jetblast96

Largescale, I'm a sophomore in high school

jetblast96

Package came late yesterday and I got started building right away! Thanks to no school today, I worked all day today too. Man, I see what you guys mean by "this kit goes together fast"! I'm already just about done with building the right wing panel, and just starting the left. Had problems of all sorts throughout building the first wing panel but nothing that can't be fixed with filler/sanding and nothing that will affect the flying too much. Take a look at my pictures
I had a little scare thinking the wing was a little warped but I've decided it looks plenty sturdy and straight to me. Maybe a little curvature on the trailing edge, when I look really closely, but it's hardly anything. Should I be worried?
Anyway that's all for now, I'll likely finish the left wing panel tomorrow or during the week. Then it's on to the surfaces and fuselage!

Stay tuned!
Mike
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SeamusG

LargeScale88

Nice looking wing!

Nice, clean work. Great to see the younger generations getting into the hobby.

Jason

Cyberwolf

My Feedback: (4)

I second that with another big THUMBS UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

crazy nick

My Feedback: (29)

Looks great, myy leading edges bow in on both wings, nothin to worry about, she'll fly fine, keep up the good work!

jetblast96

CrazyNick, you too? Take a look at these pictures for my left wing panel; bowing in both the leading edge and main spar. It's shown by my straight edge being held flat to one side of the spar. Same with right wing panel but not as severe... I may weight the panel in the middle and elevate it on the sides so when I put the bottom sheeting on, hopefully it will bend in the opposite direction and cancel out the bow, sealing the shape from the sheeting. Sound like a good idea?

crazy nick

My Feedback: (29)

Mine bow front to back a little, was your bench completely flat?

Rv7garage

My Feedback: (10)

You can always shrink small amounts of twist or warp out of a wing when covering, too. Looks good! The small amount of warp I see will doubtfully affect flight characteristics.

jetblast96

I thought the surface was flat.. :/ guess I should've gone with the door idea...  The wing bows in the same direction as the surface does (and it wasn't bowing when I first set it up). I'm going to show the wing panels to a friend of mine, he may have some ideas. Dopefiend, I really hope you're right! Man I was so excited at how smoothly the build was going and bang! Oh well, wing panels otherwise look good, on to the surfaces, hopefully this will be the last of the overall flaws!<div>
</div><div>Mike</div>

Cyberwolf

My Feedback: (4)

Hi recheck your building surface to make sure that it is flat, then do as you said and shim the inner or outer area up and pin the wing down so it is as flat as possible useing the straight edge. Also go a little bit over straight for the spring back it will have. You may or may not want to wet it a little to help with this process, just don't get it wet where you want to apply glue to. After getting it as flat as possible then finish sheeting the other side, don't forget to check the trailing edge as well that will affect flight performance if it is twisted.
A little bow in the finsihed wing panel is easily removed with a long bar sander with fresh 80 grit paper and a few swips of the sanding bar, as long as it not to the extent you sand through the sheeting.
BTW your coming along great don't let this little incidence bother you in the least, even us that has been building for years run into this from time to time.

jetblast96

Well I rechecked the building surface, and sure enough, despite the surface being totally level when I laid it out and made 2 hours worth of adjustments, a bow had developed right in the middle. :/ (see pic) That explains everything. I'll patch it up and hope I don't get any more problems, but after I'm done with the rudder and fin, then there really isn't any more building that has to be done strictly on top of the plans.
Anyway, I finished the ailerons and stab, elevator is drying right now. And I'm telling you, I had no clue that slotting hinges was so hard! A few of them look pretty ugly, but they're not too terrible. I ruined a few hinges included in the kit while using them to see if the slots were good, but no worries, I'll pick up some more later on.
Build is going along, and hey, if this plane doesn't work so great, or even crashes, at least I can rebuild even better next time. #1 thing to remember on my next build: USE A GOOD SURFACE. But anyway, take a look at the pics to see how its all going. Also in the pics are my two completed wing panels.

As always, stay tuned!
Mike
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Cyberwolf

My Feedback: (4)

Looking good guy , A good flat surface to build on is a must to obtain the perfect straightness we all want, but to be honest a slight bow will not hurt anything. Use a long sanding bar to remove some W/O going thru the wood and cover it. You will be the only one that will know it's there. Looking forward to the finished product.

I always cut the slots before I bevel the edge of the rudder elev ect.
For cutting the hinge slots, I have a hinge slot cutter made by Great Planes that works good in most cases, but after marking the center of the wood and the length I also use a no.11 exacto blade and slowly work it to the depth needed by rocking it to depth, then rock it back and forth pulling it along to lengthen the slot a little bit past whats needed for the hinge, then go back and forth untill the blade will slide easy in the slot.
Turn the kinfe over and do the same the opposite direction. Since your new to this I strongly urge you to wear some leather gloves just in case of a misshap, it is no fun trying to build with a bunch of stitches in one's hand.
Depending on how hard the wood is determines how hard it's going to be to make the slot. Take your time and do a little at a time untill the desired depth is reached.
You will want to bevel the corners of the hinge also to make it so the sharp corner won't try to dig in when installing the hinge. I have tried several of the manual hinge cutting tools and always gone back to the exacto knife. The last thing you want with a CA hinge is for it to fit loose in the slot a snug fit is best for a super strong hinge that won't pull out during flight. Some say to drill a small hole in the center of the slot to allow the glue to wick in better I myself have not found this to be necessary. Hope this helps.

