Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

Has any one buit the Wing Mfg. B-25 kit? I have one that I'm trying to sell here, but no one seem to want the deal I'm offering, so I might have to build it myself. It looks like a great kit to build, but I think it's beyond my abillities. Is it very hard to sheet the foam core wing with balsa? Never done that before and I'm a little afraid of it. Wouldn't want to mess it up, ya know?
Thanks in advance for any responce-John

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

There are several threads here on covering foam cores.

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

OK-Thanks-I'll dig around a bit.
John

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

The 2nd RC kit I ever built was a Sig Kommander with foam core wings. Just make sure you use a sandable (aliphatic) glue to join the sheets that your going to use to sheet the cores. Join them, then sand the joints that will be the OUTSIDE on the cores.

Maybe you can learn from my mistakes.

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

John, The foam wings are the easy part of this build. I am in the middle of one right now that I started 2 years ago. It took so long because I had surgury just after starting it, & then we moved from Ohio to N. Carolina. I hope to get back to it really soon here as soon as I get more hobby things unpacked & my room set up. The hardest part was getting the planking to fit correctly around the engine neceles & then the fiberglassing of the entire plane for paint. It would have been easier to cover it with iron-on film, but I went for the paint method. Other than those items, its a fairly normal build. Looks great. I will be powering with 2 O.S. 70 four strokes. If you decide to build & need help, just give a yell & I'd be happy to help. Bill

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

Thanks Guys for the encouragement and how-to comments.
John

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

Okay, here's another tip, if your going the fiberglass the entire surface and paint routine. It may sound crazy, but believe me it works.

My friend was building a model of the "Quickee", a Bert Rutan design, that has no tail. It's a funky biplane design with a canard front elevator, and the flying wing behind the cockpit, and a rudder at the back. He got it built and I had more room so we glassed it at my shop. we used real light glas cloth and "Hobby-Poxy" fiberglass resin.( I don't think you can still buy Hobby Poxy) You paint the surface, then coat the cloth , lay it out on the plane, the take Toilet paper ant wick up all the excess resin from the surface, You'd think that the paper would stick to the surface but in fact the resin sticks to the TP instead.

If you decide to glass the plane and paint it, give it a try, it'll give you a beautiful smooth surface with just the right amount of cloth showing through.

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

John:

Like MildBill, I've got one that's half done (meaning the wings/stab/fuselage/nacelles are built and put together). This winter shoud see final assembly done and the whole thing fiberglassed.

For me, the difficult part of this kit is the mental engineering that goes into each step. On the wings, it's planning for all the plumbing needed: retract airlines, servo leads, electrical wiring (if you're gonna use a Twin-Synch or power it with electrons, etc.) On the fuse it's where you mount everything. Fitting gear doors to the nacelles is soooo much fun!

There's a tremendous amount of satisfaction available if you can complete one of these kits. Just be aware the Construction Guide assumes you know how to read a set of plans, sheet, plank, etc., and can fill in the gaps when the instructions say put in three little works like "sheet the fuselage", "plank the nacelles", or "install your retracts".

Fred

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

I have seen the prototype fly and it flies well. It got dumb thumbed at a contest a couple of years ago; probably fixed by now. It has to be 15-20 years old.

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

I recently finished building one for a dear friend and he is in the process of painting it. Like you, I tried to sell it because it seemed like so much work but couldn't fine a buyer, so decided to build it. It is a major project, for sure but a lot of fun IF you like to build. Take your time. I used a pair of Saito .91 four strokes for power. You could certainly Monokote it but why would you? It cries for paint. The easiest way to do that is to glass it with 3/4 oz. glass and use Minnwax water based polyurithane applied with a brush. It is SO easy and gives such great results. There are several web sites that talk about that method. Also, Art Azlin, who is the builder for Wing, has a website where he gives some building tips. Forget about the landing gear doors, unless you intend to build a museum quality model. I fought with them for a month and finally talked to Art who said he didn't use them on the Wing demo model seen at Toledo. Needless to say I didn't use them either. Makes life SO much easier. If you have any questions, or if I can help in any way, please let me know. I came up with a good way of mounting the engine servos that even Art liked. I can send you pictures, if you like.

Frank T.

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

Thanks for all the advice, guys.
John

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

Frank,

I will take the picture if you do not mind as I am working on one now. What did you do in place of the gear doors.

Also the Minnwax water based polyurithane works well. I did that on a top flight DC-3 and it turned out perfect. Very little mess and it stayed very light.

