Okay, so Skids says I need to get back to this, and I don't want to let him down, so here we go . . .

So the next morning I wake up and I have a little . . . well, more like a big surprise waiting for me! I received my fiberglass fuse for my 1/4 scale P-39 from Bob Neider at American Eagle. Thanks Bob!!!

I can't wait to see what it looks like with a 96" wing sitting under it. (I'm still waitiing for the rest of the order to arrive.)

This thing is a MONSTER! I'm gonna have to buy a bigger truck or a trailer (hook me up Planebender!) just to get this thing out to the field.

#1 Look how much bigger it is than even an o-l-d 1/4 scale Fw190 fuse I have.

#2& 3 So I put one of my 1/8th scale P-39 fuses next to it for reference, and of course I can't keep the dogs out of my shots. Every shot one of them has to walk through the frame. It's like my build: it seems everyone and everything is conspiring against me to make it harder that it should be! But at least they offer another sense of perspective.

Talk about motivation to get back to work on the new 1/8th P-39 lay-up.

(Oh, and for those kind enough to call me the next day and ask how Devo (the whippet) was doing after I had to rush away from the Big Kahuna race, Sunday, she is doing great. Also in picture #2, you can see her wearing blue inflatable inner-tubes around her neck to attempt to make it more difficult for her to get at her stitches. . . so "no", I don't have bizarre tastes in animal collars.)

So my plan fortoday is to clean up the fuse halves of the P-47, readying them to be joined, and then to finish the second layer of cloth on the P-39.

It is such a gentle slope from the rear fuse to the vertical fin that trying to get it all the way up, covering the microballoons without extending over the top of the mold is very difficult. So despite my best efforts, there is a little trimming back that is necessary.You might remember a while back I said to "trust me"about leaving clearance between the top of the mold half, and this is one of the reasons why. Now I have to trim the overhang away so that I will be able to put the mold halves together and have them fit snuggly, without a gap. The trick here is to do this without taking off the PVA layer that is protecting the mold from being permanently glued together, & to not shave the edge of the mold, thus ruining its clean seam.

#1 You also have to be careful not to accidentally cut off any of the raised"keys" on the lold half that has the raised part.

#2 This is what taught me that lesson. Notice the raised key at the left of the mold (almost dead center of picture) has been cut off. What a rookie mistake I made a few years ago!

After everything is trimmed, I am ready to join the mold halves. To hold them together relatively tightly, with no investment in specializedequipment,one could use binder clips (available at a Staples or OfficeDepot near you).

#1 However, I did take a little bit of a plunge here and boughtseveral klecos and a pair of kleco pliers to hold my molds together even better. I ordered mine from FibreGlast. I think there are very much worth the investment. In fact, I only have enough to join one mold together, so I will need to order more of them.

I believe that klecos are most commonly used by the aerospace industry as a way of temporarily holding perforatedaluminum sheeting inplace on aircraftuntil replaced one at a time with rivets. (Is that right, Tommy Gun?)

#2 Here, I am trial-fitting the mold halves together to check if I can find anything hanging over the top or bottom of the mold and thuscausing too big of a gap at the seam. (Look through it with a bright light behind it to see the gap more clearly.)

Before you permanently join the halves, take a few minutes to find those "stragglers" . . . those fibers that partially unraveled or for some other reason did not lay down properly. Now that they are wetted down and partially cured, they will poke you pretty good. The closer they are to being fully cured, the more vicious they get. They are like sharp needles; and much too often, when they poke you, they break off and embed themselves under the skin,like slivers on steroids!

Either sand them (I've learned the hard way to fold the sandpaper over or they will often pass through one layer and still get you), or cut them with a razor or X-acto blade.

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You can also trim away any overhang of cloth from the areas that you did not have to be so critical about lining up precisely. Because the bottom of the fuse between the wing saddles is the openareamost of us use as the access point to the interior of the airplane and is not joined together here with the other half, in the interest of saving time during the lay-up process, I let some excess cloth hang over the edge.

However, this is also my only access to the interior of the plane in the P-47, so I don't want this cloth brushing up against my hands or forearms when I am reaching inside to seam the fuse together. Even thoughthe cloth that does not have epoxy on it may not have those dangerous needles, I have found that it makes my forearms itch rather severely. So, I trim it away, too.

#1 Now when I trial fit the fuse halves, that's what I want to see when I look through the wing bay into the mold at the top seam. That barely visible light-linemeans that I have a nice, tight fit and am ready to join the halves.

#2 I use the kleco pliers to install the klecos. Because I am saving some of my limited number of klecos for the P-39 also, Ionly have enough to put them in the most criticalareas , then put plenty of binder clips around and in-between to still hold all areas of the mold together tightly.

On to the P-39 . . .

Here is the stabilizer saddle with the corners rounded so that my initial layer of cloth wouldlay over all thisunevenness smoothly. You can't hardly even make out that there is any cloth there! So far, so good.

#1 Here is the second layer of 6 oz. cloth being put in place.

#2 Fiberglass (especially this looser weave) is easy to manipulate and draw it to fill in the initial gap in the corner.

Got my epoxy and roller in-place and ready to go, and startrolling downthe vertical fin

Because that stab saddle is the most difficult part for me to get to lay down well, and still keep everything lined up well with all those curves, I get this area down first, thenwork down and forward on the fuse.

The main, rear fabric piece is totally wetted out, and now I move on to the front, main fabric piece.

It is important to line this piece up with the top hatch area and overlay the microballoons. Here you see howflexible the fabricis, thus itcan rather easilybe manipulated and drawn to where it needs to be.

Okay, that piece is wetted out. Let's overlap with the nose ring piece.

Overlapping the firewall piece and getting it into position. Notice the relief cuts that are necessaryfor the cloth to seat properly with all these complex curves. All these overlapping layers will really at to the strength of the nose section, to hold up to the torque ofthat YS110.

Cutting out some triangles from my scrap that will used to fill the areas that would normally butt up against a former.Like the previous piece,these willbe given relief cuts, as well

As with the P-47, I also use small scrap pieces to reinforce the wing hold-down block and line the wing fillets.

Again, notice the relief cuts so the piece will conform nicely when wetted out.

There is almost nothing of my scrap pieces in a big enough size that is still usable for anything other than chopped cloth. I love it when there is little waste!

First half is nearly done. Just gonna add some carbon fiber tow to further strengthen the nose.

Finally, the first half is done!

Here's a closeup of the nose with another nose-ringlayer and a couple more scraps to cover the tow.

The other half of the P-39 is getting done in the same fashion.

So, here are the 4 mold halves that comprise the P-47 and P-39 that are ready to be joined.

(I was just trial fitting the P-47 earlier, and also trying to show you what the klecos were like and how they work. I am going to wait overnight to let the P-39 set up before seaming / joiningboth fuses.)

WOW!! thats all i have to say ollie this form is AWESOME! i went to the cst product link page and read the tutorial on how to make a plug for the cowl's and below the tutorial there is some options on different material kits for the plug making (and im sorry of this message doesnt make sense because im tired from my golf tournament) so i was wondering if i should just get the kits they suggest or is there a different combination of materials that u suggest to make the plugs with