KK Bandit

I bought the kit for this one from Colin Buckle of Ben Buckle Kits at the Nats. It's destined for the Bowden Trophy Comp at next year's FF Nats at the end of May, so I have the winter to complete and trim it. I'd initially made the decision to build it from the plan, but looking at the number of bits involved, the time saved in transferring the bits to balsa by purchasing the kit was well worthwhile.

Here's a pic of the box and the cutting out state so far:

looks like lots of cutting there sir.
but you can do it.

What does it say on the box lid?

They don't do this one as a laser cut kit...yet. But that suited me fine as what I wanted to do was save the time taken to transfer the parts from the plan to the wood...esp as most of the ribs were missing off the plan. It also meant that the kit was a bit cheaper than it would have been with the laser cut option.

No pic at the moment, but the parts have all been cut out as much as they can be without some selective fitting and building should start shortly...

What powerplant are you going to use for this Andy?

It's destined for a PAW 0.09 RC Diesel Martyn. It'll be far too powerful for the model, but I'll be running it with an electronic profiler and servo that'll allow me to pre-set the max power, length of power run and run-down time. The profiler's been designed and made up for me by Derek Knight of KP Engineering, who's based it on his similar item made for FF electric motors. I'll also be using an electronic DT.

Construction commenced last night with the fin and tailplane outlines. The general fit of the parts appears to be fine, but the ribs slots don't line up too well - so I'm glad I didn't cut them out on a first pass!




Fin construction was completed this morning and the wing tip outlines were laid down - same comment as made on the tailplane and fin applies.




The sharp amongst you will have noticed that I'm currently building in the kitchen.....Why, you may ask?... "because I can" is the best answer I can think of!

Basic construction of the tailplane is now complete, it just needs LE sheeting and then sanding:



And the first fuselage side has been laid down; parts for the second side await the drying of the first side.

Nice one Andy

I completed the second fuselage side last night - construction was a lot quicker with all the jigging blocks in place and the parts cut to size with the first side:



It was lifted this morning. The two sides will remain stuck together for shaping and sanding. It'll also be some time before I can access my bandsaw to cut the plywood formers for joining the fus, so I turned my attention to the wing and laid down the main spar:

Klipkopwildlife wrote: I do like the Ben Buckle stuff, nostalgia I suppose. I have about 10 of his kits, sadly all untouched at the moment and not likely to be started any time soon. Mary is whispering 'Kitchen', this will soon become a deafening shout!
When I do get around to it, the Super Elf will be first.

That'll be nice Klippy, I'll look forward to the thread!

In the meantime, most of the nostalgia plans can be found here on Outerzone: www.outerzone.co.uk/index.asp

For example, here's the Bandit: www.outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=4443

Decided to progress the wings today, so I started with slotting the centre section TE's for the ribs:




Followed by shaping the TE sections (note use of Perma-Grit sanding block to hold and support parts for planing):





I don't particularly like this method of building wings as each section has to dry before the next section can be built, but as the main spar has to be constructed first I was stuck with it. So, I started with the port inner:



then the starboard inner:



then the starboard outer:



then the port outer:



...and that's it for today!

looking good.
you are certainly motoring on with the build sir.