Getting on with the helicopter...

At this point, I can begin to produce profile drawings of the copter. I definitely need to start with a view from the top and a view from the side.
Some of this is accomplished through artistic ability and some of it is cheating. The model that I bought had these views in the painting instructions. Based on the diameter of the fan blades, I figured that the fuselage should be about 40 inches from nose to tail. I simply used my copier to blow these views up to the size that I need. Then I drew in some details that were lost in the enlarging process. See the photos below.

The next step for me was to trace these profiles onto a base that I can use to build a plug. I like to use 1/8 inch mahogany door skin for this. I like mahogany because I can buy it at home depot for cheap and one sheet is more than enough material for a project like this. In the photos below you can see the cut outs that I did in the door skin.



You can see that they warp a little. This warping is no big deal since I will easily straighten the pieces out during assembly of the frame. Next, I want to decide along which line to epoxy the primary horizontal shape to the vertical shape. Having access to my plastic model makes this decision easy. In the photos below you can see how I glue two pieces like these. Angle aluminum stock is easy to clamp the pieces to and assures reasonable alignment of the parts.

In addition to angle aluminum making alignment of not so straight pieces easier, it also gives a pretty good 90 degree alignment of one piece to the other.

At this point I need to make a statement concerning scale. I am no artist, I know from the outset of a project like this that when I am done, anyone who knows anything about helicopters is going to look at this and say “Hey, that’s a Huey UH-1”. That is good enough for me. You can put as much talent and time as you wish into a project. This is your prerogative. I like to get a project’s detail to the point where I am satisfied. I think that I am usually satisfied with my projects bearing a close resemblance to the vision that I started with. That being said, nothing that I ever build will ever be completely scale (unless I happen to trip over a bucket of talent and patience)