i didn,t quite know where i should start on this project, wings fuse or tail feathers so i chose the fuselage. i found a product that actually welds aluminum together with no flux and a butane torch called dura-fix and thought about doing an alum. frame but have not mastered it yet to get a nice clean weld plus the rods are standard size.if i could have the rods turned down to a smaller size about 1/3 third the radius it would work like a charm so maybe in the future plus the fact you have to build and intire welding jig, well it's pretty involved. i decided to go with proctor wooden dowel frame. being able to get nothing in between i chose 1/4 inch hard maple dowel. the radius is slightly bigger(1/32") for the reduced scale but don't think it will matter. first things first i needed 40 scaled down brass anchor fittings and being able to do my own etching that's where i started, they have to be incoperated between the longerons and verticals while your building the frame. here are some pics of the etching process of those anchor fittings from design in corel draw to making a two sided film on a inkjet printer and then registering the film on both sides of a 31/2"x4" piece of 0.15 brass plate treated with photo resist already, exposing the plate to U.V. light and then rinsing the image area. at this point it's ready to go into the tank of hot ferric clhoride and citric acid mixture, i use aprox. 32 oz. of etching solution to get my tank to the level it needs to be to submerse the plate 1/2" to 1" in the solution. you also need a good aireator. i power mine with a small airbrush compresser and made the aireator from 0.60 styrene plastic with about 200 1/64" inch holes drilled through the top. ive used all sorts of tanks from molded plastic fish tanks to glass tanks. first of all the glass tanks because of the glue they use dont hold up well, the high heat effects joints and the slate bottom erodes from the ferric cloride after time. what i use know is superb. it nothing but a normal every day crockpot that is modified. no. 1 the ceramic pot is heated with an element that is on the underside and never touches the chemical, 2 is the fact that in a small home system you start out with plenty of hot solution but cools during the etching process but with my new system it stays at a constant temp which cuts down on etching time and gives you a cleaner more even cut. my results are as good as any large or small company out there that does this for a nominal fee. anyway here are some pics and the next posting will be the cutting and assembly of the fuselage.