For those of you that have interest in this plane, I'm gonna run a build thread. Mr. Matt, when you get a chance could you pm me your phone number, I'd like to talk to you in depth about your hinging techniques as I want to use them to the extent that they can be used on this airplane.

In the mean time, I've got about 6 hours labor into what you'll see below. I'm almost to the stage on one wing to cut out the flaps and ailerons.

The foam cores come precut from the foam cutter for servos, spars, and retract wheel area. The guys at RPM have really done a good job taking a great flying airplane and making improvements.

I have no official affiliation with the guys at RPM other than great friends and beer drinking buddies so you'll get the straight dope from me on this jet if you have any questions.

First thing I did was line the spars up with the spar receiver on my "flat" table. I had capped the spars in 3/16" ply and then boxed all that with 1/32 ply. This gives a great adhesion to the foam core. Also lined up the spars into the foam such that the landing gear plate will allow all my "hard" landings to be taken by the spar. What an awesome design. I love it.

On my first isobar some of the absorption of landings had been tranferred to the wing skin on top of the wing and cracked my paint. I put a good layer of carbon fiber and west systems in this area to hopefully prevent that in this jet.

Next was to put the landing gear plate in. The landing gear system is well thought out with a flex plate. Four bolts to take out takes the gear out and you can make your own flex plates at home!! I never broke one before, until the demise of the jet. But it was nice to know it was there.

I also put a piece of light ply on the leading edge. Anything is over kill there as it will get a balsa leading edge, but someday I'm gonna hit a full scale landing light at one of these events, and it's a small price in weight to pay for a little more protection.

Some misc sheeting pictures. Poly glue was used. Some balsa cap strips etc. Nothing scary here. Near ready to cut out ailerons and flaps.

some pictures of the inlet installation. Basically you ream out the holes for the inlet. Slide it into place. Cut off excess and get to your fill material. I used west systems, microballons, bondo, K38 mixed with microballoons. I'm still not crazy about the job I did and just puttied up some more to sand off later just last night. I'm totally unafraid of body work and don't mind adding and sanding 100 times if that's what it takes to get something smooth. The end result is always acceptable to me even if someone else could have done better.

The spar receiver is shown to make sure that you don't get the wrong angle on the intake. Someone installed theirs and had to redo it cause the bypass wouldn't fit between the spar receiver and the intake. Whoops.

Cool keep the pics comming..

Looks great sean!

Nice to see a thread on this build up! Lets see more!!!!!

One thing to note, the Isobars that are purchased today have the wings pre-sheeted. The landing gear plate is not installed and will require the sheeting to be cut away in order to install the plate. It would be a good idea to have the plate installed before sheeting.

Thanks all for the nice things said.

Kaos, you are right! In my opinion it's better to install the landing gear plate before sheeting and you can see that's what I did.

I've talked to Reid on the phone a few times about this issue, and he says that he's built these wings in every possible way imaginable. About the only thing that's easier according to him in the process is that when you sheet prior to installing the spars, sometimes poly glue gets down in the spar channel.

Initially the kit was going to be sold with non-sheeted wings. Then their were cries from potential customers as I understand that "other" kits came pre-sheeted. I've had this conversation with other modelers and the truth of the matter is that some people have head trash related to sheeting and they simply don't know how to do it and are afraid.

I don't know, but you might be able to order the kit non-sheeted as I did. But they don't include the balsa for sheeting when you do (at least in my case). But that's only about $30.00 from lone star balsa, not a big deal. But it is about $15.00 more bucks in poly glue.

Last night I sheeted the bottom side of the other wing. Tonight I'll sheet the top side.

I drew out the lines for cutting the flap and aileron out last night. I'll post some more pictures tomorrow at some point.

Sean

Here is RPM's website address, incase people might want to purchase an Isobar or get some specs.

http://www.rpm-tech.com

JR

PS. Sorry Sean, I thought you would have posted the website earlier. Keep the pictures coming.

Nothing Fancy, but here's the slop of sheeting for those that havn't seen enough of it.

Cool Picture!! And plenty of Mexican cokes!! These are the kind with real Cane Sugar, not corn syrup.

Hey Sean, you are not following the Isobar instructions accurately. it is starting to look like a Eurofighter!


Cool thread, Regards, Enrique

I was just thinking the same thing! LOL. Looks like you have enough projects to keep you busy for a while, now. LOL. Looking good anyways. Keep em coming.

I found the hinging thread. This should be good!!

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_76...hinging/tm.htm

Oh, and thanks for the comments, the fiance' doesn't give me many pats on the back LOL.

The only thing I would change is the plywood material I used for the "cuff".

When I came up with this technique, I always used unidirectional carbon fiber laminates (the 1/2" wide, .014" thick, rigid stuff that several people sell). These work OK, but are only strong in the long axis, so they would crack pretty easily handling the plane without the surface installed (which is half the reason for doing it, so you can get the plane all the way apart for painting AFTER you have hinged it)

Anyway, I tried that 1/64 plywood. It works OK (and very cheap), but it is not as temperature stable as I would like. Depending on your finish technique and paint color, the plywood cuff might get wavy in the heat.

The new stuff I am using is from Art's Hobbies. If you look at it, it has a bidirectional surface coat to it. This makes it very resistant to cracking. This stuff is perfect for this application, and I am using it on my new Super Bandit with excellent results. Everything else is the same as I posted.

Matt, your second picture there, just to be clear is in place of post 29 from the thread I quoted above? And I can get that at Art's hobbies? Where do I get "model magic" filler and where do I get "gluit" and what exactly was the "gluit" for from post 28 in the other thread.

Quote from the other thread:



THAT IS A REALLY COOL IDEA, ROCKETMAN, THIS IS THE BULLETPROOF HINGING YOU AND I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR.

Yeah I called them a "cap" in posts 28 and 29. Just use this stuff from Arts. Beware that this stuff is harder than the wood, so you will need to be careful to get it level with the wood routing slot, as it will not sand as easily as the wood, so it will leave a ridge if you are not careful when you do your finish sanding (post 30)

"Gluit" is a highly sandable white glue, made by Pica. Any whilte glue would work, it's just Gluit is my favorite white glue and if you get any on the wood it sands easily. It is great for joining anything on wood covered foam wings (like leading edges, trailing edges, etc)


"Model Magic" is just wood filler, it used to be made by Carl Goldberg. It is just that standard latex based stuff, balsa filler.

On a composite wing however, I use "Split Second"....that is my new favorite polyester filler. That is too hard for balsa and will not sand well in this wood wing application.

Good luck,

matt

thanks for the tip on art's material. i have been fighting that same battle, laminate snaps, and ply just does not seem to cut it for me.

Matt, how thick is the bi-directional stuff from Art's? Thanks.

The stuff I use is .014" thick.

Matt, thanks for the information. I can't wait to get to that part.

Some layout shots of flaps and ailerons on one wing and the finished sheeting of the other.

The flaps have been significantly enlarged. I asked why and was told "I want this Jet landing as slow as a Kingcat".

Did I say that out loud?

Should be cutting out control surfaces by the weekend, time to order some materials from arts

A shot of the new drawing that comes for wing layout. This is a significant improvement over what has been available in the past.

Anyone want to come over and have a balsa dust party? I've breathed more of this muck than I care to muddle over. YUCK.

Make sure that I'm lined up with where the vertical stab aft spar goes and tape everything in place and zip it through the band saw!

One control surface cut out. Little late on getting started, but once you get it cut out, things really start rolling.

Couple of pics, put the main spar receiver in last night to start jigging it in position. Euro's on hold a couple of days figuring out some cylinder issues, fill time with ISOBAR!