Ok, this may be a bit basic, but I have never built a plane before and was reading through various plans to get a feel before attempting one. TO be totally honest, I am not really even worried about flying the thing at this stage, I just want to build it and will probably give it to the kid down the street or something. The plane I have chosen is either a Travel Air Mystery Ship or a Loving Wayne WR-1. I have large scale plans for both and even have construction drawings of the real planes. I'm fairly intelligent and reasonably knowledgeable about working with wood, so I think the project is within my grasp.

I can figure out pretty much everything, but no where in any model plan I have is there an answer to this. How do you get the roundness on the leading edge of the wing? I can see how to cut the general shape on a table saw, but I don't see how you would get a nice even roundness all the way down. Doing a jig for the wings? No problem. This somehow eludes me.

Kevin

Make the leading edge out of balsa and sand it with a sanding block. You are bound to get lots of advice shortly - pretty complex subjects - and working with balsa is quite different than other woods.

Good luck!

Graeme

You can by pre-made leading edge stock that is milled to a rounded profile. Sometimes you get lucky and it is the exact profile you need or sometimes you may have to tweak it. In other cases you use square or rectangular stock for the leading edge then carve and sand it to the profile you need. It isn't as hard as it sounds; balsa is a very workable wood. I've made a gauge from plywood with a cut-out that matches the leading edge profile then used this to check my work as I do the shaping.

Those are just two methods. there are a lot of builders out there and many techniques.

You might want to build a kit or two before jumping into building from plans. That way you can get a feel for some of the construction methods, materials and so on.<br type="_moz" />

You could make a cardboard cutout of the shape you want and match it to the wing as you sand it to shape. A sanding bar (@3' of a flat material with sandpaper glued to it) helps in getting the edge even. Hold a straight edge (ruler) perpendicular to the leading edge and look at where it contacts the leading edge, you can see if its centered on the edge and how you need to sand to shape.

Good luck.

The long strip of wood with paper attached is an answer

You can get rolls of 1" wide cloth sanding strips at a good wood working shop. The local one had a special on a 6 pack of 6 grits from 80 to 600 for not much. A very nice straight 1" square of Oakabout 2 to 3 ft long is a good base. Use some carpet tape and tape the strips on.

A razor plane is a must for shaping also.

I'll tell you what not to try, at least without using a lot of caution. I decided that a stripof PVCpipe cut in half and then lined on the inside with sand paper would make a great tool for shaping the LE. Iused a 1/2 round piece of pipe, and it did a very nice job off giving a long rounded edge. IT also did a great job of cutting groves in the ribs. Big ugly groves. Maybe a 1/3 rd or even 1/4 rd might be OK, but nix on the 1/2 round.

The main thing is to think hand work vs machines for this. You shape the LE after it is glued in place, so saws and power grinders are going to cause you some problems.

Last thing, Glue. CA glue works great, but leaves an edge that is almost impossible to sand. Epoxy works also, but again it is difficult to sand. Good Ole Titebond carpenters glue is a very good choice as you can sand it with minimum problems. Even Elmer's white glue.

On sanding CA, I stumbled across using 240 or 320, even 400 grit wet or dry on a hard flat stick. The wet or dry is not very good for sanding balsa, but it will do a very good job of cutting the hard CA. You will use a lot of it as it will load up quickly. I spray a full sheet of Wet or dry with spray 77 adhesive and the lay down craft sticks as tight as I can, covering the whole sheet. Then use a #11 blade and cut the paper out to the stick shape. This gives a good small tight place sanding stick, You can cut the stick for little tight places. The cost is about a penny each sanding stick so using one for a few minutes and throwing it away doesn't break the bank.

Don

Take a 2" peace if PVC cut it in halve. use contact sand paper in side and sand till you get what you need. You can glue a handle on your new rounding tool by useing pvc glue to glue another peice of pipe on it for a handle

Could you take several pieces of wood, cut out a negative of the leading edge, stack the pieces together, then put sandpaper on the inside to make a sander that is exactly the shape of the leading edge?

That would work great, Just depends on how much time and work you want to put into a sanding device, and how many time's you are going to use it
Larry k

i don't think that the leading edge needs to be exactly the same. back in the days when i bought kits, i used a large sanding block and just a few cardboard cut outs to get the leading edge about right. after the basic shape was correct i'd simply sand until even and that was it. i was definitely not into scale or exacting standards but the planes flew well and really never needed too much adjusting. now there are sanding blocks from tower that have all different leading edge shapes built into them. but back then i did fine with a block of wood and some sand paper.

If I may make a suggestion... Why not build a kit first?

It will teach you VOLUMES over trying to build from plans your first time out

An inexpensive razor plane will create the rounded shape which you then sand with a curved sander, either home-made, or store bought.

