Cliff Charlesworth Olympia build in Bishop, CA.

[Greg Smith]

I'll reduce the picture quality next time: I noticed the middle image took a while to download. Oh, the canopy scissors are fantastic for fine cutting/corrections on the thin plywood, and the card templates. Keeping sharp, too.

[Peter Balcombe]

Greg,
Well done.
By the way, I hope that you are actually applying your skins with the first fuselage half structure pinned to a flat board, otherwise you may find it becoming a banana as the skins pull the frame. I kept mine continuously pinned over the plan whilst I skinned the first side, as this then allows you to confirm that the shape is true and the keels stay flat/straight.
Once you have the majority of the first side done then it will be rigid enough to stay straight. (i.e. you will NOT be able to correct any unwanted curvature), so you need to make sure it is straight, and stays straight, as you add the skins.
Once you take it off the board, you can then eye along the keel line to reassure yourself that it is indeed straight from front to rear.
Don't be too concerned that you may not be able to skin the last 1/10" or so to the board on the first side as the resultant gap can be covered when you do the 2nd side or else filled & sanded flush later.
Peter

[Greg Smith]

Gosh, Peter: that was a rapid response!
Thanks for the warning, and your intuition. Yes, I was concerned about getting the edge of the ply right up
to the edge of the former. I've been checking flatness/straightness as I put each piece on, but I quite see your point. I will
now go to locking the fuse down on the drywall building board and not worrying about the edge so much. Picture coming when the side is complete: but
I am the slowest builder in the WILD West.

[Greg Smith]

Peter, I notice that your Olympia has a solid skid, as opposed to the 'sprung' one on the plan. This is a particular variant, I guess?
I've finally finished sheeting one half and next is to double up the formers for the second side with their balsa doublers.. A nice, flat fuselage (thank you!) I'm looking forward to finishing the canopy area... Still don't really understand what should be sheeted at this point and what is separate and can therefore be done later. Picture to follow of what I've done in this area.
What weight of glass cloth did you use, and did you use epoxy finishing resin? I'm thinking of using Minwax, which is easy to clean up and not as toxic, but may not be as strong. What do you do about the edges of glass covering? Are you super accurate and butt-join, or do you overlap and fill? It's a job I hate, because of the possibility of messing up after making a good job of the structure. That's why I love Solartex: superbly easy to work with over open frame structures: I'll definitely be using it for the rest of the plane.

[RobbieB]

Greg,

Whatever you cover the fuselage with always overlap and fair in later, particularly with this 'half boat' type of construction otherwise you will have a severe area of weakness if you are joining top and bottom which is the usual way.

[Peter Balcombe]

Greg,
The Charleworth plan shows a solid rear skid as I have built. (You may be wrongly thinking that the 1/16" inset ply sole is actually a sprung steel skid). The note just below the skid shown on the plan side view states "Med balsa a skid with ply sole set in as shown". The section of the skid at Y-Y below this shows the solid skid fitted below the lower keel.
I locally removed the ply skin next to the lower keel to get a flat area flush with the lower keel so that the balsa skid block had maximum glueing area.

In terms of ply skin around the cockpit area:
The skin goes right up to the top stringer in the canopy area (the one above the pair of "1/8 X 1/8" spruce stringers". The skin also covers former 8A and goes up to the top fuselage stringer (immediately below the bottom of the wing root rib) aft of former 8A.
The skin is cut between the two forward canopy frame sub formers (6A), between the two "1/8 X 1/8" spruce stringers" and also between 8A & 8C (down to level of the two 1/8 X 1/8" spruce stringers.
This should then release a section containing the rear former 6A, most of the upper 1/8" stringer and former 8C (canopy hoop).
When I added my skins, I arranged a skin butt join the 1/8 X 1/8" spruce stringer line in order to be able to see exactly where to cut with a razor saw.

As Robbie says, all skin joints should really be overlapped (with mating bevels sanded on both pieces) in order to increase strength at the joint line. I didn't overlap the right & left side joints along the keels as this would be very difficult and you have the extra balsa glueing lands added there anyway.
If you are glassing the entire fuselage structure as I did, then you need to overlap the glass cloth at top & bottom, or any other place you have a cloth join, in order to avoid weak areas.
I used lightweight 25g/m2 wing skinning cloth for my fuselage.
My build thread shows the cloth laid over the first side. I then added resin over this cloth & made sure it was epoxied a little way over the centrelines. Don't worry if you don't resin coat anything past that line as you can cut this off anyway when the resin has mostly cured. Once the resin has fully cured then sand back the edges to fair these into the other side prior to glassing this. Once the 2nd side is glassed, repeat the edge fairing & then lightly sand all over to smooth off without cutting into the cloth.
I added a final overall thin coat of epoxy to fill the cloth weave prior to final rubbing down with wet & dry papers (used wet) working down to 600 grit prior to painting.

[Greg Smith]

Thanks again for the detailed advice! The reason I thought there is a sprung spruce skid, not a solid one, is that on my plan, it shows a 'skid bungee cut from car heater hose, with brass brackets' and, at the back, a 'hardwood block'. Also, there is a note which says ''20g dural strop wrapped around skid and screwed to hardwood block, this allows skid to move rearward under compression.' Section y-y being at the tail, I think we're talking about different skids? The nose skid on my plan is surely not solid? But yours seems to be: am I up the creek?
I will try again to post pictures: didn't work last night!
I realize, too, Peter that I need to spend more time looking at your previous pictures and text to avoid asking questions which are dealt with in your threads already. You have been very generous with your time!

[Greg Smith]

Well, the pictures displayed in the draft/preview, but did not then appear after I submitted the reply...
I've realized, peter, that you thought I was talking about the rear skid. I understand the cross section y-y.
But your front skid seems to be solid, although I couldn't find any close pictures of it.
Oh, and the 'skinning' I was talking about was the f/glassing. The opportunities for ambiguity without pictures abound, but I can't seem to get the latest to upload. All good advice, though: and thanks for your trouble.

[Greg Smith]

Trying again.

[Greg Smith]

So, one picture worked, but not four... Slow upload speed, I think.

As Greg is having difficulties uploading, I will do it for Him.

BC