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The tailplane nearly completed. Balsa ribs and false LE.. Rounded bits at tip are 1/32 ply in between 1/8 balsa, shape was as per plane and same as a table tennis bat.
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So I could see how it was going to look I carried out a dry fit of the rear end!
There is still lots to do on the rear end like sheet the tailplane and fin and add LE. I need to fit hinges in the tailplane before sheeting. The front of the tailplane needs to be filled in so it flows with the fuz.
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Added LE of elevator and put all the hinges securely in the tailplane. In the picture can be seen the hinge and the spruce to support the sheeting and elevator shroud. |
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In this pic you can see the LE of the rudder and the brass tube for the rudder hinge. A metal tube on the pintle goes into the brass tube making the hinge |
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Here is the bottom of the rudder with the horn fitted, the bottom sheeting and the ply at the very bottom. In the ply is a hole for the bottom brass tube. |
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Finally here is the completed rudder. Needs a bit of sanding down and filing in places, but ready for covering |
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Added the brass tubes in the fin and the rear of fuz so that the fin would be removeable. Also added wood in fuz near fin toung so I could drill a hole through sides and tounge to secure fin to fuz. All works nicely. Took a while to make sure fin was vertical.
Pic shows brass tubes in place before extra bit put in for tounge securing
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The pintels are made with brass strip and the pin is piano wire bent at 90 degrees poked through hole in brass sheet. On one there was a brass tube for the wire on top of the pintel. Having done that was not convinced it helped. So other pintel did lots of soldering.
Little tip when clamping stuff in metal vice to solder, use ply between vice and metal. At first I did not and found it very hard to get solder to melt on brass as the vice acted as a rather large and very efficient heat sink.
The picture on the right shows the lower pintel fitted to the bottom of the fuz.
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Next I added the monowheel and the front and rear skid supports to the fuz. The front and rear skids have been soaked in hot water and they are drying bent to shape. They are made from 1/8 spruce.
Well the skids dried over night and are now nicely glued on to the bottom of the fuz.
I need some glass cloth and expoxy to strengthen the wheel mount (not that I plan on abusing it) to take the odd heavy arrival.
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Started on the wings, first thing is to taper the top and bottom spars along their length (76"). Started with razor plane, hmmm not working to well so will try my freinds scroll saw if it can cut at 90 degrees to normal. Then I can clamp some guides and trim it nicely by 1/8". Then do the taper somehow.
I need to get the spars pretty much right as they are rather crucial to the wing. The spar is in effect a long square box. The ribs get attahced to front and back.
Tonight I finished making the 1/8 ply dihedral wedges for the wing joiners.
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Two spars have taken shape nicely. They started as 8' by 3/4" by 3/16" pine/spruce from B&Q. First cut to length 76" minimising the number of joins in the wood. It has nice spliced joins to make the length.
Trimmed of 1/4" each all the way along one side. Then for last 38" tapered them so they are 1/4" wide at the end. Used a plane, then razor plane and permagrit. Only did one side and not too worried if it was perfectly straight. So I have one edge nicely trimmed from factory and the other side by me. Two more to go then then spars can be made.
Also started gluing up the dihedral joiners. So hopefully tomorrow I will finish the dihedral joiners and the spars to make the complete box spar for each wing.
Four spars and a pile of shavings now made. Handy little thing razor plane and Permagrit. BTW that is a metre ruler in the pic!
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WIng joiners are now done and sanded to correct shape as they taper very slightly with the wing. |
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