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Old 10-30-2016, 11:05 AM
  #17  
Stuart Chale
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: , NY
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I usually make little cap pieces for the aileron and elevator ends and surface cutouts in the wing and stabs. I piece of covering attached to the root also makes it easier to seal the top and bottom covering over those inboard edges. You can make those from scrap or have the cutter make them for you as well. In order to make this thread complete I will have the cutter cut them for me. These are generally small pieces (except the wing root) and can usually be put into the wasted space between the other pieces so no additional material is used. On the edges that are hidden I usually put a piece of covering on first just shy of the edges and then fold the top and bottom covering over and seal to it with an eighth inch overlap or so. In the corners of the aileron and elevator cutouts I keep the piece full height to minimize any gap when the top and bottom pieces are folded over. This might make more sense when I actually do it. If I have a flat exposed surface like the inboard elevator edge or if the wing tip or the top of the vertical stab was flat as in many scale aerobatic style planes I will put the pre-cut piece on last to improve the appearance. Again I make it just undersized so the edges will not be caught and peeled back.

You can measure the pieces that you want to draw and draw them, although in this case I find it easier to trace the outlines on tracing paper, tape the paper to your computer and copy the outlines which you should be able to do if the paper is translucent enough (tracing paper) . These are the parts for one Stab/elevator.



Just make sure that you are drawing at 1 to 1 scale. This may be 100% zoom or on my monitor it is 105%. Just draw a square of say 10 inches and adjust the zoom till it measures 10 inches. Some monitors may be a perfect 1 to 1 at 100% and if not and you want to, you can usually calibrate it.
For the curved objects like the stab root, just draw a rectangular shape and convert the top bottom and leading edge to a curve using the shape tool, this only took 10-15 seconds to draw that way.
The other pieces are adjusted for anything that doesn't look square or symmetrical. The bottom piece shown which is for the outboard cutout on the stab just had a rectangle "welded" to one end which will cover the inner corner. See the picture below.



You can print them out with the vinyl cutter.
Cu them out and check for fit


I actually want these just under sized so once again you can use the contour function and use 1 step to the inside by 1 mm or whatever you think you need after test fitting them. Break apart the contour group and use the inside piece. Print out and retest the fit.
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Last edited by Stuart Chale; 10-30-2016 at 11:08 AM.