Hi,

I started to build the G&L Hobbies Chipmunk. A friend of mine recommended this kit to me and I got it in a heartbeat.

My plans are to fiberglass the wings, rudder, stab and elevators. I bought Robart ½" struts for the fixed landing gear. I also bought a DLE 55RA.

I started by making a template of the wing flaps and ailerons. I also added to the template the servos pockets, the landing gear cuts and the spars.



I bought a block of aluminum on ebay to make the landing gear blocks.

Working on the wings

After I marked the wings with the templates, I cut the spars slots (¼ x ½" top and bottom) and the servo wires slot with a router. The holes were cut with a hot wire.



I masked the cuts before gluing the spars, servos canal and landing gear ¼" plywood mountings because I am using Gorilla glue for this and I don't want to clean the mess when it expands.

Since I am not going to joint the two wings, I will use an aluminum tube that I ordered from Nick Ziroli. I had to make a jig to get a straight line when cutting the holes.


I drilled the holes with the tube itself. I took into account the dihedral, so I put a piece of wood at the wing tip to elevate it 1 ½" (plans says 2 ⅛ but is too much for me) before cutting it. Then I aligned very carefully the tube and by hand I opened the wing holes.



After that, I mounted the landing gear supports (red oak) and installed blind nuts. I also drilled ¼" hole in those wood blocks al the way through the plywood and into the foam and inserted ¼" wood dwell with gorilla glue. I was looking to have some extra support to this blocks. I don't want my landing gears to fail.



Since I will cover all the holes, with 1/16" balsa to avoid the gorilla glue going into them, I am concern with the top part of the landing gear holes, since we use that area of the wing when handling it. I am running a test with carbon fiber cloth in a piece of foam that I am planning to glue in the top part (for the bottom part I will make it with fiber glass or carbon fiber) to see how it looks once it dries and I apply a 1/16" piece of balsa. Not sure if the CF will raise the balsa in the wing that you will notice when I glue the sheeting.



In the mean time, I glued the stab with 30 min epoxy. I had to install "shims" in one of the half since they were not level.

Good to see another G&L being built. I have built two of them, looks like your on your way, like the wing tube.
Here is a link to my last build

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/kit-...ary-build.html



Will be falowing.

TB

Thank you Tony... you did an outstanding job with your bird. Please fell free to give me any tips.

Thanks, what are you using to sheet the wings, stab and rudder, glue and balsa thickness?

I also would recommend a paper tube for wires if you haven't already done this. The DLE55 is perfect for this and when I build my third as a super chipmunk I may squeeze a 61 in it. I would pin the side ply on your gear bays with dowels into the foam, otherwise your doing good.

TB

Thank you TB, your Chipmunk job was just impressive, and I will "borrow" with your permission some of your ideas.

My progress this week have been slow due to some commitments, but here we go.

I did put some dowels into the ply on the side and into the foam. I think I went around an inch into the foam... do you think that I should go more?

TB, I am using 1/16 x 4" balsa for the sheeting and gorilla glue on everything. I sanded very smooth on the bench and then I applied the gorilla glue on the rudder and the stab. I haven't sheeted the wings yet, but I am planning to do it this weekend, so please I will appreciate your opinion on how deeps do you think the dowels should go into the wing, because this is the perfect time to do it before I sheet the wings.

Thanks

Progress on the wing.

I installed the tube, sanded the dihedral, cut the rib # 1, opened the wings tube, added an alignment dowel and the glued the ribs using the tube as a guide.



I did a mistake with the photos... I saved from my camera SD into the computer as the original file, and now those are too big. I had to create a copy of a few of them with a lower resolution to upload those to this site.... lesson learned...

STAB

I sheeted the stab with 1/16" balsa and gorilla glue activated with water (applied water in spray).

I like a very thin trailing edge on my control surfaces (1/32"), but you cannot do that with balsa because you'll ruin it just on transportation. So I use G10. I make a "g10 sandwich" with 1/32" g10 an ⅛" of balsa. I cut an strip of ⅜" of g10 to make the sandwich. I use carpenter glue for this.

Then I cut the trailing edge (around ⅜") -the elevators in this case- and glue the g10 sandwich. The next day I sand the sandwich until I get to the g10. With this you can get a very thin trailing edge and not a fatty one like ⅛" or ¼".

Now you can hit the trailing edge with pliers and you will not damage it.... Just a preference.

the deeper the better as the foam will absorb the stress if they are longer. I used carbon fiber dowels. But your install looks good and should be ok. When I crashed mine the wings broke right after the gear, you can only make it so strong till something has to give.
1/16 sheeting should be ok, I like to use 3/32 as I like to sand and don't want to burn threw and end up with 1/16" anyways. If you pre sand you should be good.

TB

Very nice, yes you can use any of my methods and ideas as I will be using your G-10 TE, modified though

TB

Resurrecting my chippy, I gave it to a friend and he started stripping it, but now he is giving it back to me so I can redo it and have a new chippy to fly. I will glass the wing and paint it white with similar starburst, and put a DLER 55 in it.

I will redo the flap hinges and the ailerons, but otherwise not going to change anything els...for now!

TB