Except for managing to break two formers through stupidity, the fuselage is coming along nicely. I also had a little trouble getting the bottom panel to warp up to the side panel curve. It came up only so far. I guess I could have soaked it even more, but I'll just fill in the gaps with scrap balsa and carve the nose to shape after I attach the nose plug. I don't know, but my fuselage is looking ugly. It's going to take some serious work to get it to look like the finished beauties posted above in this thread!
I'm beginning to discover the hidden flaws within the George Miller plans. It's nothing that can't be worked around, but they are annoying nonetheless. This is my first project being built from plans, so maybe some of this is to be expected. Still, I contacted both the owner of the plan copyright, Scale RC Products, and the laser-cutting outfit that scanned them for me, Tank's Hangar Aircraft Modeling. Mike at Scale RC is aware of the flaws and apologizes for them. He was instructed when he initially got the plans that he was not allowed to alter them in any way. Now that he owns the copyright, he's going to try to make corrections. Tank's is working on their own corrections now so that any more laser-cut packages will be better.
The basic problem is this: the individual patterns for ribs and other parts don't match the plan views of the built up sections. Specifically, here's what I've found so far:
1. Three sets of fin ribs, when cut from the patterns, come up short relative to the fully drawn fin. I had to recut these.
2. The main spar for the horizontal stabilizer, when cut from the pattern with rib locations marked accordingly, comes up short relative to the plan view. Also, the rib locations are all wrong. I had to make the spar twice as a result.
3. None of the spar slots in the center wing section ribs line up. When the ribs are stacked together the slots should form a nice straight line. They form a "V". I fixed this by using the two identical 1/4" ply ribs as masters, held all of the other ribs against one of those and widened the spar slots to match the master. I had to use little balsa wedges to fill those gaps when I glued in the spar. Also, the ribs are different widths from top to bottom. I cut down the wide ones, but a few are thinner. The sheeting should still go on OK, though. So far, the ribs for the outer wing panels seem OK. Foam cores are an option, but not one I plan to go with.
4. The inboard flap ribs don't match, especially the 1/4" balsa ones. I intend to pick one and recut the others to match. The inboard flaps are even. The outboard flaps taper. I haven't checked those ribs yet.
5. After assembly, the bottom fuselage panel former locations didn't match the side panel locations. This may have been my mistake, but I don't think so. I followed the patterns very closely. Fortunately, I glued the formers to the side panels first. Had I started with the bottom panels I would have had some alignment problems.
None of this is intended to discourage anyone from building this plane. If I can work around this stuff, trust me, you can, too.
Paul
http://home.mindspring.com/~pdmarsh/...10project.html