Hi All,

Would like your opinion on a wee little problem I found. I finally got my Somthing Extra built and covered, And I put the wings on and found that one of my wings has 1/16" Gap between the fuse. I did check it before I covered it and now I have this gap. Is this something I should worry about, should I remove the covering off that one wing and try to fix the problem? If I leave the gap, will it effect performace? This is my first build, I have only done ARFs previously.

Thanks,

Ryan

Mine had/has a small gap also. As long as the little dow rod fits into the wigs so it will not rotate on the tube you should be fine. If it really bothers you, take the covering off the inside, and sand it flat. Glue a long piece of sand paper to a flat surface and flatten the warp. But like I said, 1/16 will not effect the flight. And as long as you dont point it out to anybody, (like the old cranks at the field ) no one will ever notice.

I ripped my first set of wings off of mine by flying into a tree, fuse was perfect, just had to re-glue landing gear block back on. Someone from here sent me there old SE wings. I put them on, and had about a 1/8 gap at the LEAST. It flys great.

1/16 isn't much but is it the entire wing seat that has the gap or just the trailing edge of the wing? Have you sanded it a bit before covering? Maybe sanded a little too much there?

If the other wing seats perfectly and this one does not you could consider adding a little balsa sheeting there, which you can get in 1/16 thinkness I'm sure and that would eliminate the gaps. Also - check the length of the aluminum tube - I built the kit as per instuctions but my tube was about 1 1/2" too long so I had to cut it down a bit to get it to the ~15" it was supposed to be.

I just got to the point in the build where you mount the completed wings for the first time too and find that I had a slight gap on both wings at the trailing edge. I was about to post the same question when I saw this one.

I had a slight gap on one side, 1/32 maybe .It didn't affect it.
As long as the main wing was straight. It didn't bothered me.
I use cable ties to keep the wing halves in place.

What caught my attention more was trying to get the
main wing and the tail horizantal stab parallel to each other.

There wasn't much I could do with the main wing aluminum tube.
Usually you could fix this problem later, just sand the main
wing saddle's, on other types of air ships.

I sanded the stab's saddle as much as I could. To try to get it level.
The stab's wires will help if it's off, but it's not easy.

I made sure the stab and wing would be able to get parallel as
much as possiable before I glued the stabs.
Close one eye, so that you don't get fooled and stand back
It's easier to tell on the SE becuase of no diehedrail

I had the same problem a couple of years ago and I glued a thin piece of balsa to the end of wing and sanded. Howeve, after flying it the gap changed some. I think I would fly it for about a month and if it is still there you cluld easily glue a piece of balsa to end and sant to fit. I will say again Thin piece of balsa because you don't want to change the wing too much.

i had about 1/8 so took a piece os balsa then i glues and trimmed and sanded it to get the gap out!!!

Mine had apx a .040" gap at the trailing edge. If you think about it the rubber bands that hold the wing the the fuselage are near the leading edge so even if your'e inboard rid are true you may still have a slight gap. I have personaly seen one fly with more than a 1/8" gap in the leading edge of the wing. Personally I wouldn't worry about a small gap at the trailing edge but would worry about gaps at the leading edge.