wowplanes

My mother always said that when we screw up, we learn something and therefore become smarter. I am happy to inform you that I am smarter today compared to yesterday.

The fuselage is no more. I totally messed up on the balsa sheeting and it looks horrible. I should have listened to my own advice and stuck to Liquid Sheet instead of solid sheet. Liquid bends easier around curves than solids, I must remember that.

Not all is lost, I will promptly cut another fuselage and build it. It took me 3 half days to do this one, but half of that time was used up in taking pictures, editing, posting, etc. So it should take me no more than a day to come up with another.

This time I am going with my method. I went with the balsa to gain strength, but the difficulty and amount of work is not worth it. I can get the same strength with LS by going with a heavier coat/s.

I will be back as soon as I can.

Fahim

wolfy888

Fahim, my dad and I are going to make a photo-trip sometime next week, as he and I talked about this when he caught me posting. He takes pretty good detail pics, and when I show him what we all are looking for here, I think you will find them very useful. Sorry about your luck with the covering job; Doo-Doo happens. Keep us posted; I'm very interested in this project because most of the scale efforts I've seen have had a few innaccuracies. I'd like to think that we all aspire to the mastery of Dave Platt, et al, who have dominated scale competitions for years.

wowplanes

Indeed I have learned and continue to learn a lot from Dave
Thanks for the effort to get the pics. Give my regards to your Dad.

rcmiket

You were going to sheet with balsa for additional strength. What about using a light glass cloth?
Mike

wowplanes

No balsa, no cloth. I gave up on that. Too messy & too much work. I have another way, stay tuned.
Fahim

rcmiket

Interesting to see what you have planned.
Mike

wowplanes

I build a new fuselage this evening. Amazing how fast things go when you are not stopping to take pictures. Besides I was able to rip out the cut plywood and reuse it, and the hatch cover was used as is because I had not balsa sheeted it before abandoning that route. Tomorrow I shall continue where we left off.

wowplanes

Ok I have rebooted the build after that futile attempt at balsa sheeting. Liquid Sheet makes life simpler and we can build the wing fillets now. The next step will be to sand them to shape.

wowplanes

The wing fillets are done and the to carbon fiber stifferners added to the tail. I will put the fuselage aside and start on the wing next.

wowplanes

I took a day off for some R&R and started on the wing this morning.

wowplanes

Finished the two inboard flap panels. Next I will join the 3 panels and move on to the outboard flap and aileron panels.

wowplanes

Remaning pictures

rcmiket

Looking good. What size fans are you looking at?
Mike

wowplanes

Two 90mm
Fahim

wowplanes

I joined the three panels.

wowplanes

I worked on the assembling the outboard flap panels. The construction is identical to the inboard flap panels. Next I can start on the two outmost aileron panles.

Fahim

wowplanes

Hope you are all enjoying the build? I need to mention a couple of things at this stage.

I try to design my kits such that the novice builder can easily build them, or the expert builder can easily modify them. For example, this kit is designed with slotted flaps. It can be built for slotted flaps as shown in this build. Or if less complexity is desired desired, simply glue the flaps to the wing, fill with putty and sand the joint, and we have a flapless model. If a more complex Fowler Flap is desired, simply sand the hinge face to a Fowler profile, or add balsa and sand to create a Fowler hinge profile. In other words, this is not the only way to build my kits.

My design objective is to give you a "scale as can be" basic platform, and empower you with the freedom to suit your own skill and imagination. Trust me, you will not hurt my feelings if you don't follow my intructions to the book.

The second point is that a foam model looks kinda rough during the building stage. Be patient and don't get frustrated, when we get to the finish stage, it will look nothing like that.

wowplanes

Continued with the build. I assembled the aileron wing panels next.

A side comment on the use of epoxy glue. Use is as sparingly as possible because it is one of the heaviest part of a foam model. I looked at the A & B part bottles I am using and each weighs 9oz. That's 18 oz (over a lb) of dead weight added if I end up using a whole bottle set. I waste a lot but still that's a lot for a 10 lb AUW plane!!

Now we can join the two outboard panels together with a samll fixed wing section between them as shown in the full sized picture.

Fahim

wowplanes

Next I joined the two outboard wing panels together with a small fixed wing section in between.
BTW, I am not sure why the size of the pictures has changed. Must be something in the RCU server.
Fahim

wowplanes

Now that we have the 3 wing panels, it is time to assemble the whole wing.

wowplanes

I worked on assembling the whole wing today.

wowplanes

I cleaned up the TE by temporarily taping all the control surface in their nuetral positions, and sanding in a straight line using a stick sand bar.

Then I worked on the Horner wing tips.

Fahim

Wayne22

My Feedback: (2)

from the silent lurking majority.......keep it coming!! Very impressive!

wowplanes

I am glad the silent majority is enjoying this.
There is something therapeutic about whittling and sanding a block of balsa with 80 grit paper. I am enjoying it so much.

wowplanes

Progress is a little slow because we have the grand kids visiting us and I get to teach them how to build a model. Man, the questions are driving me nuts.
Anyway, I was able to get the wing mount done today. At this point, we have a fuselage and a wing structure rough finished. I can now move on to the tail.
Fahim