Thanks, John. I made a trip to the hardware store and picked up 10 small rectangles of MDF (for about $5) to square up the sides of the fuselage. Then, as you said, I made up pairs of cross-beams. This is all still a bit of an experiment just to see what's possible. The fuse is made entirely of 3mm bamboo. But I'm going to be adding ply gussets and, of course, also functional rigging. I found some stuff at the fishing shop that I think is kevlar.

Hi Don,
Fishing stores have lots of good things for scale(pun) modelers!! Swages, ss cable, wire, etc. The fishing line I use for rigging is spectra line, also known as Spider Wire, Fire Line, etc. As strong as kevlar, and way easier to work with. Thin ca holds the knots. I've not used steel cable in a long time, but I may again since converting my stuff over to 2.4.

Your wood angles sound good, and the ply gussets will help a lot.

John

Here's my "jig." It seems to have worked just fine. The 1/6 scale frame as it is here weighs 49g (1.7oz) with the firewall added that doubles the weight.

Anyone have a nice close-up photo of a gusset on a dowel fuselage? I remember that Trev has some very slick ones on him immaculate scratch-built EIII.

Don, nice work!! Here's an idea for your gussets. Try construction paper, you can mold the edges around the dowel with a little help from wood glue. Plenty strong for your application. Or... thin aluminum sheet gussets, again bending the corners around, then hit it with ca?? Just some thoughts..

John

It's not a dowel fuselage but here's a photo of the gussets on Trev's EIII.

Hi Don, I can't find the original drawings of the ply gussets but this is basically what I used (adapted to dowels). They are interlocking (sort of) and connect all surfaces of the joint. I actually don't think this would be necessary for a very light model considering how fiddly it is to make them, a more basic gusset in plane with the formers would probably suffice. You could make it from slighly thicker material to give the cross beams a surface to adhere to.

That's really a very elaborate experiment of yours! will that morph into a model at some stage??

It's a pleasure to drop by and observe your work!

BTw, i am still intent on building a DIII, like the eindecker the original had tubular construction so I'll be following this thread with great interest.

Speak of the Devil!

It might. If it does, it'll be one of those "something to keep me busy on rainy nights" projects.

I like how those gussets interlock.
Your fuselage looks great so you should finish the rest; scratch building suites you anyway. With bracing it will be stronger than normal model construction for most things, but your margin for error lessens. Many commercial jigs are very similar to yours in concept. It would be nice to see you build a Dr1; last week I started a Proctor/VK one and I am about where you are at, fuselage wise.

I thought about John's suggestion about the construction paper gussets and played with it. I wrappred strips of wet silkspan around the joint, dried that will the heat gun and then soaked it well with thin CA. After it's dry it can be smoothed out with sandpaper.

I'd call this experiment a moderate success. There's no doubt it's much stronger than the unwrapped joint (which isn't terribly strong) but not as "unbreakable" as I was hoping for. It breaks about as easily as a wishbone. Maybe I'll try a joint with a simple epoxy coating. I'd like a joint that is strong enought to deform the bamboo before breaking at the joint.

Small 1/64 ply gussets are WAY stronger!