Auster mk5

Well i forged on and got two sides built up.


the uprights round the cockpit are spruce dowel as is the F1 upright.
tomorrow i hope to get the cross braces fitted and the diagonals, then we will have a fuselage looking lump.
the i will need to cut and fit the ply floor and F1 and have a think about the wing mount area and the engine bay.



going to need to cut and solder some wire together to finish the glazing area's

lets have today's installment shall we.
Parts ordered for the hurricane, so that will be back on as soon as they arrive.

Started making a new door for my workshop until the rain heaved its self down.

So after some lunch i hit the shed again.

drew out the plan view of the fuselage and jigged and pinned it down.


then we started cutting out and fitting all the cross braces (and there are a lot of them)

need to do the ones on the underside still.





so at the moment i have whetted the front and pulled that round, once dry i will fir the front cross pieces, then lift it off the board and do the underside braces.

Very impressive and looks wonderful.
Will you be able to achieve a reasonable tensile strength in the glued joints?
Always the problem in a wood joint whereas a good weld is as strong as in tension as the base material itself.

we will have to see.
i hope it will be strong enough.

It should be OK once you've got the covering on......hopefully!

Looks great otherwise........ we'll have to organise you a trip in the real thing!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. sick bags at the ready.

take a look at any old timer build and they are built exactly the same, just use square wood not round.
all the dowels are notched to fit round the dowels and joints, so it should be strong enough and once the side stringers are fitted it should be strong but light.
fingers crossed.

As Andy says it will rather rely on the tension of the covering to put the whole structure under compression which it will resist well but if the covering goes slack my concern would be that it would not take much load to 'spring' an joint or two.

so a bad idea then.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

so i went out to the shed and finished the internal door.
then i jumped on the Auster fuselage.


Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
i sat down and did some more.






Well the basic fuselage is sorted.
next job is some gussets and the u/c mount area.
then i can sort the main floor and start on the engine and nose construction, doors and think about cockpit.

I will have to make the main wing center section very soon, so i can sort out the roof glazing bars. they will have to be piano wire for strength and looks.

i weighed the fuselage as is with the fin and rudder fitted on, 5oz. yes only 5oz. wow it is light and strong, i cant twist the fuselage very easily and once the wing center section is tied in with the cockpit it will be nice and strong all over.

Yes. The way the Auster fuselage is constructed relies almost entirely on the bit above the cockpit to provide virtually all the strength and stiffness in the cockpit area. In the full size it is part of the fuselage, the wings are simply pin jointed onto the sides.
I found this 'handbook' drawing of the fuselage structure.

If only I could find a way to mimic welded tube at a small scale......!

I learnt to fly gliders in the late 1960s at Rearsby (Auster's main production site). Our glider tug (A Beagle Terrier ex AOP6) was hired from them, sadly at the time they were slowly going under.

you know, each picture of an Auster frame i see is slightly different. it is very hard trying to sort out what goes where.

This is not a one liner comment.
This is a two line comment
Now it is three line cos want to say what a lovely build

Tony
You have to remember there were 2, 3 and 4 seat versions of the basic fuselage each with different glazing so there were many detail differences.
The 4 seat versions were actually slightly wider.

I'm assuming you're still modelling G-BXKX Tony. In which case it's a four-seater, but currently only insured to cary three persons. If you let me know what measurements you require, I'll pop round to the strip with a tape measure.

Thanks Andy, but measurement wise i think i am ok.
it's just sorting out what bar goes where as each drawing i look at is different.
mind you none of it will matter once it is covered and crashed.