On this airplane, the primary structure of each wing panel consists of all the ribs, the leading and trailing edges, the upper and lower 3/16″ sq. spars and the spar web inserts, and the various pieces that make up the wing tip assembly. So far I have built the and right panels in turn flat […]
It’s taken me a bit longer than I would have liked to get this blog entry posted…I bought a new computer and have had to go through the drill of learning a new operating system. Now that’s done and we can get back to building model airplanes. There are a few more details to finish […]
All the good things I promised a few months back are happening. Two of my friends and fellow model builders have formed a new kit production company, Premier Balsa Kits, and their first offering is a laser-cut short kit for theTigerKitten updated for brushless motors and LiPo power. I have agreed to build a new […]
All that’s left before flight testing is rigging. In this case that means both rigging the functional controls…hooking the servos to the surfaces…and making up the wing and tail brace wire groups. Let’s look at the servos first. I used Sullivan Gold-N-Rod splined nylon flexible concentric tube connectors (S-504) for the connections between the rudder […]
There are a few more construction tasks left before this airplane is ready for her first trip outside the shop. They may be small, but they will attract the attention of anyone who looks at the model. I’m going to finish the cockpit by adding the windshield glazing, some coaming and padding, and a dummy […]
It’s time to put some paint on this airplane. If this were going to be a competitive model I would already have gathered whatever color references were available, most likely photos or published artwork, determined exactly which paint products I would need to get the most accurate possible reproduction of the colors on the full […]
You may have noticed that up until now I have paid no attention at all to one of the most obvious “scale details” on the airplane…the windshields of the twin open cockpits. All too often open cockpit model windshields take the form of a chunk of clear plastic stuck to the top of the fuselage […]
With the model covered, clear doped and primed, just about ready for color, there are a few more details I need to take care of before that final paint job can begin. The one I want to tell you about this time provides a perfect example of the way building scale model airplanes is in […]
Whether we call it “silk-and-dope”, “dope and tissue”, “polyspan and nitrate”, or whatever, covering and finishing model airplanes using a sheet of paper or fabric and then sealing it with various paint products involves two different operations. We have just finished the first, which is cutting, attaching and shrinking the covering material (in this case, […]
Both the upper and lower wings are covered, ready for finishing. It’s time to get started on the fuselage…but…there’s some more stuff I want to be sure you know about. I have included A LOT of information on building model airplanes from kits in the form of stories from my own experiences in my book, […]