Auster mk5

You enjoy pushing the boundaries of your skills Tony and its all the more entertaining to see how you take these challenges on.

If you never try anything new, you will never progress. well thats my thoughts anyway.

will try to finish the fin today and see what it looks like.
then i have to have a re think on the fuselage plan i drew up, i need to re draw so i can use dowel for the structure and not sheet.

Tony
I did use 1mm round balsa for the fuselage of my small Fokker Triplane for the same reason and I even painted it before covering so it looked like painted steel tube.
I must have been truly daft 40 years ago! :woohoo:

At such a small size balsa glue gave a 'fillet' to the joint to ensure is was passably strong in tension but at larger sizes it might be difficult to achieve a reasonable tensile joint strength. You are after all trying to emulate a welded tube joint which is virtually as strong as the tube itself.

I will follow with interest.

Quorneng wrote: 1mm round balsa .....

I didn't know that you could get balsa dowel that thin. :huh: :huh: :huh:

i might end up using small fillets of balsa on every joint, but it is an experiment anyway.

You mentioned joining the wing together and assumed you planned to have 4 parts to the wing.Could you join the outer wing like they do with 4 piece glider wings.

You cant get 1mm round balsa - I made it myself sanded very carefully from 1mm square cut from sheet. I discovered that some 1/32" (0.8mm) sheet was actually a full 1mm thick.
But to be fair the longest piece required was only 11" long.

To delicate for my ham fist im afraid, that looks good

This is getting a bit delicate for my fat fingers as well.

Fin constructed.


trim tab and nav light.


need to sort hinges and control horns next.
then on to the tailplane and elevators.

Tony
Will you be able to cover it with the trim tab and nav light in place?

From what I remember the trim tab was just a sheet of aluminium riveted to the outside of the trailing edge tube after the covering was in place.

Don't know about the nav light though.

they are only held on with prit stick, so i don't lose them.
yes they will be fitted after covering.

if i ever finish the model that is.

Im sure you will Tony ,enjoying your skills as usual.

Tony
Looking forward to the fuselage build. Keep going.

i have re drawn the fuselage plan, well some of it anyway.
i used the outline from the first plan and re drew all the structure using prints from the cd Andy sent me to get the spacings rightish.

it is on tracing paper.

started cutting and sticking the balsa dowel fuselage.
long way to go still, i have also found it best to cut the longest bits first, so when it goes wrong they can be cut down to do a smaller size.



Alan was right, i think full scale is going to be beyond my abilities, so i am aiming for as near as i can get it. with some discrepancy's to allow for materials.