Construction (Page 2)

Foam Turtle Decks:

Now that the main fuse structure is complete, the next step is to mount all the foam turtle deck pieces, that will complete the shape of the fuse. The first step is to make all the sheeting, and then sheet all the foam pieces. The sheeting is all hand selected 1/16th balsa, that is joined, and the sheeted using Probond glue. Here are a few pics of the process:

Assembling the bottom Decks:

Now that the foam pieces are sheeted, I can start gluing the decks onto the bottom of the fuse. I'm leaving the top parts of the fuse for later on. At the same time, I also installed the tail wheel. Here are a few pics:

Cowl:

The cowl comes in two pieces and can either be glued together, or mounted in two separate halves. I opted to make it a once piece cowl, as I've never really had the need to have a separated cowl. The mount is a piece of 1/4" lite ply, that is glued to the inside of the cowl, and then fastened to the fuse using tiny plastic "l" brackets.

Wings, Stabs, and Fin Sheeting:

Again, like the turtle decks, the wings, stabs, and fin, are all foam parts, that need to be sheeted. The wings and stabs, also need to have wells, and wing tube sleeves, built into them before they get sheeted.

Once all the inner structure is complete, the next step is to build all the sheeting, and sheet all the parts. Here are a few pics:

Once all the sheeting is done, I then glued the root rib on to the wing. I did this having the wing mounted to the fuse, as to get a nice fit when it dried. The rest of the parts were all capped,  and ready to be shaped.

Fin and Top Turtle decks:

The next step is to glue in the fin, and fit the top decks. The fillet piece that fits around the fin, must be cut to fit. There is a template that is included in the drawings which will guide you in cutting out the relief. Once it is cut out, a little sanding a fitting will get the fillet to fit nicely.

The next step is to then glue in the top deck.

Once the deck is in, the next step was to bevel and hinge the rudder. I'm using flat hinges here, as I plan to make the rudder removable. Pics of that will follow shortly.

Stabs:
    

The stabs are now ready to be hinged and beveled. The control horns will also be added, and then put aside to be covered.

Finishing the back end:

I decided to make the rudder removable, so that I will have the option to remove it when transporting. This was accomplished was by removing the pin in the Graupner piano hinges, and replacing it with a long piece of wire, that goes through each hinge, through the counter balance, and finally to a 4-40 screw that is tapped into the top of the rudder. This makes it easy in that if I ever want to remove the rudder, I just need to unscrew the 4-40 screw, and pull it out through the top.

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