After hearing guys praise this model for awhile, I decided to buy one. I just got it this week and I finally got a chance to start it. Over the next few months, I'll post a complete log from start to finish with pictures and commentary for posterity, information, and any interest there might be! So "let's do it to it."
The cowl arrived warped, so that bummed me out. I'll have to call and see if they'll send a replacement. The manual is written in like 4 languages, so I went through it and highlighted all the english. So they first have you build the wing. I propped up the trailing edge with the lightening holes that came from the wing ribs to make it easer to dry fit.

I then continued with the wing, dry fit and thin CAed it in place. I'm doing it slightly out of order from what the manufacturer recommends, but I think this way will be better. Sometimes this manual can seem like it's written by someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about. So, be forewarned!

Reid

Rplumbo, my cowl was warped also but is easily fixed. Just use a heat gun and you can re-shape it back to normal without much trouble. Be careful as it doesn't take much to reshape it.

Rob

Hey that's a good tip. I think I'll do that. Much faster than getting a new one.
Thanks!
Reid

I glued one of the ribs in upside down. Now I need to go buy some CA Debonder. Darn.
I didn't really realize how many other people are building this too!Lots of threads. More probably tomorrow, unless you want to see pictures of me straightening out the horribly warped spars they provided me with!

Reid

glueing ribs in up-side-down?! tut tut! (shaking finger at computer). anyway, i found that when putting the wing together, i foloowed book mostly, it was useful to use that nice blue masking tape from the hard-ware store to hold it together while you set it up. this is better than tacking with thin CA because you for CA to work best, it needs to seep in, and the final bonds are weak if you have already sealed the surface before hand.

Just my 2-cents...

Crazy Mike

You know, that just might be "crazy" enough to work. All puns intended. I looked at the book, and thought I could do it better. Build and learn. Oh well. I'll try it your way!
Thanks for the tip!
Reid

no thanx needed! anytime i can help with anything i'd be glad to, also, you might refer to my post on the Laser 3D, 'Building a Laser 3D", becuase i am a little ahead and i'm runnin' into most of the the prob.s that you'll be able to avoid. hope it helps

Crazy Mike

Just saw it, I'll make sure to read it thoroughly.

Thanks much! I'm sure you'll hear from me the next time I glue something in upside down.

Reid

Got the wing webbing in today. Had much multivariable calculus to do, so I only had about 45 mins to work. This is why I won't be done until January! The manual is wrong when it lists the webbing to install, not so much wrong as out of a nice sequential order. I got the inner most wingrib turned right side up too! This is a great kit. I literally think if you dropped the pieces the plane would build itself, but then I'd be bored.

Hopefully more tomorrow. No glue yet either!
Reid

hey, did you cut your plan in half?? looks like it in pic...

Crazy Mike

Yes sir. It wouldn't fit on my building board otherwise. Though I didn't think this through to the end, I don't forsee it causing any problems. Of course I kept all structures in tact. Basically, I just cut out the wing.

You're right, not gluing now and gluing later is a GREAT idea!

Reid

Got some more time to work on the laser. I got the second half of the wing done, and have now joined them with epoxy. No pictures of the second half, it's just like the first one after all.

Then all set up to cure.

I got this glued in after some head scratching. The plans don't show a gap between this reinforcement and the TE, but the pictures do. However, the only way it fits into the laser cut notches is with a small gap, so I went the parts over the plans. Here it is, this might be a useful reference photo for someone in the future. Kind of boring for the rest of you though.

i got the same gap in mine. just ignored it. when you get to the ailos', you will find that they are firkin' amazingly tedious compared to the rest ofthe kit.

Crazy Mike

Then I got the leading edges installed. I used alphatic for this, but I wish I had used thick CA. As you can see in the picture the LE 10x10s overhang the base LE by about 2mm. This allows you to pick up the back edge of this block by applying downward pressure on the front. Bad design. They should include some 8x10s or better yet pre shape the LEs! So, using Alphatic gave me too much time. I had a hard time clamping for this reason. Using thick CA, I could have held it together by hand. There's really nothing to line up, just needed pressure against the wing ribs and the laser cut base LE. Something to think about.

o boy! next comes the imfamous leading edge sheeting (after the trailing edge sheeting)! the trailing edge is cake, but i had a horrible time with the leading edge. one-side-bevel the sheeting where it hits the le blocks, and use 30 in. epoxy to do it. makes a nice clean job. i got everything to stock down all the way up/down the ribs by wrapping it tightly in masking tape with blocks a little less than half-way up the rib. this made for a nice, solid fit with no bubbles or anything. try it if your not sure, or even if you are (i thought i was sure the first time; i was very wrong) keep up the good work!

Crazy Mike

I got the TE Sheeting done today (Saturday) which was nice and quick. It went on nicely, and stuck nicely. The structure didn't really seem to stiffen up alot after the addition of these pieces. It still feels like it has no side to side strength, which is concerning me a little. I think the LE sheeting might help with this. We'll see.

I got the LE Sheeting done today too! Busy day, bad day for flying in MN. Cold and windy. The LE sheeting went on very smoothly. I read a few of the suggestions in Crazy Mike's thread.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/showthread...655&forumid=31

I first sanded the sheeting to a Monokote-able finish and beveled one side with my handy master airscrew razor plane. I then used Thick CA to just attach the sheeting to the leading edge. Once that was cured, I layed thick CA on the wing ribs (the ones to be glued to the already attached LE) and the spar. Then, I took a paintbrush and water and just wetted the sheeting (on the NON glue side of course) until it was damp. Doing this curled the sheeting halfway to where it needed to be on its own. Then, I just layed it down the rest of the way and pinned it in place to dry. This worked out very well, and produced very very tightly fitting joints. Where there were small imperfections in contour etc, I used thin CA just to clean it up. I highly recommend this for future builders!

Here's the pic before the rib glue was applied. This picture also shows my biggest error - the upside down wing rib I'll be sure to show the mod that fixes this too..

And then the pic of it all pinned up and ready to dry. The tape in this picture is superfluous, it was an earlier attempt to get the sheeting to stay down. Pins work MUCH better. Let me put in another plug for these Rocket City pin clamps too!

Ok, I got these cap strips in today. It helped a little with torsional rigidity, but not as much as some cross bracing would. Also got the aileron servo trays epoxied up today too. No picture of that, they're not very exciting. Next installation should be of the mod that corrects my earlier error with the upside down wing rib. Didn't want to do that tonight, and I had too much calculus to do today. Hopefully soon!

I got both servo trays installed and shaped one half of the leading edge. I'm going to wait to shape the other side because the first side was a lot of work, messy and I'm anxious to start on the ailerons! See how messy my workbench was?

Here's how I fixed the problem of installing the rib. I first layed some epoxy down on the exposed cap strip and set the ply servo tray on that. I then used a small piece of balsa to sandwich the ply inbetween it and the cap strip. That was thin CAed in place. Then I used the other ply pieces I would have used, cut them down to be wedge shaped, and epoxied them in place as well. So, there's really no weight gain and it seems to be just as strong as the other side (the correct side). The weight of the ply I cut off was about the weight of the balsa I added. So if anyone else finds they've made this error, this is how I approached it.

Reid

P.S.
I know it's ugly - I plan to use opaque Monokote!

I got the ailerons finished. These went fast! Although I made a few cutting mistakes, so I may run out of the 8x8 sticks included. I might have to run to the hobby shop! No problems. They went together fast and clean.

Reid