Floopy1

Greetings, everyone!

No, I didn't fall into a deep hole. No, I didn't fly a heavy airplane into myself. I've just had to put the Corsair on the back burner for a little while. But after several weeks of work-induced exile, I have finally found some spare time to continue construction. And let me tell you, it isn't easy to just jump back onto that balsa saddle. It's amazing how a skill you learned a few weeks earlier is so difficult to re-master. I found myself having to think through the same tasks I was executing almost flawlessly, before. But nevertheless, I found my bearings and am chuggin' along again.

Well, maybe not chugging. Here's what I've done:

After finishing up the horizontal stab internal structure, sheeting the top and bottom proved to be an interesting endeavor, to say the least. To make a long story short, one sheet is glued with wood glue, the other with thick CA. And I don't think I have to say that a very large blob of thick CA gives off enough fumes to make even the neighbors in the next county see things that aren't there. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. (For the record... that's just a line from a movie. Two gold stars to the reader who can tell me which.)

So I thought I was onto something when I started using medium CA to glue the ribs of the elevators to the elevator centers. The elevators of the Corsair are made from a die-cut balsa panel glued to a grooved shaped balsa stick as the main internal structure, with balsa ribs bonded to the top and bottom to give the surface rigidity. I started the left elevator with medium CA, finding out very quickly that it is great at sticking things together, but lousy at flowing into a joint. The medium CA likes to bead out of a joint, thereby making it almost impossible to glue a rib in the 90-degree corner that has a CA bead bulging out. When the CA finally cured, I used a dremel tool to grind out the bead in certain areas. What a pain in the azimuth. Yeah, I know... use thin CA for that kind of thing. Sure, why didn't you tell me that in the first place? The second elevator was flawless. Thin CA is great stuff.

Boy, is that belt and disc sander a fantastic tool! If you've never built an airplane before, or anything out of wood for that matter, how do you think you would sand a precise 6.5-degree bevel on the end of a wood stick? Sure, you could eyeball it... if you want a crooked, rickety airplane. Parts that don't EXACTLY fit together leaves gaps that CA or resin simply cannot fill and create a reliable joint. Otherwise, why don't you just forge an airplane out of a billet of hardened cyanoacrylate? (Believe me, I've tried. My fingers are still stuck together. I'm typing with my nose.)

So, 6 and a half degrees? No problem. 7.5? Kiddy stuff. And if you want to throw away your razor plane, feel free... you'll need it for... well, you probably won't need it ever again except for maybe the oddball stubborn, hard-to-reach area. Let's hope that never happens.

After gluing the balance tab and tips to the elevator surfaces, the manual directs you to sand the ribs into an airfoil shape, and the tips to follow the compound elliptical contour of the stab leading edge. I have to admit that I was putting off these tasks for the longest time because I was scared to death to start shaving material off of those perfectly geometric components. This isn't just cutting and gluing, anymore. This is where true craftsmanship comes into play. So here goes nothing.

I started shaping the leading edge of the stab with the Great Planes rounded-edge sanding bar. Although it didn't form the exact shape as on the plan, it gives you a good starting-off point for the final aerodynamic leading edge. Little by little, constantly measuring reference points on the plan and on the stab, I was able to to forge a great edge; symmetrical and smooth. Now onto the elevators.

I have to say that shaping the elevators was not all that difficult, either. If you want to know my secret, it is to just take your time and remove small amounts of material. Also, keep vacuuming up the balsa dust so you can see your exact progress (and to keep your wife happy. We can't all have a maximum-security man cave.).

That's really all I've had time for these past few weeks. Not much progress, I know, but if you had the month I did, you'd have needed some "me" days, too.

That's all for now. I'll start the vertical stab and rudder next, so stay tuned for more exciting updates! So until next time, bye for now!

This week's pics:

1. Horizontal stab structure completed
2. Stab skins being glued and clamped with many heavy books. I find James Bradley and Tolstoy perfect for weighing down balsa.
3. Leading edge, tips, and ribs shaped.
4. Tip close-up. Just about there, with just a smidge left to sand. Not bad for an amateur.