Winter build

Crash
I can interpret most of the German but can't see what it is supposed to be made of. It looks to be quite a thivk skin so I would guess it is Depron rather than balsa particularly with a modest 25 g motor and a 2s LiPo.

You are quite correct Q. The majority is foam with balsa main wing spar, leading edges & a few other bits. Balsa will probably be substituted with carbon fibre mostly. I plan on scaling the whole thing up to achieve a wingspan of around two meters. I am thinking of a sheeted wing over foam formers, with a solid foam leading edge & full length carbon spar. The whole plane will be craft paper & glue covered for extra strength. The first thing I need to do is make a bigger & more accurate table thermocutter, so I can slice down a load of the extruded polystyrene I'm using to 3mm & 5mm sheets.

Thought I'd give the balsa bashing a rest and do a little covering.
To save a bit of weight,unlike my last few builds this one will not be double covered, the white of the colour scheme ( keil Kraft house colours of white, orange and black) will be the plain polyester silk with just the other 2 colours being done in tissue.
Tail has had the silk ironed on and heat shrunk, needs doping next.

You maybe able to make out the single sided razor blade I use to trim, this material is wonderful apart from its tendency to fray if not cut with something really sharp, it also blunts blades quickly ( I buy these blades in packs of 100 for about £4.)

Right pay attention at the back A little more work on the Tail plane, after giving the silk a coat of 50/50 shrinking dope I made a start on the tissue, the orange I'm using has no wet strength so I put it on dry and rather than using pritt stick to attach it I gave the outline a very thin line of diluted covergrip ( used neat it tends to bleed through and you end up with a shiny line) and ironed it on.

The scheme I'm using calls for the orange on the upper surfaces only so I took care to trim the leading edge carefully.

next up was water shrinking, I am always amazed the way the wrinkles disappear once dry.

After a few hours drying in a warm place I gave it a coat of dope and added the black trim ( a strip of 1/8th wide tissue).

once it's had overnight to properly cure I'll give it all a final coat of very thin dope 75/25 to blend it all in.
As normal apologies for the picture orientation, I've given up trying to get my dumb arse phone to cooperate!!

Paul
That is some spectacularly neat tissue work!

Ditto, respect!

Thanks chaps, means a lot, it's one those things you have to be in the mood For, I'm currently not in the mood to cut balsa!

I wish I could get in the mood for something! I'm going away for a few days, 15th to 21st, so behave yourselves!

Very, very impressive Paul. Just love your work. How did you get such a straight line on the leading edge?

Ralpharr2001 wrote: Very, very impressive Paul. Just love your work. How did you get such a straight line on the leading edge?

Cheers Ralph, start with a fresh razor blade and took a deep breath!
Seriously though holding your breath really does help, try it.

Tails finished, need to sort out the control runs then it's either build the wing or cover and finish the fuselage....Not sure what I'm in the mood For yet, oh! the fuselage needs a access hatch for the radio making, thinking about a hinged panel??

Very nice work as always Paul.

So I'm back in the mood For cutting balsa and have made a start on cutting the many components for the wing, those that are familiar with what a slicker looks like will know the wing as well as being elliptical also tapers in thickness from root to tip and is polyhedral, the ribs have cap strips on there lower surface so it going to be by far the longest part of the build.
I've decided after consulting a few chaps on the keil Kraft group to make the main spar a spruce/ balsa composite as I did for my just junior.
You may be interested to know ex member Andy Sephton is member there, not sure if there's any ill feeling towards him but he is undoubtedly a clever guy, took the time to download the plan and give me his thoughts.

paul d wrote: You may be interested to know ex member Andy Sephton is member there, not sure if there's any ill feeling towards him but he is undoubtedly a clever guy, took the time to download the plan and give me his thoughts.

No ill feeling here Paul, it was he who picked up his ball and went to play somewhere else. He was a Moderator on here for a while.

Haven't had to much free time lately but finally got all the many components for the wing cut, managed to get the main spar glued together this afternoon, as I mentioned I've gone with a laminated spar, 9/32×3/16 balsa backed with1/16×3/16 spruce. It's been a good excersise in measuring twice and cutting once because as well being polyhedral the spare tapers towards the tips to 3/16th square and the ribs are located in little notches let into it ( think of the rib joint as a half halving joint as the ribs also have notches) there's also 5 anti-warp ribs cut from hard 1/8th that also fit the same way...give me a week or so and I may actually have something worth looking at!