ORIGINAL: Burrito Bandito
Dwm,
You are looking good there my friend! Sorry to hear about the little mishap with the sheeting. For what it's worth, try segementing your wood before you build. On all of Pauls planes, (or any plane for that matter) certian locations call for really straight stock, or flexible sheeting or even stiff sheeting. For example: When I open a MoJo kit, I pick my trailing edge pieces carefully, those need to be the straightest. I then look at the available 1/4" left and find the stiffest pieces for the spars and then the leading edges. Then move on to the sheeting - find the lightest and most "loose grained" you can for the LE sheeting. Use any stiff stuff for the decking in the center section. That seems to work pretty well for me.
Also, don't make the mistake I made on my first one. I decided to build the tail feathers first. When I got done cutting up all the 1/4" to build those, I was short for the stuff needed for the wing! I had plenty laying around, but if you build in the sequence of the instructions there is enough.
Your build looks really clean...great job.
J.
Excellant advice. I couldn't have said it better myself. I always look throught the wood, and make different "piles". It just comes from experience. The best thing about kits is, you can almost always fix them if you screw something up. Yes it's aggravating, but you learn from mistakes. I bet from now on you will use the softer sheeting for leading edges!
I also try to use scrap wood where I can. Such as the shear webs. I almost always have 1/16" scrap sheeting that is perfect for these. That way I don't have to cut up a full sheet into little pieces. I guess I am frugal, but I will always try to find a piece of wood just long enough for the job without much waste. That way whenever I get a wild hare to scratch build or I cheated a piece of wood it's no big deal.
