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, […]
In the last session I covered the lower wing. There are a few things on the upper wing that are different, so this time we’ll have a look at that part of the job. I’ll cover the upper center section here. Remember, everything you learned about polyspan in (20) still applies.
It’s time to put some covering on this airplane. I am using materials/products on this project with which you may not be familiar, so I’ll describe each of them in turn and share my sources with you. The covering material itself is the big one. You already know that I won’t be using one step […]
Before we get to start covering this model, there’s one more detail I want to work on. If you are interested in models of those “Golden Age” airplanes, sooner or later you are going to have to deal with LOUVERS. In real life, these rows of cooling air openings that look somewhat like fishes’ gills […]
All those bits and pieces are beginning to look more and more like an airplane in the process of becoming, and I’m getting anxious to see how she’s going to look with covering on the bare structure. However, there are a few details that have to be attended to before I get to break out […]
Now we need a cowl to finish off the front of what is turning out to be a neat model airplane. These days you can pretty well assume that something’s wrong if you don’t find a well made, shaped cowl of fiberglass, or at least vacuum formed ABS or styrene waiting for you in the […]
On the FlyLine kit plan, the landing gear is shown as several poorly defined struts made up from brass strip and aluminum tube as well as a main and rear strut of 3/32″ steel wire. The main wire strut includes the axles, and if carefully assembled by wire-wrap-and-solder with the rear strut, MIGHT pass for […]
Locking up the mounting of the upper wing on the cabane strut assembly established the angle of incidence (2 degrees positive). With that done, I’ll be able to build and fit the interplane (“N”) struts to match that angle. The first big decision is how I am going to attach the struts to both the […]
Biplanes have struts (most of them do, anyway), and the Great Lakes offers plenty of opportunity to learn how to build them. There are no bracing struts on the tail assembly, but we have a whole collection of them in the landing gear assembly, the usual interplane (outboard) struts, and the cabane struts (which hold […]