Gray Beard

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It was asked what our winter builds were going to be and I mentioned I built a lot more in the summer then winter and I may get the plans to the Ziroli Swoose Sea Plane. I ended up with the Swoose plans and the Ultra Sport 1000 kit. I decided to build a couple of the Swoose, one for a friend. The 1989 article in MAN wasn't a lot of help so I did a goggle and found a build of the Swoose in an old thread on a site that didn't make it over time.
The Build Article is I found is by one of our RCU members, Lou Melancon and I must say it is one of the better build threads I have seen with some outstanding step by step photos. I think the site died in 08 but there is still some pretty good stuff there. Worth a goggle. http://z11.invisionfree.comGMARC/ind...?showtopic=193 if the address is still working?
A very good builder!! I think I go take a look every day to get my bearings and find my mistakes.

EscapeFlyer

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Subscribed...

Hoping you post a lot of pics of the build!

Brian

GaryHarris

Ill be watching.

karolh

Hey Gene, if anyone can do a good job of it, you can. Great to have you back up and about.

Karol

Gray Beard

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I have no plans for doing a build thread on these planes. I will show a few photos as I go along over the months. As it is this one will take about 6 months. I just started on the wing first to see what I had in the way of wood on hand. I ran out before wing half number one was complete.
I started on the two fuselages yesterday but quit so I could come in and look at Mr. Melancons photos to make sure I was doing something correctly. It will be a month before I have the money to buy all the wood I need. The wing is a strange build!!

kgibson4

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I couldn't get the link for the build thread to work until I put another back-slash after the ".com". That seems to work. Great pictures! Thanks for that.

Ken

EDIT: That should be a forward-slash. Sorry.

http://z11.invisionfree.com/GMARC/index.php?showtopic=193

Gray Beard

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By all means, thank you for that. I posted this for the most part for some friends to see Lou's build. I will post a few photos but for the most part I no longer will do a build thread on a scratch build. I wonder why the other RC site didn't make it? Looked like it had a good start going. Thanks again!!!

Gray Beard

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Just soaked down the wood for the fuse spars so it would follow the curve of the fuse bottom. Something I wanted to show is the jig for building a Gull wing and it will work on most any of them. In Lou's build he built his wing flat and cut it then glued everything back together to get the sweep/amgle of the gull, with a jig you can just do it all in one piece. One jig will work for both wings. Often not worth the time to make but in my case I'm building two planes, {thought it would be three!} so that means two of everything so 4 wing halves. The jig ends up saving time.
This should end my posting in this thread until I have something worth showing. Any builder should know how to build a fuse and this being a scratch/plans build the only thing different will be the language I use when nothing fits correctly like a kit build. I should have something in the next month or so worth looking at. I already have a lot of the tail feathers cut, just need to frame up the stab and sheet it.
Gene

Gray Beard

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I just finished sheeting the turtle deck, it's a combo of sheeting and planking so it can get a shaped and rounded. It's not a huge plane but it does have some serious elevator and rudder area. Real small ailerons but it is a flat bottom wing for kicked back flying. Sure it is!!!!!!!!!!!!

karolh

It's looking good so far and that wing jig is a great idea for saving time, especially when you plan on mass producing wings

Karol

Gray Beard

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Karol, the jig was shown in Nick Ziorli's build thread in 89s MAN. It will work on any gull wing plane and is a time saver. It also makes it accurate from wing to wing and one jig will do both left and right sides. Today I didn't do a lot but I did get the cockpit sides on so it is taking shape. I need to get over to the wood club and use the orbital sander to put the roof over the cockpit. It's a big block of wood and needs to be shaped. A sander is the tool to use to do it right.

goirish

Morning Gene

Do you by any chance have that article on the wing jig. Getting ready to take the cub out this morning and punch some holes in the wild blue yonder.

RICKSTUBBZ

Gene,

It's looking good....Question, are you makeing a plug for the canopy in order to form some plastic? Or, are you jsut doing a wood canopy to paint?

