EGB 953

Good advice thanks! i will get to it this evening.

@Keith BerrimanAah thats not good, Thanks for the tip. Looks like an evening in the shed when i have finished work!

So after not much time last weekend, I was keen to get stuck in this weekend. Sadly, that was not to be, but I did get a few hours in. I covered the other side of the fuselage and then the underside and finally the top. My covering skills are not great - I struggle to be patient with the curves but am getting slightly better at it. I must say this Oracover is brilliant, easy to work with and looks good, even the bad bits. I have learned some important lessons I really should know by now - use as sharp a knife as you can and measure twice before cutting! Having finished the fuselage, I trimmed the covering off the tail parts, heading @Nick Crippsgood advice to be very careful not to damage the balsa. I trial fitted it and it all looks good. I Followed the guidance of @Jonathan M and ordered some M2 Clevis and solder extensions which arrived. I need to think about the right technique for soldering - fill the cavity with solder and shove in the piano wire or is there a better way .... hmmm. Anyway, then onto covering the wings. the video directs you to add the aileron servos before starting covering but that made no sense to me so i covered the bottom half of the wings in two pieces. I used a heat gun to tighten it and it looks ok, though there are some areas I will go over with an iron at the end and once I can test for an warping. I also saw some advice on a video about using a towel to support the wing as you cover it - great advice and my wife offered me an old towel that colour matched ... ? I then cut out the film and added the servos and threaded the wires but ran out of time before I could do the upper wing. I am not looking forward to the wing tips, big curves and I want it to look vaguely neat ... I may watch some videos on covering technique for tips. Thats it for the moment, will either have lots of time this week and next week as my holidays start, or none at all if we manage to get away. I had a moment where I started worrying I should juts have gone for the electric option, certainly the build would have been easier and I would have finished by now, but I am where I am and despite the bumps am enjoying it. So, onwards ...

Thanks! Great advice. I have ordered those. Not much building time this weekend, hoping to get some time on Sunday to finish covering the fuselage.

Thank you, that sounds sensible. What would you recommend for the control surface end?

Haven't had time to work on this but been thinking about a few steps down the line - setting up rudder and elevator linkages. I like z bends, simple, easy to do and strong, plus more attractive than bulky options. Should I z bend the piano wire at the servo end or the rudder/elevator end. if so, have to attach before i glue the horns in place, and, if any issues, harder to remove. Hmmm, got to think about that.

So, heeding the expert advice on this forum, I started off by adding additional mylar hinges to my elevators, a process I did not enjoy. I then made the decision to glue them in and cover in one piece. Before that i sanded the fuselage and ran another two coast of varnish over the front end to ensure it will be as fuel proof as possible. Then to covering, which was a bit tricky, especially as I have started with the tail plane and rudder which both feature lots of curves. I confess I don't have the patience for taking it very slowly, but despite that I enjoyed doing it and after several hours I had those both completed, not very neat I confess but it will do. I could then do one side of the fuselage before running out of time. That went a bit better and faster and looks better - mind you it is much easier. So pause again, hopefully i will get some time this week in the evenings or if not the end of next weekend. Plan is to finish the fuselage and do the wings, then final assembly.

@Jonathan M thank you for the advice on both counts. Hinges are glued so I can just pull them out. Regarding the stall behaviour - thats a good point, i will fly very high, thank you! Looking forward to my weekend - hinges, sanding, some varnishing (fuel proofing) and then covering - something I remember enjoying as a kid.

Oh no! OK, I trust your advice, so I guess i will have to add more ... not sure of how to space them, will have a think about that,

On the subject of gluing - the Hot Roket thin cyano has generally been brilliant and aside from gluing myself to the model a few times, getting a headache from the fumes and getting through an entire bottle (it runs very fast), I would use it again. I have used some standard balsa cement I got from SLECUK which has been much easier to apply but obviously slower drying, which requires clamping of some variety but is very strong when it applies. I was worried about overall weight - weighed the fuselage including the battery and receiver and it comes to 496g, wings should be about 110 and wheels are 80 so hopefully I can keep it below 800g and thus "only" 150g heavier than the electric version. I still calculate the wing loading to be quite low - overall wing area is 311 square inches so it should still fly - I hope! So next steps sand and cover - I have been watching some good videos on how to avoid wrinkles, what worries me most is warping the wing, but I guess I will only learn by doing. Photos when i have made some progress -nothing exciting cub yellow oracover but hopefully a positive adventure.

Having finished the fuselage I am ready to give it a good sanding and set to start covering - which may be a few days away as once again I have to work.

I then set about assembling the fuselage following the instructions. This is a very well thought through kit and it is quite easy to assemble and glue. I added additional support to the fuselage and to the holes for the dowel that will hold the wings. Having to the sides of the fuselage glued and checked it was properly aligned, I attached then engine to the mount (I drilled pilot holes first) and that was fine. However, it was at this point I realised that the engine is considerably forward (and of course much heavier) than the originally designed outrunner and this means the weight is very far forward. Fortunately, the receiver pack will be helpful in offloading that imbalance, especially if placed behind/underneath the elevator and rudder servos. I fitted these as well as the servo for the throttle and then planked the remaining components of the fuselage which generally came together quickly though I did do some clamping while the glue set.

