*First of all, english is not my native language so I apologize if I have a bunch of typos here and there [&:]

Hi everyone, my name is Joseph and I'm affraid of building Kits...

That sounds like group therapy but it's true, and since you're here there's a chance that you don't like the idea of building one of these things either.

I've gone through many building threads here at heaven... I mean RCU, and have a good scope when it comes to "theory".

Since I'm a complete newbie to kit building (I'm no expert at flying either ) I picked up and easy to build plane, in this case a [link=http://www.greatplanes.com/airplanes/gpma0480.html]Great Planes Dazzler[/link]. I've heard this thing builds like a breeze and since I already wanted a fun-fly type plane for throw around flying I killed two birds with the same stone.

This is not a detailed tutorial, it's just a bunch of pics as a build.

The first thing I did was (of course) open up the box and stare for like 10 minutes to that bunch of wood. Thoughts came to my mind, featuring myself trying to build a plane and building a dog house instead.

So the first thing was to roll out the plans and browse through the manual to get familiar with the building process. There are parts of this manual that don't seem to make much sense, but they do as you start building.



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I guess I'll need a flat surface, and this plane is pretty small, so this flat table will do.



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You'll need something to pin the wood to, I'll be using a piece of Foamular® EPI (Extruded Polystyrene Insulation) because it's thick, firm... and pink [&o]
I got to cut it to the shape of the sides of the table and clamped it.





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You'll need some masking tape during the build, I'll use blue "heavy duty" masking tape, it's stronger and sticks better than the regular stuff. It's cheap too, less than $2 USD. The first thing I used it for was to get the plans flat on the table/Foam.





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You might wanna use some wax-paper to protect your plans from CA if you intend to keep them.

Now to start building all I had to do is start pinning wood to the plan, just being carefull of using the right wood size. This wood cuts so easy!

There go the horizontal stab and elevators!









It has been easy so far

Looks good so far! I am planning to make a building surface soon and that looks like a really good idea.

It's cheap, easy to build, and easy to remove.

But if you are going to build a lot, then you might wanna take a look at one of those [link=http://www.greatplanes.com/accys/gpmr7000.html]magnetic building boards [/link]

Biggest mistake I made was to not wax the plan of the first model I built from scratch. I've still got the plan but most of it is attached to the aircraft!!!

I'll be following the thread with interest as i have not built a plane from kit form.....yet!

Paul

LOL! That's interesting, you could use clear monokote and say they are "panel lines [8D]" ...... hum... clear monokote... [:-]

Wellcome aboard Paul

Here are some more pictures:

Next we need to take the elevator halves and tape them to the hor. stab and mark the position for the joiner wire, which seems to be a piece of copper wire bent in a squared "U" shape.



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Next, we create a hole to fit the joiner in the spot marked in the plans, and now it's time to create a groove for the joiner wire, we can acomplish this by taking a 1/8 brass tube (the ones that come with du-bro tanks will do) and get them sharp using a hobby knife, and use it to create the groove by removing a little wood at a time.





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The groove should be deep enough to conceal the joiner wire almost completely, in a way so when you place the elevator and the hor. stab together you have about 1/16 gap max.
This is to ensure that the joiner wire won't get in the way when moving the elevators.



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Here go the vertical fin and the rudder





Ohhh and the ailerons too... this is going faster than expected... what a rush! [8D]



Stay tunned!

Lookin' good Joe!

Two tips for you guys getting ready to follow in Joe's footsteps...

1 -- Building surface: In the U.S., 2ft x 4ft ceiling tiles are available VERY inexpensively (about $2.00 to $2.50 at "home improvement" stores) and are the world's second best surface for holding pins. If you don't find pink foam or would like to spend less, ceiling tile is an outstanding material for this use.

2 -- Elevator joining: An easy way to assure that the elevator hinge line is straight across the two elevators is to built them over the plan with a single leading edge piece joining them at the proper width (instead of building them separately), then install joiner while the two are still connected and finally remove the unneeded wood between them.

Building is great -- enjoy!

Nice work Joe, And excellent pictures!

Keep up the good work!

ditto, i think the initial opening of the "box of wood" is what keeps a lot of ppl from building kits, that and the potentially expensive cost of buying all the needed tools to start...

i fly with about 7 or so ppl that refuse to even attempt to build a kit...they had rather replace a landing gear (or two or three) every weekend instead of building a kit and putting the gear in right...(they aren't the best final approachers out there but they try...LOL)

great work and welcome to kit building.....hope you stay with it and get as much fullfillment out of it as i do

Al Stein: That's some great advice, chime in anytime you can with more of that

MinnFlyer: Thanks for the words, they give me the patience I need to continue

Now let's continue, shall we?

The manual calls for control surface beveling. I've read about "double-beveling" where you bevel both the control surface and the surface they're attached to, but the manual clearly states that you should bevel ONLY the control surface, so i'll stick to that.

So I sanded a V-Shape on elevator halves, rudder and ailerons.



And now we proceed to layout the parts to build the wing's basic structure



We lay the bottom spar and the bottom trailing edge sheeting and start glueing ribs following the locations on the plan while making sure they're 90º on the table.



