Well,
a little late in joining this thread but suffice it to say that I started mine the day after I received the May issue of MAN. I think the build took me about 6 evenings to get to where I am. I actually stopped short of the second cowl cheek when I began on another project since I was missing the covering to finish it. A few more evenings to get the cowls finished and installed, then covering and the power install.
There are many little things that I discovered in the process of the build including, unfortunately, some mismatches in a couple of formers on the plan. Aside from the cowl cheeks which take a fair bit of sanding, trial fit, re-sanding to match the fuse, the rest goes together pretty quickly. The wing, as simple as it looks, actually is a little tricky as it is extremely light and applying the top sheet requires some patience. I actually deviated in the wing construction from Pat's writeup by making the bottom out of three sections of sheeting - two panels plus the center sheeting. I joined the panels to the R1 ribs on either side of the center section by using the jigs and blocking up the panels. I think this proved easier than sawing through the sheeting and then relying solely on the jigs to build in the dihedral when applying the top sheet. I found the jigs themselves are not enough to prevent the sheeting from "flexing" back resulting in a warped wing when sheeting the top. In short, the three panel approach proved to be easier.
Pat also builds the aileron servo into the wing top deck making it inaccessible. I think the main reason he did this was because he couldn't fit his 7 cell NiMH pack under the wing with the servo protruding through the bottom. Since I set mine up with a 28mm brushless inrunner (I can provide details. I actually started with a Rimfire outrunner so either can be used), 18A Thunderbird ESC and 3s 1250 mAh lipo, space in the fuse was not an issue. In fact, as someone mentioned in the thread, I went ahead and installed two servos - one each for elevator and rudder in the fuse with the aileron servo in the wing center inverted as is done commonly. The tiplet fit side by side without issue. I used $3 9g servos from HobbyKing which are rather impressive for the price.
The ESC goes in front of the wing LE ahead of the ply/balsa former laminate with the 3S lipo under the wing in the main radio compartment - there is no need for a separate hatch for swapping out batteries - the wing removes with a single 4-40 bolt accessed from the bottom of the fuse. Pat actually rigged up a nice wing retention system by screwing the wing down from the bottom through a paper tube thereby making the wing mount "invisible".
The motor mounts to a 1/16" ply plate which is epoxied on to the front of the airframe. You then will likely have to glue on a balsa ring ( ~3/16" - 3/8" ) on this ply mount to bridge the gap between the mount plate and the spinner backplate and fair it in nicely. I actually made my ply mount a little larger than the 1.5" DuBro spinner which I chose so as to fair in the nose a little more nicely.
In order to scratch build it, I found it easier to scan the plan and draw it up in CAD so I could print these CAD plans and make my "kit". This is the first RC model I've built with 1/16" formers (at least that I can remember) and I can say that it poses its challenges ...
Actually, it was a fun build.
If anyone is interested in my CAD plans, just post here and I'll direct you to a link. I should mention that I modified the design a touch and stretched the wing span to 32" to reduce the wing loading even further and to account for the couple of extra ounces I would likely build into the model due to the rudder control and slightly heavier motor. I was enjoying the idea of a larger one already so I began to scale the plans up for a 46" span, 500-600W version. The fuse top front has held me back as it would be ideal to design a hatch into the front section so that batteries and motor can be installed and accessed easily. With the 32" (30.5" per Pat's plans) span, access to the motor is basically nil one the mounting plate has been epoxied on to the front. One can always unscrew and remove the motor from the wing saddle but re-mounting the motor could be a challenge. To alleviate the problem, I switched from the idea of using a 1600 kV 28 mm GP outunner to a 1400 kV 28 mm HiMax inrunner. In either case a 7x4, 7x5 will be spun.
I took plenty of photos during the build so if you need to see something, just ask. As a warm-up, here are some low res pics of my plans as well as the graphics I made up for the decals. I'm still missing the Van Nuys NeoAir fin logo in a decent scale and quality that I can use as a template or simply for printout. I asked on the GP Shoestring thread for a photo of the included decals to no avail.
I look forward to the next scratched Shoestring!
Cheers, David.