Anyway, having got the right mount, I glued the additional ply firewall to the one in the kit and test assembled the ply box to accommodate it. I also set up the 2-ounce fuel tank and trial fitted it (just the right size, my 4 ounce tank wouldn't fit). Once I was happy I attached the correctly sized engine mount and found it slightly too wide so I had to shave the sides by 2mm on each side till it fitted. I fuel proofed the fire wall with epoxy and then attached the mount once that was dry. i then assembled the ply box and glued it in place before coating the front section in two coats of varnish to further improve the fuel proofing.

It has been a while since I updated the build log. I had a small hiatus when I discovered SLECUk had sent me the wrong sized engine mount. They were however, extremely helpful as soon as I reported it and sent me a replacement, superb service. This coincided with me having too much work so progress has been delayed. While waiting for the engine mount I did get on with the tail fine and elevator. Inserting the hinges was just as fiddly and irritating as it was when I was a teenager and my efforts were not terribly neat. Still a bit of sanding should leave them looking decent.

What a lovely story!

while waiting for the engine mount to arrive in the post, I headed off to the Shuttleworth collection at Old Warden. What a special place that is and surely one of the finest living museums in the world. They have some extraordinary aircraft there and in more normal times would surely be a huge visitor attraction. It was very quiet when I visited, which was at least safe from a Covid perspective but concerning for the museum.

Yes and thank you for the advice. I got the wrong engine mount so haven't been working on it, but my plan is to add an additional 3mm ply board to the firewall, and reinforce the formers with triangle stock as well as fuel proof the area with epoxy. The kit has the firewall attached to a ply frame which then links to the fuselage, so I am hoping that should do it. what do you think?

It’s the Ansio A1 self healing mat, bought on Amazon. The spitfire looks nice.

So I set out today to do the fuselage. Unfortunately, there was an error with my order and I was sent the wrong engine mount so I couldn’t drill the mounting holes. However I am following the rest of the instructions/video and I trial set up the engine mount ply box. It is as I thought, not strong enough for the engine so I used some left over ply to make a second firewall which I will glue to the supplied one. I will fuel proof it with some epoxy. I then set to making the landing gear, which involves cutting then bending the wire to the correct shape. Cutting was a bit difficult but the evening was easy. I then stitched it to the ply former and tomorrow I will epoxy it while chasing up the engine mount. again, I would really like to have a plan to consult rather than the video. Much easier and as parts aren’t numbered either would save some time. I also found the 4 ounce tank is too big for the narrow fuselage so I will go with the 2 ounce one which will fit nicely and there’s room for some foam to keep it cushioned.

Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated.

It is 3mm ply. Do you mean it shouldn’t be a problem? So following the instructions I got all the components for the wing out and separated. Came away easily and very neat too. These laser cut parts are excellent. Then onto putting it together. Despite the warped main spar it goes together easily and very quickly and in around twenty minutes it was ready for gluing with the warp almost imperceptible. Sometimes the video is hard to follow because the impressive young chap who does it moves to quickly and you have to try abs figure out which piece goes where. A few shots without his hand sun the way would help- as would a full size plan! A little bit of testing suggested that the gluing would remove the rest of the issue so I went ahead. I confess I had forgotten how awkward super glue is with balsa especially the recommended thin cyano but I Confess it makes it easy to glue. So a few minutes later and it was done. I puts some grease paper underneath to I didn’t glue it to the Mat. This was sensible as it did run through in a few places. I then left it to fully dry and made the ailerons which were a bit fiddly but went together easily enough. Tomorrow I will sand the aileron edges and tidy up any sharp edges on the whole wing. The holes are cut for the hinges but they will need covering first. then I will start on the fuselage. As I am going to put a nitro engine on I am going to double the firewall with another sheet of ply. Then add the engine mount after I have drilled the holes for mounting it. I will then have to see how the fuel tank fits. I have a four ounce and a two ounce. Not sure which to use - I do want to keep the weight down but two ounces may not provide very long flight times. So, TBC. enough for one day but I must say I had forgotten how enjoyable making your own plane is.

Thanks. Will have a go this afternoon.

It is 3mm ply. Do you mean it shouldn’t be a problem?

That’s my concern. Thanks for the tip!

Having returned to the hobby after around ten years away and the last time I built a balsa model more than 35 years ago, I opted to start with something that looked fairly easy. The vintage model company 4 channel cub trainer looked the part with laser cut parts a simple design and video guides. Now I have an old Thunder Tiger 15 which I am going to use, so a bit of engineering needed as the cub is designed for an electric motor. I ordered the kit and it arrived in a couple of days, I must say the service is impressive. I got a few extras to help with the build. The box is nearly packed and The wood comes nicely sorted and sealed in plastic and the extras are all there. Especially positive are the great lol looking wheels. I wanted to start with the wing as that doesn’t require any modification and would get me started quite quickly but hit my first hurdle a, quite badly I think, warped main ply spar. See the photo. so my first question - how to eradicate the warp? I have it sitting overnight with a reasonably light weight pressing down to correct it but I am not sure that will be enough.