mliberti

Thank you so much for the pictures of the Antic Bipe build! I am also building one and I purchased my kit new in 1987. I still have to finish building the upper 2 wing panels and hatch. I plan to put an ENYA 90 4-Cycle in it which has the pushrods in the rear also. What do you think about the way Proctor has for wing hold downs? Isn't it fishing line wrapped around a couple of hooks that you are supposed to throw out after each flying session? I am intimidated by that part. Did you come up with a new solution to holding everything together?

The pictures and your attention to detail are incredible. Feel free to post more, it would help me. I hope to resume building in about 2 more weeks, you have inspired me.

CrateCruncher

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Good looking planes Vulturetec. I finally started a build thread for my N11 over on the "scale aircraft forum". Some good discussion over there.
Mike.

TFF

What you need is a Saito .90 3 cyl radial. Nice job!

Vulturetec

Been awhile...put the Antic on the shelf for a bit.

Update: Starting to rig the wings. Started with gluing up the strut wires as per the plans.




Three ends of the wires were glued in the jig, leaving one free. With the struts temporarily installed with heavy pins, I got the wings in rig using foam blocks, then glued the final wire-end in place:



With everything ready to mount I went ahead and painted the strut-ends to cover the wire glue-joint and to give it contrast, and finally mounted the struts to the wings - using locktite on the nuts:


...and the final installation


The wires are next!

somegeek

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Wow - beautiful work! [X(]

somegeek

Vulturetec

Thanks

Now it gets tedious...

Vulturetec

Initial wing-rigging:

This has been the big hold up, but I finally started rigging the wings and its going pretty well!

Before rigging anything I pulled all the fittings from the wings and reinstalled using locktite on the hardware. I'll finish off the installation with a dab of duco on the nuts on the strut hardware, but not quite yet.

Trying to be at least be a little accurate with the rigging, I first made sure the fuselage was leveled to the building table laterally. I set the initial dihedral by measuring the height of the leading edge of the lower-wing at the root, then at the strut - using foam blocks under the wings to hold them in place. The dihedral measurements are on the plans to the same points.



The flying wires (cables) are set from the upper wing-roots to the lower struts first. These cables set the dihedral and support the weight of the wings. The turnbuckles on the lower ends of the struts are set about halfway before installing the cables. I took time to polish the turnbuckles first...after all, they've been sitting around since the early 70s!




The turnbuckles will tighten the cables by a surprising amount, but don't depend on them to fix sloppy work. Pull the cables tightly through the swages and crimp them tightly.





...and the finished product, cables tightened and dihedral set. I prettied-up the swages with black heat-shrink.

Vulturetec

Got the elevators hinged up, now aligning and leveling the stab to the fuselage. Everything lined up and was leveled perfectly, no adjustments!

CrateCruncher

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Nice work! What does Proctor suggest for wing incidences on his plan? With so much more wing area than the monoplane I should think it won't take much?

You probably already know this, but those turnbuckles will loosen and screw up your work if you don't temporarily wire them from spinning while rigging!

Vulturetec

Thanks!

Well... seeing that you're building the N11 you're already pretty familiar with the Antic. They're virtually the same models except having two full sets of wings make the Antic easier to engineer than the V-strutted sesquiplane Nieuport.

Like the Nieuport, the Antic's lower wings are held in position at the correct angle of incidence by two pins. The locations of the holes were pre-drilled in the fuselage sides, and there really is no way to change it without doing a lot of work. Mine measures to roughly +3°.


For those not following the N11 thread, here's what the lower-wing of the Proctor Nieuport 11 looks like - held in position by toothpicks on my aging display N11:



In comparison, here's the Antic Bipe:



The lower wing attach-points will remain aligned if the fuselage is built squarely and carefully. The fuselage is built upside-down on a flat surface, so keeping the pin locations square shouldn't be a big issue.

The upper portion of the fuselage has four holes predrilled for the cabane strut assembly (which came pre-built from the factory). The cabanes screw to the top of the fuselage, then are screwed together with a pine airfoil-shaped block...again, all the mounting holes were predrilled. Alignment and setting of incidence is all done automatically through the location of the mounting holes.




The struts were precut with the attach-points pre-drilled. I was pretty careful about getting their location right, so the major portion of getting outside portions of the wings set up was another no-brainer.


Yeah, I was worried about that. I'm going to safety-wire mine when I'm done - but surprisingly I haven't had any move around. I'm really pretty astonished at how easily rigging went. I set the initial dihedral with only one set of wires done (as per the original instructions). After I got the other set of wires installed I rechecked the dihedral and it was still dead on, and "wash-in/out" was neutral with just getting the second set of wires taut.

