Falcon Jet

Well, that's a lousy picture of me, but doesn't matter. The nexy couple of days we'll be piecing together the parts and sanding as necessary, making sure everything fits together before we start gluing anything. Don't want to rush this project for sure! While we're waiting for the spruce to arrive, should give us ample time to make sure everthing fits snug together!

more updates to follow......

Falcon Jet

Disregard this post, see post #28 below. I somehow entered the same post twice!

Falcon Jet

BTW, we discovered that when transfering plans to the wood using thinner works great the first time around, but not so great the second time with the same copy. It works, but the second attempt transfers very light and you'll need to pencil in the areas that didn't transfer very well. So if the plans calls out for more than one of each part, we made sure we thew the "used" copy away and cut out a new copy for the second part. Make lots of copies of each part if you choose to use this method!

flying2bill

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Good that you are dry fitting, pay attention to F10 (i think that is the one) in the center pod, as I recal it is drawn wrong on the plans, I did not figure this out until I already had it glued to the rear spar, had a heck of a time removing and correcting it.

Falcon Jet

Thanks for the head's up! Will definately check into this. We only have a couple more parts to cut out before dry fitting, getting antsy to see it start looking like an airplane instead of a pile of parts in a box. I'll go out and tag F-10 right now.

Thanks again!

M Gill

Given teh option, I use AB/AB model grade lite-ply. I find that it is cleaner to cut, typically just as light, and often stronger than balsa.

Mace Gill
The Aeroplane Works
http://www.theaeroplaneworks.com

Falcon Jet

Paperairplanes and I had a pretty good day today, before we started gluing anything we did an inventory of all the parts we cut out and cross referenced what we had with what we were supposed to have. Had a couple of surprises, we had a couple of parts cut out in the wrong material! Good thing we checked first! Anyway, we've started the first step in gluing. Paperairplanes should have some pictures to follow soon along with a few questions, stay tuned!!

Chris.

crashnburn

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Glad to get in at the very start of this thread. The Z P-38 has always been at the top of my wish list. Its just tooooooo sexy. I will enjoy watching it come together.

paperairplanes

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OK, today, we started gluing our fingers together, errr, I mean our beautifully handcrafted P38 parts. First parts to go together, are FC and the spruce crutches. Nothing fancy here, just a little water and alcohol on the spruce to help it bend a little, some clamps and dive weights to hole it all flat. You will notice the F8, one of the formers, is there just to hold the crutch apart the right distance. We also used a 3/4" piece of oak plywood, as our base to build on. This piece is extremely flat. Later down the road, some of our parts will be temporarily screwed to this, to ensure we dont have any movement while glue is drying!!!! All of our joints will be glued with wood glue. (unless we cant wait that long!!!) Using wood glue is going to take a little extra time, but I feel more comfortable using this as opposed to CA. (dont ask me why, I dont really know!!)

paperairplanes

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While we were waiting for FC to dry, we started gluing WS-1 and WS-1J together. This is the forward main wing spar and its doubler. Same thing here, nothing fancy, lay it over the plans, add some weight and glue it together. We found that some of our slots for ribs are a RCH off, but hey, thats why they make sandpaper. Its not laser cut, but its dang close. Nothing to be concerned about, as I am sure there are probably a few more parts like this.....

One thing for sure, it will be the straightest built bird around!!!!!

paperairplanes

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While Chris was busy watching glue dry, I was hard at it watching the History channel. If anyone watched it today, they showed, Tora, Tora, Tora, with a Pearl Harbor documentary after that......

paperairplanes

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The glue we were using, says it dries in about an hour. I will remember the brand in a few... I was a little leary of pulling the clamps off at first, but some excess glue, revealed it was dry. Pulling the clamps proved this, as it stayed together!!!! Anyways, future unclampings will hopefully be after the glue has set a little longer just in case. These next steps took up some time because the next few steps, must be pretty precise. These steps include, making sure WS1 and 2 (main wing spars) are 90 degrees to the centerline of FC, and the tips are the same distance from the plans. This part is very critical as this is the basis for the entire airframe being STRAIGHT. Did I mentin that all these parts need to be STRAIGHT?!?!?!?! It took us a little bit to engineer a way on how to do this, this is what we came up with.

1. FC needs a centerline drawn on it.
2. We layed out sheet 3 of the plans over our 3/4 oak ply.
3. From the tail of the fuse, to the nose of FC, run a string to find our centerline.
4. Pull string tight, line everything up, and clamp it down. (four or five hands here works pretty good)
5. Once satisfied, we put a couple of screws through FC to our 3/4 ply to hold it in place.