When we're done, glue a sub-leading edge sheet in front of the ribs and make the servo tray with 1/4 x 1/4 basswood and try-fit the servo in it.



There we are



We repeat the whole process for the right wing and join them using the supplied plywood doublers.



The leading edge sheeting was a little difficult, but not much, you can get the wood slightly wet so it'll be easier for it to conform to the shape of the ribs.





Repeat the process for the other side and the bottom [:@] and sand flush with the spar and the sub-leading edge sheet.



More to come later!!!

Thank you mate, I'm not sure I'll build a lot of kits, my lack of patience is what stops me, but at least i'm enjoing this one

I was affraid i'd need a bunch of expensive tools, nothing more away from the truth at least for simple kits, if you're a scratch builder probably you'll need a table saw and stuff like that, but the most expensive stuff I guess i'll be using is a $20 USD drill from home depot ... which I already had by the way

Joe, you are doing great on the build. And as for your English, it is also great. You are way ahead of many high school graduates here in the U.S. unfortunately. Keep it up. Need any help immigrating up here?

Well, thank you very much there I studied english since I was very young (which I still am ) I really like the language and I'm trying to "master" both american and british accents... don't ask why, I must be one of those tonge freaks

BTW I write it better than I speak it, I still have a bit of that "latino accent" [:'(]

You'll laugh about it, but every now and then I think "Oh cr*p... if I lived in the US I wouldn't have to wait so much for my spare parts to arrive [:@]" plus, the shipping cost is huge and forget about customs... those people are mean [:'(][:'(][:'(][:'(][:'(]

Last time, I ordered a Thunder Tiger 91FS... $199 at Tower.... almost $400 at my doorstep [:@][:@][:@][:@]

If you ever know about anyone in need for someone with advanced bilingual computer/programming/web/ecommerce (and crappy flying) skills you let me know

Looking good Joesabido.....keep up the great work

Thanks mate, are you gonna build this bird? It's bucket loads of fun

A little progress...

The manual calls to install "shear webs" on the aft edge of the spars... which I didn't understand so I hope this is what they meant



Look for anything protruding from any surface (like spars at the wingtip, and shear webs at the spars) and carefully sand flush



Cut and glue some cap strips for the ribs...



And now, the part I was affraid of... shaping the leading edge [&:]

So... we glue the leading edge to the wing...



And sand it with coarse sandpaper to conform to the shape of the wing. It was time consuming, but easy after all



Stay tunned!

Joseph

Very nice job!!!
Keep the pictures coming.

a quick word, i dunno about your kit, the instructions or what it calls for but check for this-

most kits i've dealt with that had "shear webs" the instructions say they must be "securely glued to the wing ribs at both ends"

here's a link to what i'm talking about...
[link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3561097/mpage_8/key_/tm.htm]2nd Newbie Build- GP Super Skybolt[/link]

check post # 194 on page 8 (link should take you right there...if it doesn't the picture link is...

[link=http://image.rcuniverse.com/forum/upfiles/183029/Pu50839.jpg]wing close up[/link]

Thanks and credit goes out to "Mods-R-Me" - awesome builder and awesome job on that skybolt, hope mine comes out that good.

Here is a pic of a shear web in my Somethin' Extra. It says to put on front edge of spar so yours will be reversed.
Karter

Don't worry about it. Some kits are engineered to have the shear webs butted up against the ribs, while on some kits it's perfectly fine to do them the way Joe's are.

Great thread thanks for starting it. I am a total newbie here and not even flown yet. I have been thinking about build a kit myself but I had no idea how to start and I also was wondering how expensive it was to buy all the tools. Keep up the good work. I promise I will watch your progress until the end.

Muchas Gracias!

Great thread, I'll be keeping tune fr more of your progress

Looks great so far, I'll be watching too (and hopefully can help if you get stuck)

BTW, love your avitar! LOL!

parrthd: Dude, you scared the shoot out of me ... but NOW I know how shear webs are supposed to be (for my next kit...), and I thank you for that [sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif]

Mike: That's a relief! Thanks!

Now that I read those posts, I had a vision of what shear webs might be for... maybe they're to prevent the ribs from bending vertically and cracking or to prevent main spar missalignment which would end up with a rhomboid shaped wing, when seen from the leading edge [sm=spinnyeyes.gif]

Oh well... let's move on...

Glue the fuse doublers to the fuse side and test fit the plywood formers



Glue the fuse sides and the formers, glue the canopy backrest, cut the front hatch and sand to shape.

You can see near the tail that i've cut some servo openings, I'll place them near the tail since I'll be using a heavy engine.



Get the wings inside the fuse, which has a little hard to do because it's a very snug fit



Test fit the hor. stab and sand the saddle if needed to keep the stab level. Apply a bed of epoxy glue to the stab...



And place the stab on its saddle, I used some pins to prevent the stab from moving while the epoxy cures



Glue the vert. fin using 30 minute epoxy, and use a drop of thin CA just to "tack" the fin in place while the epoxy cures.



Now i'll let it just sit there for a while so the epoxy can get hard enough for safe handling



Looking good so far!

Joe - read this one

http://www.airfieldmodels.com/inform...raft_wings.htm