Thanks, i'm glad you find this thread helpful.
You are right, it's a melamine topped board and normally the pins bend because the surface is pretty tough. That's why i shortened all the pins with a hand plier before hammering them into the melamine board. Some of the pins will still bend, but i think around 90% of them will stay straight because the length is around half than normal.
There are probably better materials out there, but this was cheap, straight and available everywhere. They can also cut them perfectly straight at the hardware store, so it's possible to create a nice straight building table using a few parts attached perpendicular to each other.

Thanks for the quick reply, Alex. I've got a melamine board as well, but I also got hold of a large piece of glass from a storm door and when I get a piece of sheet metal, I'm gonna use magnets.

The old Graupner building boards were balsa plywood . I Can imagine covering the melamine with a layer of 1/4" hard balsa . When building large projects, I have cheap plywood holow doors . The wood is soft enough and as straight as it can be .

Hello

I use an isoplane door with plywood siding, it's very cheap.
claude

Thanks for the suggestions, using a door panel sounds like a good idea. I hope to use it in the future :)

I am struggling building the canopy and cowl. Was wondering if anyone was kind enough to share an stl file or formers they could share to help. Thanks

Hi, you can download the cowl and canopy 3D models in STL format here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XLJ...AM36tRnXF0f4ky

Wow Alex, Thanks so much for that greatly appreciated. Cant wait to get building again. Thanks again

Cowl and canopy
 

I have already made the molds and parts are available to purchase if you want. I also laser cut the whole kit.


Epoxy Glass kits, Short Kits, Laser cut wood kits ,Fiberglass parts and much more.. Proudly made in the U.S.A. rcaiir.com
email: [email protected]

Don Just wondering how my kit is coming along? It's been a while.

Your Kit Order
 

Henry

I 'm still cutting and I believe it will be done by the end of this week. Unbelievable how long to cut this kit over 100 sheets of contest balsa. It's about 10 times more time than most kits to cut. But it is all looking great.
Did you see how much balsa has gone up? I just got told by my suppliers that my orders are up 130% on top of my 2020 prices. It is crazy, my last order of $10,000.00 is now $23,000.00.
I had to raise all kit prices and the prices on wood packs this month. I'll be in touch with your tracking info. Stay well!

Great! Look forward to hearing from you.:)

Rear mounted motor front
 

Hi, wondering if anyone had any images of how the rear mounted motor is attached to the fuz. There is a great side view of it but cannot see any pictures on how the Engine box attaches to the front of the plane. If someone could please share that would be great.
thanks

kev

Hi Kev,
The motor mount tabs go through the slots in the firewall, then you need to add some triangular balsa reinforcements around the joints, on both sides of the firewall. I hope the images below explain it pretty clearly. I'm not sure, but the backmounted version may be a bit heavier than the front mounted one.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...7281bac74c.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...a8f2ab6e9c.jpg

Andrey's Vortex is nearing completion. He had to wait for more than a month for some light balsa sheets, but now he has all he needs to finish it.
Unfortunately he can't post pictures here yet (needs more than 10 posts on RCU), so i'll post them for him:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...c48c36c718.jpg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...84d271d798.jpg

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...f865485788.jpg

Nice composite work men:cool:

This is the kind of things that make me think about a medium balsa version of the vortex. In the end medium balsa has the best specific strenght....its almost a matter of making the holes bigger or going thinner. You can´t go deep into this route as structure need support but I think is worth considering.

Hi Alex Voicu ,
your design is great and very helpful for the ones that likes building.
since the competition grade balsa is so difficult to get nowadays, do you thing is there any parts of your model that could be made in depron, thin foam or any other alternate material instead?

Hi Eduaero,
I suppose you can replace the built-up wings and stabs with foam core construction. The shape would have to be modified a little, since you can't have a curved leading edge on the foam cores.
For the fuselage i don't think you can replace any of the balsa frames with depron, at least not without increasing the thickness significantly to have the same strength. This would require a complete redesign of the structure in the area of the depron parts due to the large number of interlocking parts.

thank you for taking the time to elaborate your response. You invested a lot of time to get this great design. I am not likely to change any bit of it so I will patiently try to find the adequate balsa you indicate

By the way ,is there a bill of materials?
Sometimes comparing material per se is not fair as the total ammount does not add that much.Maybe just a couple of hundeeds....

Being said that ,I think planking can be done in 1.5 mm medium balsa if the builder is good enough to avoid extensive sanding.

The drawings are grouped in folders, depending on the material used so you can simply count the number of sheets in each folder. Obviously for a 500x200mm balsa sheet you will need to cut a 1m long sheet in half and attach the 2 pieces together with CA adhesive.

Apart from the laser cut parts, you will need 2mm balsa for sheeting. Here's a rough estimation for the minimum number of 2mm sheets needed:
fuselage: 16
wing:16
stab: 6
fin: 3

The rudder is the only part sheeted with 1.5mm balsa to keep the weight as low as possible (2 sheets needed).

Nice design. I am planning to start the building nest month. I am searching for the STL of the wheelPants, but I can not find it.
Is it possible to have it?
Thanks a lot

My plan was to buy the wheelpants, so the models in my 3d files are just placeholders. Normally you need a flat area around the wheel axle so you can glue a piece of plywood inside; my wheelpant models don't have that so it's probably better to purchase a pair.