ORIGINAL: doxilia
Stiletto,
She's a real beauty! Finally, we've come across someone who's built a wood fuse per the plans! You've got to finish her, BPA or not. What is the actual scale (wing span) in inches? Did you build it for trikes or tail dragger? Retracts? What power plant did you have in mind - 2c 1.20-1.40? or 4c 1.70?
Any pictures, notes and/or tips that you could provide on the construction sequence would be much appreciated by all. Don, from Eureka, is also looking for information regarding the fin construction. Since yours is finished it will be hard to show the innards but perhaps you could enlighten with some comments. Also, any thoughts on the fin LE? Does my fin construction sequence description above sound similar to what you did?
Thanks! I ended up treating the sides of the fin as an extension of the fuse sides. I used a huge piece of soft balsa glued to the front of the fin and carved it to match the top block of the fuselage. It's a little bit more blunt than the great planes mold, which has a bit sharper leading edge.
I was actually imagining a OS 1.60 with the exhaust running under the wing. I always thought the exposed engine was attractive. It's built for trike gear.
The wingspan was clipped down to 78" after scaling up the fuse to 78". Supposedly the later tipos had started to evolve shorter wings. The thing still has 1180 sq in of wing area though!
The nose is really hard to carve and shape correctly. It still needs quite a bit of contouring and refinement to get where it needs to be. I started by gluing all three soft balsa sheets together right in place over the nose, then band sawing out the side contour after tracing the shape from the plans. Then it was a matter of using a long carving x-acto blade to get the rest of the rounded shapes. The side tucks aren't completely in yet, and I'm not sure how I'm going to get them to come out perfectly sharp and clean on both sides like the Great Planes fuselage.