This required a few attempts before we (I) was happy. (Im the nitpicker!!!)

paperairplanes

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Once FC is square to the plans and clamped down, next step is to glue F8 to the crutch. Making sure it was square also, we tacked it in with CA.
On the back side of F8, we used a wall bracket screwed to the ply to hold it in place with a clamp.

WS-1 was then lined up over the plans with wall brackets (more on this later). Make sure the tips of WS-1 are the same distance from the plans by using the brackets to clamp the to. Once our brackets were where we wanted them, they were screwed down, WS-1 removed, glue applied and reinstalled with clamps, making sure it was straight and square.

note: wall brackets are a good idea for clamping parts to make sure they are square, but, they have a little give to them. Next couple of days will be spent looking for an alternative such as some steel angle maybe like 2". Alum. would be good also, as long as it was thick enough so it didnt flex. Dont think this matters too much because when it was glued, upon rechecking everything is still square, we noticed that this thing is perfectly square!!!!! I had to check it again with a different square to be sure!!!!!!

paperairplanes

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This next step should have been the second step, but dont think it really matters. FC1 (the sides of FC) need to be glued on. Heres what the plans look like. This was our first little "headscratcher"


You will notice that, F1 and F1a are supposed to be on the same vertical plane......

paperairplanes

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Heres what it looked like when we did our dry run with it. F1's inside comes in contact with F1A. Another man with a website called http://p-38.corpcomp.com/ has some great info. We were looking through his pics and noticed that he cut out F1A to accomodate F1. We are thinking this is just a glitch in the plans. We will probably do the same thing as he did. Just took us a little to figure out what was going on.......

F1,2 and 3 all end up as one piece with the glass nose cone, whch can be removed from the fuse to reach the gear......

paperairplanes

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This week hopefully, we can pick away at gluing WS2 to the crutch and lining up and gluing ribs and spruce spars. This should go relatively quick and should start to look like something. Also, before ribs are glued in, we need to figure out how we are gonna do our flaps. Mike James (aka sanding lover) has an awesome website if you havent already seen it. He has some detailed drawings of how to actuate flaps. We have been studying this and need to decide how we ae gonna do it. We would love to do actual fowlers, but........ they look a little complicated. By end of next weekend, this should all be done......


So.......
heres a few questions we came up with.


1. Need to figure out what flaps are gonna work best for us. What worked out best for you guys? ( ease of building, reliability with linkage etc..)
2. There are a few pieces that say "hard balsa" Whats the difference between hard balsa and regular balsa?
3. The F1, F1a plan glitch. Are we missing something?
4. Building plan: build center part, sheet bottom of center wing (leaving top unsheeted), build booms and tail and install to main fuse, build wings and then line up all wing tubes and wing mounts and glue to ensure we have everything lined up, then sheet top of center wing. Our thought is to leave center wing top open, in case we need to make adjustments to wing tube before gluing. This sound right????
5. Flying bill. You mentioned F10 was drawn wrong on the plan. Did you mean the part itself, or where F10 should be placed???? As for the part itself, it is symmetrical so I assume you were referring to where it is placed????????????

started a thread about the same time as this called "P38 Weathering". Have had some pretty good replies already as to weathering details about this cool bird!!!! check it out!!!!

Falcon Jet

Well today was pretty productive, paperairplanes (Andy) and I (Chris) joined WS-2 with FC today and also added F-11, had a blast. Had to use a lot of brain work decifering what the plans called for with what the notes where telling us on a few steps, but after putting our heads together were able to figure most of it out. We now have the rear spar (WS-2) in place and glued, it's looking goooood! Noticed though that F-10 doesn't fit according to the plans, the notches for the crutch on F-10 are too far apart for what the plans call out for, will have to do some investigating, maybe that's what the warning was from a earlier post was about. Will have to email him on the specifics. Anyway, Andy will post some pictures soon of our progress, It's starting to look like an airpalne!! Getting excited!!!!!!!

GPaloz

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F1A gets notched out to fit F1 when you get to that point, Waiting to sheet top of center section will goof you up. Don't you have Ziroli's instructions? Wing tube is adjusted on outer wing panel tube. Regards G.

crashnburn

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Hang in there Chris and Andy. Long road ahead, but if you keep chipping away you'll get there!

funfly-RCU

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This is were im at with my one.

paperairplanes

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Funfly, nice lookin bird so far!!!! I see you have sheeted the fuse, most pics I have seen, it has been planked. Did you find it fairly easy to just sheet it?