Scott

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

What do you do in place of the gear doors?

The Construction Guide has you fit the gear to the retract rails, then remove it and plank the nacelle. I think it would be easier to leave the retract and the strut in the "up" position inside the nacelle, then finish the planking. Let the glue dry, sand everything smooth, admire your handiwork... and then do surgery on it (believe me, it took some guts to hack into the nacelle!)

Push the strut down until it contacts the inside of the planking, then carefully begin to cut a long, narrow hole in the planking and internal formers so the strut can swing down to the fully extended position. Then put the wheel on the strut, retract it until it hits the outside of the planking, and cut enough of the surface away so the wheel will retract fully into the nacelle. You'll probably want to extend the hole so there's 1/8-1/4" of clearance on all sides, and make all the sides nice and straight, with smooth radius bends on the ends. You can do the same for the nose gear once you've sheeted/planked the fuselage.

Then fiberglass the outside of the nacelle for strength. You might also want to fiberglass as much of the planking on the inside of the nacelle as you can comfortably reach. It adds strength, and not much weight.

Fred

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

Thanks and I especially like "admire your handiwork" :D

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

I'm buying one of these because I love building. I'm curious several things. First is how to rig it so it can be transported. Do you make the wing tips removable?

Also, I'm wondering what size tanks you can fit into the nacelles with retracts installed. I have a couple of Saito 80's I'm planning on using and although they are get pretty good mileage, it would be great to fit as big a tank as possible into the nacelles.

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

Well, the transport issue wasn't a concern until I sold the Suburban! My wing is a single piece, so there's no turning back now. I suppose you could build the wing with removable tips, either at the dihedral joints, or outboard of the aileron servo's. In either case you'd need to fit some kind of phenolic/carbon fiber wing tube set up, and make sure there was a way to undo any electrical connections on the outboard side of the joint. Not particularly difficult, assuming you have all the equipment you need to keep the joints and wing tubes square. Where this would get real interesting is if you did the separation at the outer dihedral joints... none of the angles are 90*, so you'd have an interesting geometry problem.

Another interesting approach might be to build it as a two piece wing, with the joint in the middle. That's the way the new H9 Mustang wing works, with a wing dowel and wing bolt in each half, and a wing tube in the middle for strength. This would probably require using two flap servos, one for each wing.

There's a fairly big tank bay in the nacelle. 10oz tanks shouldn't be a problem, maybe you can find some "squarish" 12 or 14 oz tanks. Unless you're going to try for marathon flights, I'd think 12 oz would keep a Saito 80 running at medium throttle for 15 minutes or so. I'd think 15 minutes of "wondering if an engine's gonna quit" would be plenty for one flight.

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

Hey, thanks for the info. It sounds as though the wing comes off the plane? If that's the case then I'm in great shape. In the pictures I've seen it appeared that the wing was permanently attached to the fuse. I have an Expedition so I can handle wings over 80 inches pretty easily. I was worried that I'd have to figure out a way to transport a 6 foot plane with a 7 foot wing permanently attached.

A 10 to 14 oz tank for each engine should work well too.

This is going to be one fun project!

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

The Wing B-25 is a challenging kit to build and the instructions are ok for a master modeler, but for the rest of us it takes help from other modelers to avoid some of the pitfalls of this kit. But a great warbird when you get it completed. RH

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

Yep, the wing detaches. It's held on by a pair of wing dowels and wing bolts that are attached in the middle of the fuselage. In order to accomplish this, you get to sheet/plank/sand the fuselage, yet again admire your handiwork, and then take a razor saw and knife blade and cut the section of the fuselage under the wing out.

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

BioguyIf you haven't bought one yet, I have one for sale with retracts & cockpit kit. It's too much for me.
John

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

FallDownGoBoom, this sounds like a laugh a minute. Gotta love cutting apart something you so lovingly spent time putting together. I'm just relieved the wing comes off for transport. Otherwise I'd have to fly the thing to the flying field.

Wine Country Flier, thanks for asking but I bought a kit last week from the RCUniverse auction site. I have another plane to build before I start the B-25 so it will be a while before I need to start looking for retracts.

RE: Wing Mfg B-25 kit
 

By the time you get done cutting up everything you assemble for the Mitchell, you'll think you're a surgeon. You get to build the wings, then cut off the ailerons and flaps; the stabs, then cut off the elevators, and then hack up the fuselage and the nacelles. Sorry, I shouldn't have used the word "hack". You remove appropriate material for reassembly.

Fred