Vulturetec

I was working on the bottom of the 'bipe yesterday and I had a chance to notice how perfectly translucent the fabric (Solartex 'antique') is!

Vulturetec

Time to finish up the tail, but first I decided to pull the wings off for the first time after initial rigging...I spread the wing roots with cardboard and carefully pulled the wings from the fuselage. I'm happy to report that the wings are very solid, even off the fuselage!

Vulturetec

A little more progress, and a mod from the original design...

For what its worth it now weighs in at 4.8 lbs.

The original plans weren't terribly clear about how to mount the stabilizer on the biplane version of the Antic. The monoplane uses a single bolt on the leading edge of the stab, and then calls for using two heavy T-pins in the rear. The T-Pins are pushed through the stabilizer so that they hug the sides of the fuselage, then they're glued in place. Combined with the flying-wires and post in the fin it is probably pretty secure.

The Biplane adds a ~3/8" block under the leading edge of the stabilizer, giving it quite a bit more angle of incidence than the monoplane. The pins would still work, but they wouldn't allow for easy adjustment of the incidence-block (should it be needed for trimming). I could also have made a huge shim to put under the stabilizer, but that would add weight to the tail (according to Lou Proctor an addition ounce in the tail needs 6-10oz in the nose). Plus, I honestly didn't like the idea of how the T-pins would look.

The Nieuport 11 uses screws that go directly through the longerons - but I hadn't planned for that.

I opted for making two fittings that are held to the rear of the fuselage by a single screw, then the rear of the stabilizer is held down by two screws. When everything is loosened the stabilizer can be adjusted in the front, or removed if necessary.





Note: I shot these when test-fitting the stabilizer. I'll trim the hardware and make it more secure for flight.

jtisch

WOW! Excellent work.I've got a mini Antic-bipe on the back burner, with floats as well.Makes me want to get on it but I need to stick to one (or two or three) projects at a time.

Vulturetec

Thanks... this project has been on the backburner since the beginning. Time to get it done

Vulturetec

Added the wire rigging to the tail. not a big deal, but with no turnbuckles it required tedious amounts of trial and error to get the tension just right on the two main rigging wires. To much tension on one side will get the fin out of kilter. I ended up using two brass collars with set-screws to clamp the wires in place. They're similar to wheel collars, but the center hole is very small - I got mine at Disney World, they're made to hold collectible "pins" in place (on hats, etc).

It works great!

frequent flyer

My Feedback: (6)

Where did you find the Solartex?

Vulturetec

Balsa USA carries it.

Vulturetec

Aileron hinge update...

Earlier I mentioned the aileron hinges I came up with. I finally permanently installed the hinge pins with lots of success.

First, I cleaned the hinge-pins (solid brass rods), then drilled the brass sleeves to help set the solder. Not sure if that was necessary, but it worked really well.

chashint

The statement I highlighted in red made me laugh out loud.
The number of ribs alone is intimidating enough without even mentioning all of the functional cross bracing in the fuselage.
You are an excellent builder and I am sure having the patience of a saint certainly helps.
Keep up the good work, what you have shared so far is impressive.

Vulturetec

Thanks!

There are a lot of little pieces to put together, but setting the intimidation and sometimes slowness of the "details" aside this is really a fun build.

Working on the engine mount now. This is by far the biggest pain so far.

Vulturetec

Time to build the engine mount... first I wanted to see how things would balance with the relatively heavy old OS FS90 (I could have done with a much smaller engine but I've used this on several .60 sized projects and I wanted to use a 4-stroke). I made an engine-mount mock-up, suspending the mount and engine with safety wire, piled on the other engine mount pieces, and tossed some radio equipment in the fuselage, and marked the spot on the mount.






Unfortunately I found all the 34 year-old plywood had started to delaminate, so I made all new engine mount parts and started gluing it up.

CrateCruncher

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Vulture, what are you planning to use to seal the Solartex?

Vulturetec

I wasn't planning on anything yet.

CrateCruncher

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Well the reason I ask is that I have a practice plane (Aeromaster) covered in Solartex and was hoping you had figured out an easy solution. It seams the stuff stains, attracts dirt and engine oil like a magnet if not fuel-proofed. I've experimented and found TopFlite LustreKote is somewhat fuel-proof but some folks have had problems. I think the amount of nitro in the raw fuel is the variable. Don Coe uses Solartex exclusively. I bet he'd have an easy solution. Before you get too far into final assembly your going to want to seal that covering. That plane is too nice.

EDIT: Don mentioned in a recent post he's using Ronseal Satin Polyurethane Varnish. It may be a UK brand not available in the states. I have a tin of Minwax water-based clear satin polyurethane I'm going to experiment with.