F1 we are just going to notch it out. Seems like we will run into something that we are not sure about, post a question here, sit back and look at it, then come up with about the same thing as someone recommends. Its like we are answering our own questions. But so far, this doesnt seem to be a very complicated plane to build. I know that we have only started and have a long way to go such as boom alignment and all.......

As in reply to Falcon Jet, F10 seems to be a mystery. It looks as if it should sit inside the crutch by the plans, but it doesnt. When we "dry run" it, it is perfectly sized to sit on top of the crutches, same as for 10B under the crutch leaving a gap between the two which doesnt seem right. We will keep scratchin heads on this one while we work out our flap situation.

Crash N Burn, Thanks for the vote of confidence. Building for us is just as fun as flying. I would be perfectly happy to just see this thing taxi down the street!!!!!!! Actually cant wait to get up there with you guys in Houston and check it out. Also Austin and San Antonio seems like LOTS of RC, but not a whole lot here in Corpus. Hopefuly the trailer will be done in time to haul this bird........

What fuel cells are everyone using??? (thinking for down the road)

GPaloz, didnt think any of Zirolis plans came with instructions. Arent we supposed to read them after the bird is built?!?!?!?! Why will waiting to sheet the tops mess us up? Is it because of a possibility of the wings warping a little when applying the sheeting? I am going by the following pic, because at the time it made sense in case we had to run lines or wires. Seems like it would be nice to have some type of hatch here to get at this stuff. Any one put some hatches here or there that made things easier down the road?????????

Heres the pic with top sheeting not yet installed.

Edwin

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Man I love seeing a build take place like this. The shelf bracket wasnt a bad idea. For your alternative, I used 2"x1/2" aluminum bar stock drilled and tapped with #8 screws into an "L" bracket. Takes a little bit of work to make it absolutly 90deg but when done its a solid mount. Easy to clamp to, heavy enough and the dive weights would be perfect for holding it down. I need to get some of those dive weights, good idea. RCM sells a diagram for fowler flaps. A friend has them and says they are unbelievably simple. I havent seen them myself but it might be worth a look see.

BTW- I fly in Austin and attend Bomber Field events. Would love to see you campaign your P-38 around here.
Edwin

GPaloz

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The picture your showing probably had the top opened up after it was fully sheeted. When you build the center section there are four sticks attached to the outer most rib and these align the center section as you build it. They're not to be removed until the top and bottom of center section is sheeted. The assembly maintains the alignment. Card board tubes will let you wire and run airlines from pod to the booms and outboard wings. I cut hatches into the bottom for access to my flap servos. Yes Ziroli has instuction for this bird. You still have to know how to fill in some blanks though. I installed Fowlers from RCM into mine worked out pretty well.Regards G.

crashnburn

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Yea, you guys come on down. Bomber field has their Big Bird in the spring and their big Warbird event in the fall. Both are difinitley worth the drive.

Falcon Jet

Reply to Edwin,

As far as the 90 degree angles you spoke about, Andy and I realized that before we could start gluing in WS-2 (rear spar), that we needed more shelf brackets. It suddenly dawned on me that hell, I can make those myself! So I got some 1/by pine left overs that I had ripped into one inch pieces for picture frames (Xmas, yuk), and made our own. Took out my miter saw, made 90 degree cuts and used my picture frame vice to make them. Used glue before clamping, then clamped and and drilled a pilot hole and screwed in a wood screw to secure it. After the first one, we crossed checked it with a square and it came out perfect. Ended up making 3 of them that we used for this last step. After we set them in place we screwed them down to the table and clamped our parts to them. Very easy, cheap and an efficient way to make our "L" brackets. they worked out great! Once Andy gets over and takes some picture to post, you'll see what I'm talking about better. Since I work days and he works nights, we're only able to work on our project 1 or 2 days a week, so may be a few days before he can post some pictures (he has the camera, I don't!). As far as the dive weights go, they work wonderfully. Had to crawl up in my attic, find my dive belt and remove the weights. They look a little bizzare, but heh, they worked out great. The smaller ones are 5 pounds and the larger ones are 10 pounds. May have to go to your local dive shop to get them, if you live in an area that has dive shops. Anyway, thought I'd share some tips.....