Hi! I have just started building a .60 TF Corsair and have been having a problem finding a flat surface to build the wing. [&o]I have finally come up with a flat surface that has a 1/16" gap when laying a flat level on it. Do you think this is close enough or should I try to get something that has absolutely no gaps in it? Thanks in advance, Jerry

I would shim the board to get the gap out. Your wing is only as straight as the board you build it on. There are too many ways to screw the wing up with a perfectly flat board (ie sheeting it without adequate weight), than to build on one you know is 1/16th of an inch out.

Here is the last posting on building boards. http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_13...tm.htm#1326727

John

There are tons of posts on this topic, use the search function. The most common answer you will find is a Luan hollow core wood door. I have used ceiling tiles on a table, shimmed to be as flat as possible. I currently use a Wright Building board with is perfectly flat and covered with cork. Unfortunately, these are not available any more. You can also build a simlar board yourself. Here is an excerpt from an old thread. It's not mine but I no longer have who posted it so I cannot credit him.

1. Go to HOME DEPOT/LOWES/MENARDS what ever.

2.Get 2 Angle Irons 4' in length and 1 1/2" wide. (Hold them next to eachother to check for straightness)

3.Get 1 4'x1'x1/2" Laminated piece of shelving material. (this could be made of MDF,Chipboard etc.)

4.Get a piece of Bulletin Board Material 1/2" thick or more(This could be cork or something cork like to stick pins in. The important thing is that you have it in a big enough piece as you don't want any seams.)

5.Get 6 wood screws of a length not greater than that of the thickness of the laminated shelving in 3 above)

6.Get 3m spray adhesive. It comes in a black aeresol can and has a shelf life of infinity. (well almost that anyway) You'll use this for years to come for a plethora of projects.

7.Proceed to the checkout. Your bill should come to approx. $30. (not including the 3M Spray)

Drill 3 holes, a little larger than the diameter of your screws, in the angle irons. The ole' Mark One EYEBALL will suffice, just try to get one at each end and one in the middle of the angle irons.
Again using the ole' Mark One. Place these evenly spaced on the Shelving Material mark your holes and drill pilot holes for the screws. Attach the angle iron to the shelving material. Cut a piece of Bulletin Board material a bit larger than the shelving material. Spray each side with the 3M adhesive. Wait 30 sec. and ROLL the Bulletin Board material on to the Sheving Material.
You now have a Building Board that should be large enough for MOST beginning projects. If you need more surface make it a 2'x6' board. You can always use this little board to build your eppenages on. Some day when the Surface gets pockmarked with too many pinholes you can scrape it off the Shelving Material clean the adhesive off with Acetone and resurface it with more Bulletin Board material. The neatest thing about this way is that if your afflicted with Short Kit Attention Span Syndrome (as I am You don't have to have your workbench tied up while waiting for glue to dry. (I stopped using CyAs) Just set it aside and pull out another to continue your work.

Check the Home-ly Depot or whatever you have locally and obtain a damaged solid core door. They can't use dinged ones in houses, so they sell them for a few bucks. I think I gave $15 for my last one. It has a tiny ding on the back edge, out of sight. These make a good, flat base for a building bench. There is a neat way to make a fuselage jig so your fuses won't resemble bananas. I'll run down that link for you in a minute.

In any event, the flatter, the better.
Kelvin

PS Here's an interesting link I had forgotten about:
http://modelinghints.homestead.com/WorkSurface.html

Ah, here it is. One of the more important tools to have:
http://webpages.charter.net/rcfu/Con.../FJConstr.html

I agree with getting a solid core door. I've tried hollow core doors a couple times and they didn't stay flat for long. But I live in a humid climate and my shop isn't climate controlled either.

Thanks for the advice guys.

I'm getting ready to build my first kit after a few ARFs and have read through a bunch of these "buiding board" threads. I think I will go with the idea of laminated shelving and some type of bulletin board material to use push pins.

My question is, what is so special about these boards being marketed by Great Planes?

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXPF36&P=7

What makes this board "warp resistant" in comparison to any other board I could buy at home depot? Is it treated or cut with the grain differently?

Thskns,

Carl

I have one of those boards and it is a Piece O cr?p!! It warps lenghtwise with the grain where the sections are joined. I figured for thirty bucks, it was worth a try. now it is used for a cutting surface. I think if this board had a metal angel iron frame work around it, that might help keep it straight.

This is the mod I did to my GP board, and it stays flat irregardless of humidity changes :

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_46.../tm.htm#464459

Personally I havent found cork (depending on the grade) to be all that functional for holding a pin, and the hollow door can some times be tough to push a pin in unless you use a tool, and then when removing the pin from your work it may ruin an hour or more's worth of loving labor.

I like using just plain old 5/8" dry wall board eventually it will warp, but by the time it's even noticeable it's time to change it anyway because it's been so cut up and rough from dried glue it's time to change it anyway. and it costs only 4-$5. I have used dry wall for close to ten years and only replaced it once, that was when I lived in Washington.

The dry wall certainly isn't bad. But I have gotten to the point that I rarely build anything flat on a board anymore. Wings are done on a jig made of two pieces of 3/8 inch aircraft tubing held at the ends by aluminum blocks. The ribs are stacked and jig holes drilled with sharpened brass tubing. You can fully finish a wing panel except for the wingtips before pulling the rods. Fuselages are built using a jig like the one I referenced in a post above. Jigs are the only way to build airframes that are genuinely straight and square, and sometimes even that isn't guaranteed!

Here are a couple of interesting links for some photos of building jigs:

http://www.clstunt.com/cgi-bin/dcfor...rum=DCForumID1

And this one is a real killer wing jig description (The guy in the photos is Richard Oliver of Ro-Jett engine fame:

http://www.clstunt.com/htdocs/dcforu...mID1/6421.html