Alright, yet another SSE being built! I'm sure everyone is either head-over-heels in love with this plane, or sick of hearing about it by now.

I haven't really posted here before, but I wanted to change that. I started in nitro planes and flew them for a few years while I was in college, but dropped out of it toward the end of school due to time constraints. Now that I have a real job and a bit more free time, I wanted to get back into RC flying. Earlier this spring I got a Raptor 50 heli, and have just about put two gallons through it. It's exciting, but nerve racking at the same time. I've gotten past basic hovering, but it's going to take a long time before I can do any sort of aerobatics with it. I wanted to get an airplane again so that I could have something to toss around the sky and not wreck my nerves or my heli. So, I picked up the SSE a week ago and started on it on Tuesday. This will be my 6th plane build. I'm certainly not the most advanced builder, but so far every one who has seen my planes has commented that my build quality is amazing, so I guess I will see what everyone here thinks.

A little bit of background on my building styles and techniques. For building planes, I use mostly CA. Of course, I use epoxy at the places where strength is really needed. My preferred epoxy is West Systems, but I will use 5min or 30min standard 1:1 epoxy if I just need a small amount or don't need quite the strength/assurance that West Systems supplies. As an aside, one of my other hobbies is high power rocketry, and after building many rockets I got quite used to using, applying and manipulating epoxy and fiberglass. Sometimes, such as if I need a little more working time with a part or want strengthen a joint a bit more, I will use wood glue. Mostly I use it as a fillet along joints to strengthen it once I've already joined the pieces together with CA, joints such as fuselage to formers, wing ribs to sheeting, spars to webbing, etc.

Back to the main point. So far I have completed the stabalizer/elevator and fin/rudder assemblies. I extended the rudder by approximately 5/8". Not many other modifications are planned for the rest of the plane. I will be replacing the stock tail-wheel wire with a 60 size Dubro tail-wheel unit. Also, I will be mounting the engine sideways and making a fiberglass cowl for it using a 2.5" spinner, just as yel914 did on his SE. I also am going to mostly copy his covering scheme (having received his permission already). I'm also going to try and tint the canopy using the Rit Dye method.

For power, I picked up a SuperTigre 45. I've only used OS engines and one HB 61 up until now. A fellow flyer down here had a SSE for several years with a ST 45 on it, and he said he loved the engine. It seemed to have enough power to pull the plane around. Our altitude here, 4,800', is somewhat of a concern. I just found out a short while ago that he crashed the SE and now has the ST 45 in yet another plane, and it's still flying strong.

On a side note, I ended up constructing my own building board for this build as the table that I used to use had a big shelf on it and is no longer acceptably flat. I just took a sheet of 2'x4' 3/4" MDF, 8 adjustable furniture feet and T nuts, all from Home Depot, and made a building board that can be adjusted at 8 points. This way you can sit it on even a warped surface and still be able to level it out for a flat building surface. It's not perfectly flat, but I stretched strings diagonally from corner to corner and adjusted the feet so that there is no more than 0.5mm variance in the surface. I think that's pretty good for having only invested $16. I put the usual sheet of ceiling tile on top of the MDF, let it settle down with some weights on it, and now have an acceptable building surface. I will also post some pictures of this setup. While I do wish I had the setup to build with magnets on a steel sheet or similar, that's just completely not feasible with the space and budget constraints that I have right now. Besides, I built my previous planes on a flat table with a ceiling tile, and they all came out just fine.

Anyways. I will take some pictures this evening when I get home and I will certainly try to keep up with posting as I build.