Rv7garage

My Feedback: (10)

I can recommend the Great Planes "slot machine" cutter as well. For $20, it's a good tool to have.

jetblast96

Yeah, cutting them was interesting. I have this tool from dubro, tried exclusively using it but it cut the slot pretty big, the fit is pretty loose in a few of them. I've never had a problem with hinges staying in, even in loose slots, so I won't really worry. However a few on the aileron that I cut with the tool at first then finish with the exacto knife are pretty good, I'll try to do that from now on. Building is gonna slow down during the week, my teachers are very thorough at making sure that happens

Mike<br type="_moz" />

jetblast96

Got a little more work done, have the tail section basically assembled. Just need to hinge them and attach the tailwheel to the rudder. The elevator's wire joiner extends a little bit from the leading edge of the elevator, despite my deep groove that I cut for it, so I'll have to cut that down in order for the elevator to hinge properly. Should a dremel and cut off wheel do the trick? (It's been very useful so far). Anyway, won't get anything done this weekend most likely, but stay tuned!

Mike<br type="_moz" />

dash008

My Feedback: (1)

This looks like a very simple build. I have one of these in the closet, may be time to get it out and put it together. Is it a good flyer? I have a saito 72, would that be a good engine for it?

jetblast96

I hear that it's a fantastic flyer, won't know till it's built The Saito .72 sounds good, the recommendation for 4 strokes is up to .65 but I've seen people use much larger engines on it. I'm going to use a Saito FA62A. Expect the thing to be like a rocket and a little nose heavy. I'd recommend you build it, it goes together so fast and from what I've heard it's more than worth it in the end.

Good luck!
Mike

yel914

Yes, It's an excellent flyer. Low rates are mild, high rates are wild. A real blast to fly. The biggest problem with a larger engine will be the clearance for a larger prop. Some people use larger aftermarket landing gear when they need the extra room. It's really not necessary to over power it that much, IMHO. Mine flew great with a Super Tigre .45 on it. Enjoy the build process as this is the other half of the hobby!

jetblast96

Finally got back to work!
Wow it's been awhile, hope all of you didn't give up on the thread by now! Spent all day working, mainly on the fuselage. Check the pictures to see all that I did I was not expecting the fuselage to be so much fun to build. It went together so smoothly I swear I thought I was doing something wrong! I'm up to the point now where I'm about to build the hatch. Anyway in the pictures, you'll see the progress throughout the day, and the 6th and 7th pictures show a gap between the fuselage and each wing panel, when the wings are attached. Should I worry? Can't seem to figure out the cause, it may a curve in the W-1 rib or the fuselage side... don't know. And the last picture is so you can see what I've turned the spare room into Feel free to reply so I can be assured that I'm not just talking to myself please! And as always, stay tuned

Mike<br type="_moz" />

Cyberwolf

My Feedback: (4)

Looks good it won't be long now untill it is time to cover and finish adding the engine and radio gear. About the gap between the fuse and the root rib, I would run a good bar sander with some 80 grit paper over the root rib and see if it has any high spots thats holding it away, also use a straight edge and square to see just how straight it really is. You can sand the gap out or add another thin spacer rib to sand to fit if you feel it's necessary.
I was able to sand mine to fit like a glove with just a few strokes of the sanding bar.

yel914

Your progress looks very good and the spare room is exactly as it should look! Cyberwolf called it right on fixing the root wind gaps. If that still doesn't fix the gap, then a little bondo over waxed paper will do the trick. Nice progress.

jetblast96

Almost finished with the fuselage It's looking good! Stringers are in place, and only broke 3 formers in the process :P wow the sheet the formers came from was so fragile! Easily fixed them, but still, I'm impressed at how fragile different sheets in the kit can be. Anyway I'm working on the hatch now, and will run to the hobby shop tomorrow to pick up some gray paint for under the canopy and a taller landing gear. I also brought the plane to my RC club meeting on Tuesday, they all thought it looked fantastic as well! Really helped my spirits. Anyway stay tuned for more progress! Also, last picture, I was curious how it would look with the tail section <div style="padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">
Mike</div>

wildlifeguy

My Feedback: (5)

<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; ">Good job so far.<div>
</div><div>I'm going to keep an eye on this one; I will start on one of these kits this January.  Hopefully others will continue to offer suggestions on beneficial modifications. It looks like the kit goes together very easily.  From your pictures, I like the way the parts fit together.  I've only built GP kits before including an old fashioned supersporster with no interlocking parts, only triangle stock to hold right angles together and fiberglass to hold the wings together (it was tough to get those to match up good).  I bet I can get this one together in less than half the time as the others.  I have a tendency to not eat or sleep when building, which unfortunately usually leads to lack of full attention on some parts.  In all of my builds, I run into some problem that will bug me every time I even think about the plane until the first flight.  Things similar to what you are seeing such as a bad gap or small bend somewhere.  I can assure you that you will be the only one that knows it is there and after that first successful flight, you will completely forget about it.  </div><div>
</div><div>Keep up the good build.  It's good to see the enthusiasm in building.  I definitely appreciate ARF's, but it is so much more fulfilling for me to see a plane fly that I built from sticks and sheets of wood.</div></div>

jetblast96

Wildlifeguy,
Thanks a lot, this kit does indeed go together very easily. Seeing the kits that you are used to, this plane should give you absolutely no trouble. And I definitely can relate to having a few problems on a plane that bother me so much until it finally flies. Wne I was building another plane of mine, a Great Planes Big Stik .40, I swear it looked like the wing was just not lining up; one wingtip looked at least an inch higher than the other. It was the right wingtip so I sanded the right side of the wing saddle to lower the right wingtip. And guess what! On the first flight, I noticed that I needed about 4 clicks of left aileron trim; it was rolling right from my "fix". So I now have finally learned: don't fix it until you know for sure that it's broken! Eyes can be deceiving, and a plane that looks like it will have a lot of problems will end up being your best flying plane. Anyway thanks for commenting, and have fun with your build!

Mike<br type="_moz" />