Are you talking about a regular balsa kit from Guillows or whomever? I did start building a Stearman years ago, but my wife sat on the fuselage halfway through it and trashed it. I am not really afraid of working from a set of plans. I've studied the Mystery Ship enough and gone over these enough to be familiar with them thoroughly.

As for the Razor plane, I looked it up and it doesn't look like a bad idea. Perhaps I am making this more complicated than it is?

If you work with wood you might already have the answer in your tools. i.e. a router. Make a quick jig so that the front edges of the wing are even with a straight and even with the edge of your jig and use the smallest round over bit and set yout router so that you cut one half of the edge and then flip it over and make the other side of the round over. If you know a machinst they might have a bit that you can put in to your router also. All thesugggestions are good tho.

I'm in total agreement with Minnflyer. Get a 40 size Balsa USA kit, or a kit similar. Build it and give that one to the kid down the street. The experience will be worth every penny.

Another bit of info is, don’t even think of using a table saw on balsa. Been there, done that! I only use mine for a flat iron table.
The only machines I use are:
Band saw, disk sander, drill press, and sometimes my shaper for tracing wing ribs.

Scratch building can be challenging, but very rewarding. It can also be never finished due to frustration from lack of experience.

Guillows would not be my first choice in kits. In fact, they'd be near the last.

Look at some kits from Great Planes, Carl Goldberg, or Sig

For rubber powered planes Sig is a much better choice.  Gillows models tend to be heavy.  Buy if you have a larger model in mind, then a larger kit would have a design that is closer to what you will be using.  If you will be flying it RC then I would build a trainer because you will need to know how to fly this model.  If this is going to be a small electric model then a small electric trainer such as the Super Cub perhaps.  If a larger glow model then perhaps the Sig LT-40 trainer.

Triple Dittos to finding and building from an appropriate kit. Building as a modeling disipline is a skill set just like flying is and you will get nowhere if you start out trying to learn to fly with a P-51 or a B-17 ain't gonna happen. You need to start with a kit and not just any kit either same thing agine.

It needs to be an appropriate beginners kit there are many around now from small cottage industry supplier especially of not neccessarily scale airplane but of some vintage RC types from the fifties and sixties. These make wonderful starter kits.

Your choices in the scale airplanes are wonderful and I love them too however both are very poor choices as first builds. Especially the loving. Yes its a magnificient little airplane but with that inverted gull wing its is no where near a beginer build.

Make the right choice here and this can turn into a lifetime passion for you as it has for most of us and heck you may even want to learn to fly at some point

John

HI
DRAW a center line down your leading edge stock-with a sanding block- sand from both sides to the line makeing the curve ,the sameyou can make a templet out of card board to be sure the curve is the same the full length of the LE,if you need a certain shape -a pointer edge will give a faster airfoila blunt edge will be a slower wing ( more air resistance ) you can use the line down the middle thing on the trailing edgestab elevator and rudder also26 years builing experience 20 flying RC a lot more than mostENJOY BEST REGARDS TONY

Ok, so I'll go with that, though from what I remember of the Stearman, it wasn't difficult to do at all and it was a Guillows kit. Let's set my sights a little higher than average, though shall we? The Mystery Ship plans are old Cleveland plans from back in the 30's or so. I'll attach a page to give you an idea of what I mean, though you may already be familiar wth them. Plus, my lifelong interest in aviation might help a bit, and modeling skills from way back when, building plastic models and some fairly decent woodworking skills.

What do you think of this:

[link=http://cgi.ebay.com/Guillows-802-Model-Airplane-Kit-CESSNA-SKYHAWK-172-/290482856329?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a220 a189]Cessna 172[/link]

I figured if I decided I did want to take up flying, it would be a decent trainer, but to be honest right now I am more in it for the project.

BTW, I have about 1500 model plans if anyone wants them. Some I gathered on my own as part of a massive archive of 3-views I have collected, a lot are from a CD of them I bought. They range from simple wood models to Wylam drawings, to CAD drawings of plans. I was looking for an outlet for them. My 3-view archive is about 9 Gigs right now...

I would avoid Guillows mainly because they are too fragile to cover with the coverings that we use - You'll need some experience in that area too.

How about this? It's a good challenging build, but not too difficult (certainly not as bad as a Guillows) and when you're done, you'll have a really nice plane:

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXUJ25&P=0

There are plenty of coverings that will work with a Gillow's kit.  I said to stay away because the wood is so heavy.  But if it is only for display, or electric power they would be fine.

I could do that...

Hi!
What is it you want to do? Just build a plane???? Then go ahead and build those small Guillow kits. But remember they are no good as R/C flying planes!