Hi Ray,

Your results look really good. I hadn't thought of PVC as the form. It's been a while since I did the wheel wells and I don't recall what I used as a form. As I recall, I made mine around 3 5/8" - 3 3/4". It makes the well closer to scale, but makes getting the alignment more difficult. I learned a lot from adding the wheel wells, and I believe that it will translate to better results on future builds. One think I wish I had pointed out to you was to have created a fiberglass sheet over the area to use as a gear door. The general method for this would have been as follows. Before cutting the skin for the wheel well, attach some iron on covering (monocote/ultracoat) over an area about an inch bigger than the gear doors. On top of this, lay up about 4 layers of 6 oz cloth. Once cured, you will have a sheet of fiberglass that matches the contours of the wing exactly, from which you can cut out for your gear doors. I too learned of this after cutting out my wheel wells. I ended up spot glueing balsa inside the openings then made the fiberglass skins. I reinforced the skins with some basswood and made strut mount hardware from brass and JB weld. Here are a couple of recent photos

Scott