Gray Beard

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Gene, it's just a photo and explanation of what it is. On the plans there is a kind of template that showas the angle that you build it to. My buddy built it for me. I kept mentioning it could be longer but he went right to the plans so it is a couple of inches too short. Not a problem but if it was about 10 inches longer it could be used with other gull wing planes. I will email you some stuff so you can build one for the Cobras or other gull wing planes. If you look at the build of the swoose Lou did he enlarged the plans and did the wing flat, cut it apart and built a separt center section. I thought it was a harder way to go but it works very well.
Rick, when you make up the cockpit of this plane you just cut out the plastic for the canopy flat and it just forms around the fuse. Very easy and it's old school. This plane was first featured in the 1946 MAN as a free flight, Ziroli enlarged the design and made it RC.
Gene

goirish

Thanks Gene
I have been searching every place I can think of but no luck.

Gray Beard

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Another cupa or two and I will head for my shop and see what I can find for you. Mine was built at my wood club with scrap wood. Soft pine center/main board and that 3/4 inch fiber board. Tried to spell it but I really screwed with my spell check!!!!!!!!

Gray Beard

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Running out of wood fast now. The mystery of the plane is over and if I had the wood on hand I could get a pair of these planes framed up and in the bones in a couple of weeks. I think Nick made up for the little ailerons by adding some serious elevator and rudder power!! Pretty soon I will have to figure out the wood I require and place an order with National Balsa. That is the only thing about scratch or plans building I don't like!! You have to look at the plans for days with pencil and paper in hand and do a lot of that thinking stuff. I hate that thinking stuff!!!

goirish

Morning Gene

Have you tried building on the gull wing jig for a symmetrical wing?

Gray Beard

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Nope, this is the first time I have used it. I can see where it could get a bit rock and roll on a jig. I figure if it can be built on a flat surface table then there should be no problem with the jig. It is only giving you the angle of the gull section. I have spoken to Lou about the swoose he built and he said I should remove the dihedral from the wing. He mentioned that at a good time, I have only built the one half so far so I can make the changes now. I have three more halves to build

Gray Beard

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500 servo error again. This is why I won't ever do a build thread on RCU. I have 6 photos to post showing how I did a combo of sheeting and planking then sanded the turtle decks to shape. I was going to post them 2 at a time. Maybe tomorow afternoon I can get on a better server.
RCU is really getting sucky!!! Worse all the time.

EscapeFlyer

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How about another site? I know of 2 others without this issue.

Brian

Gray Beard

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I think it's time to say good by to RCU so go ahead and lets move on. Two little photos again and got a 500 servo error. I can never say a complete good by to RCU though. Over the years I have met too many nice people I have gotten close with. Email me the sites addresses and we will talk about it, Maybe go on over and try posting some photos there and see hoe it goes. The site I found Lou's Swoose build on I was going to join up but it has been a lot of years sense anyone has posted there. Too bad, some good things were going on there too?

goirish

Hey Gene Let me know where you go, I don't want to lose touch with you.

Gray Beard

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I will still use RCU, not a complete bail. Just getting tired of all there problems. Mike and I spoke about it just before he passed. They really need to shut the site down and start over and get better servers. Even if they have to loose the past posts or reload everything again. This has been going on for over a year now and they can't seem to fix the site.
You have my email address too and I would let you know what site I end up on. Other then posting photos I don't have a ton of trouble with RCU, sometimes but not always.
As long as I have been here I could never leave it 100%. I spend the first hour of the day answering email from friends from RCU now.
If I go to my email I bet Brian has already sent me the new site addresses. If he is up yet, or working?
Gene

EscapeFlyer

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I'm up!!!

I just sent it to you.

I don't think I could ever totally leave either, but it did get to me as well. I may get myself kicked off of RCU, Ha! But I don't think I'd walk away.

Brian