Keil Kraft Bantam

Thanks Q, I'll take your advice, sad how these things play on your mind, I had trouble sleeping last night, the dart is utterly mint (1960!) , maybe I'll just run it on the test stand???

The thinking goes running on a test stand is fine, it was designed to do that, but to risk flight damage you need to absolutely sure the plane flies securely.

Made some progress! you'll see from the pictures how slim the fuselage is, went with Q's suggestion and sheeted the lower half, need to add some ply gussets around the bearers and firewall but I can't do that until the undercarriage wire is fixed ( wire shown is just a temporary mock up in 1.5mm, having trouble getting any decent 14swg piano wire locally).
since clearing up for the day I've realised I havnt attached the cockpit coming!
A interesting build so far, pictures don't show it but there's barely a straight piece of wood in it, reminds me of a thirtys tether car.

More progress, cut all the components for the wing today, no pics...not exactly interesting, a little light assembly tomorrow, no luck with any decent quality piano wire ( why is such a aeromodelling basic so hard to obtain?) so I need to rethink the u/c using my dwindling stock of "proper" wire.

Have you tried SMC Sussex model centre i get all my wire from them, always good service

I've bought 3 lots BB, all soft as s@@t...

A little progress....but I've got on a problem...using the angle template as drawn on the plan to set the angle of the root rib has resulted in the dihedral under each tip being 2" rather than the 2 1/2" shown!
Need to think about that One, ignore the rough fin etc..all needs sanding to shape.

paul
The problem is the angle difference on the root rib between 2" and 2 ¹/₂"at the tip is small, about 1 degree.
My suggestion is either:
Leave it as is. I would not expect it to make much difference on a high wing anyway.
or
Very carefully sand the meeting faces of the root ribs a touch to increase their effective mating angle.

Will there be dihedral braces on each spar?

Yes Q there are braces, being as the plan is from the kit there not actually drawn up just marked on the wing plan so I've had to use a little "Pythagoras therum" and trig them out and 2 1/2" dihedral under each tip gives a angle of just about 7 degrees at the root where as the template measures around 84 degrees from the horizontal.
Since my last posting I've realised the template drawing on the plan actually shows it in use ( supplied in the kit?) rather than claiming to be a accurate drawing so ultimately it's my fault.
I will give the ribs a little sand and see if I can win back a bit..
Just in case the above mention of Pythagoras goes over anyone's head you may find the pic below interesting, I used to use trigonometry a lot when I worked full time and sadly find it quite interesting..

taken from my "Zeus precision" book

A useful little book to have around.

Paul
If you have the braces correctly set to give 2 ¹/₂" then you could simply not glue the root ribs together and simply rely on the braces. If you think about it gluing the root ribs together does very little for the actual strength of the wing. It is the spars and their braces that transfer the forces from one wing to the other.
The only reason to glue the root ribs together is to resist the effects of the tissue tension so just a bead of glue along any gap between the root ribs would be plenty strong enough although such a process it might offend the purist.

Of course the 'purest' way is to not glue in one of the root ribs. You then set up the 2 ¹/₂" dihedral under each tip, sand the spar ends so they exactly meet top and bottom and only then glue the last root rib in place. It will be at the right angle.

I know what your saying but I AM a purist and a gap would offend me! I'm going to chop off the root rib and start again, I've got a very thin scalpel saw ( about 5 thou) so with care I can cut through the glue line and not damage the spars etc... that's for tomorrow, just about to watch England give the Welsh a rugby lesson!!!

I am not sure they did!
Good enough in the first half but very lucky to finish in the lead.

True..... ref was bent...

Did you know him/her that well? :S [badass] :evil:

Well the sun was out this morning so it was on with the shorts and out side for a sanding session, sorted out the lack of dihedral last night, I took Q's suggestion and sanded the root ribs, only needed a couple of thou, when I measured it yesterday I didn't take into consideration the the tip blocks are undercambered when finished to match the ribs, by the time I had tickled the root ribs and carved the tips I had my 2 1/2" dihedral under each tip!!!!
Next task is the cowl, plan calls for stiff card ( that'll last 5 minutes) or aluminium sheet but I'm going to try 1/32 ply....watch this space...