The plans, after trimming and organizing, always get hung on the closet doors so I can reach them easily enough or glance at them when I need to.
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Yep, this room is IN the house! I used to do it outside in the shop, but the main building season is winter time and I got tired of freezing.
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The tail feathers got assembled first relatively quickly, although the die-cut parts did not fit together very well at all and required quite some persuasion with the sanding block.
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Wing panel construction is relatively easy with the magnetic building board. This board has really come in handy over the years. It sure beats push-pins.
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Here’s a shot of one of the wing panels nearing completion.
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The two wing panels get a small block tack-glued under the last outboard rib to set the dihedral, and then they are joined.
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I’m getting ready to slot the control surfaces of the stab and fin. Here’s a Dubro hinge slotting kit I use to do it.
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My least favorite part of building is digging in those hinge slots! It’s not such a big deal with those laminated fiber CA hinges, but I decided to use pinned hinges this time.
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Some of the first hinges in the fin.
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A simple tool I made out of scrap really makes this job a lot easier. A #11 blade sandwiched between two 1/8” thick plywood pieces cuts a perfect centerline on the ¼” thick stab and fin stock.
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After tracing the outline of the blade on the scrap, I chisel a little bit out to make a depression for the blade so that it’s exactly on center.
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Check the fit of the blade in the depression…
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And let the whole thing set up before use.
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And before you know it, all the hinges are in! You just can’t beat the look of the pinned hinges compared to those laminated fiber things… it makes it all worth it.
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The stab is epoxied to the fin. Once again the magnetic board is of tremendous use to keep everything nice and square.
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