 3 roughly cut to shape using the card templates.

Decided to make a start on the wings simply because they are gonna take up the whole bench and the sooner their done the better !

Started by making the ribs. Made one 'master' rib from 3mm ply and used the disc sander to get them to their final shape using the ply rib as a template.

Obviously because of what i`m doing here there is no plan to work from, so a full lenth straight pencil line on the bench will have to do.

Fortunately the wing is symmetrical in section, parallel cord with no dihedriel, so is quite straight forward.

I use panel pins in-between every second rib, the difference being that i cut the heads off with 'side cutters' and hammer them flush with the spars. This means you can finnish the whole top of the wing including spar webbing, front, rear and centre sheeting and even the cap strips. once completed you simply 'prize' the whole wing off the board. The wing is fairly stiff at this point and much reduses the chance of being warped.

Just one word of caution with this method is dont run your hands over the board to see if you have got all the pins out  (cause that really will sting a bit !)

The leading edge was made from a single sheet of 1/2" x 36" balsa cut in half along it`s lenth.

The trailing edge was just 1/2 x 1/2 balsa joined together in the centre with a piece of hardwood and held at the correct height (22mm) with scrap balsa blocks tack glued to the bench.

The spar webbing was also added from hard 3/32 balsa sheet. You can see in this picture where the centre ribs are cut deeper for the spars and where the spar doublers end.

Unlike the small one, this wing will have to be removable so i added three 1/2 sheet balsa pieces between the two centre ribs to help spread the load of the ply plate for the wing bolt (s) when the sheeting is on. I also added a piece of 3mm birch ply between the centre ribs, mainly for a better fixing for the dowels, but also as a brace on the LE join.

Obviously i dont build this quick  but thats it up to date now and should be normal speed.

                                                               john

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ORIGINAL: SKYHI1

Very cool. Thank you for sharing.

Frank

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ORIGINAL: Pelle Gris

Hi John.

I´m also about to start building a Hots scaled up by 60%. Well, as soon as I get the parts from a friend that has promised to lasercut them for me...:-)
A 60% enlargement would mean a span of 76,8in, but I have decided to dump the curved wingtips and clip the wing at 70,9in instead. Power will be an old 35cc Webra Bully running gas.

What do you plan on using for power, and what do you estimate the final weight to be?

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ORIGINAL: Pelle Gris

Pics of my modified plans and planned paint skeme in pose #2 here: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_9237798/anchors_9243384/mpage_1/key_/anchor/tm.htm#9243384

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ORIGINAL: Pelle Gris

Granted, it IS quite a lot of engine to cram into the cowl.