Gothiquity

Ok sorry again for the long pause, on with the wing build and my first minor mishap The wing due to its rather bent shape is built over a jig , all parts provided in the kits and that goes together very well indeed, below are the main spar joiners plus the left had spars. The notes tell you the way to epoxy the joiners to the main spars , and the jig also serves as a guide. The spars with joiners epoxied are then put into the jig , this is where I had a mishap. Which led to the delay in this post. I didn't check the fit and the spars were very tight fitting into the jig, I pressed a little too hard and broke one spar, as I broke it a roll of masking tape fell of my shelf above the bench and cracked another spar in two places,. you can imagine just how happy I was about that. I used some thin ply to cover the breaks , epoxied the breaks and the thin ply to the surface of the broken area Once the epoxy had dried sufficient I re-cut the notches and carefully sanded off the excess epoxy While i had been waiting for the epoxy i carefully went over every point where a spar went into the jig and gently sanded the jig so i had a firm instead of vice like grip. I also carefully eased the spar notches to ensure the ribs wouldn't suffer the same fate. All 3 main spars in, with R1 used to align it all. The first few ribs are all ply and went in fairly easily again taking care to sand lightly the notches to ensure a good fit You start to appreciate the graceful gull wing like curve this wing has. After the first ply ribs then its back to balsa , and just following the same procedure , you can see how fragile these ribs are , you can also see the under-camber Towards the last third of the wing more joiners are added in, pva glue this time . Minor correction to the notes, RIB 16 shown below is ply, whilst the notes mention it as balsa, nothing major. All ribs are now in and being glued with superphatic , as I've run out of cyano. I've also dry fitted the leading edge Just apart from my own mistake and not taking care , everything is still going ok. Speed or lack of it comes down to being only able to spend an hour or two each day at it as and when i can.

it certainly has its moments John.

Continuing the tailplane support just needed to add in the M4 captive nuts and glue the support in place, With that done it was on to what turned out to be the fastest part of the build so far, the horizontal stab and elevator Getting all the parts together , you can really appreciate the amount of effort gone into making this kit Just followed the instructions, glued the ply edge frame to the balsa back hinge spar, note the slots pre-cut to take flocked hinges, nice touch. Sub spars also fitted and glued in , couldn't be easier. All nicely notched with no real tweaking needed Lastly all the ribs in Onto the elevator similar story, get all the parts together, again note the pre-cut hinge slots. And glue them together , and one elevator done last part for the stab was gluing in balsa and ply mounting blocks. can't see them in my photo but the balsa blocks have slightly larger holes so the blocks sit over the raised part of the captive nuts installed on the tail-plane support, very clever. The next part from the notes is covering this part , not quite ready for that yet so opted to get the fuselage sanded down so i could clear of the bench ready for the wing. A lot of sanding later this is the result, fairly happy with it , though don't think I've got the part where the tail boom enters the fuselage quite right, will play with it more later. And the obligatory build shot showing progress so far

Managed a good day of flying yesterday, hit a fuel tank issue with my Avanti pattern plane , vent tube seemed loose. Thankfully had Peggy Sue II with me and she flew brilliant despite the gusty weather. Back to the Boomer Bus Finished off the nose upper cowl, just adding and gluing shaped blocks as before Test fitted with lower cowl, all looks good, just needs sanding but that can wait for another day. Next up is the tail boom, forgot to take pictures of the three formers that make up the core of the boom. As elsewhere though they interlock with each other meaning its pretty hard to get orientation and alignment wrong/ Around the formers are position more small formers that work to pin the whole construct together , very clever and neat, again hard to go wrong just gut them from the sheet and attach , this is all dry fit at this stage. The formers work in pairs and each successive pair connects to the core at 90 degrees to the previous pair. All formers in place around the core tail boom structure, again no glue at this stage Next up the notes say to use cyano to spot glue the frame together, I opted to use super-phatic from Deluxe Materials. I've used it before on ply with no issues. Once the glue has dried its then onto sheeting , as with the fuselage pre-cut sheets are already made up One mistake in the above picture is that there are two of the strips with the oval hole at one end. The first few sheets are notched so again fairly easy to just line then up with right tabs on the core. The notes say to chamfer the edges of the sheeting as it touches the tail skid, You also have to square off the edges of the sheeting to align with the smaller formers. You also add in the snakes at this stage there are holes in each small former to guide the snakes through plus a channel cut into the core formers to ease the snake out at the tail end The notes say to ease open the exit hole a little with a rounded needle file to ensure a smooth radius and ease strain on the structure. Snakes are then trimmed flush with the outside egde exit at the tail, and flush with the first former BF1 . Glue is applied to ensure the snakes don't move although on mine it was very snug so don't think there is much chance it will slip, but put a few spots of glue on it anyway. Next is the rest of the sheeting , which is just four pre-cut planks that go around the outside of the tail. All sheeting in place and held in place with pins and masking tape. Once dried its a sanding task to get it from octagon shape to as round as possible Thankfully i have a permagrit tool and the radius was a near perfect match. Took a while knocking all the corners off and introducing a curve to the flat sections got there in the end though. Did a test fit into the fuselage and had to sand the inside of the shaped blocks to ensure it was a good fit. Finally starting to take shape, only dry test fit at the moment. You also need to open up the front part of the tail to allow the wing to seat correctly . Bit of work with a razor saw has that sorted there are partial cut marks on the core former to guide where to cut Bit rough at the moment but i will smooth that off. Last step for tonight was the tail support. First task is to tweak the end of the tail boom to open up the sheeting so the tail support sits flush on the notches All good so far, and fairly happy with the progress made so far. Its an excellent kit, the slow progress is down to how much time i can spend on it at any one time. Moving onto the tail plane next part.

so next build segment, sorry I'm bit a slow here, not a reflection on the kit just don't always get the time to spend in the garage. So next big chunk is the nose cowl, upper and lower. I broke away slightly from Jorgens notes here, time will tell if this is going to bite me. The lower cowl is first and stacking more 6mm shaped blocks, first you put neodym magnets in to place ensuring polarity is correct then following the notes assemble the structure on the nose of the plane. Whilst Jorgen does say to put plenty of packing tape etc around the nose to avoid things sticking i still didn't fancy prising off a glued part from the plane. So this is how i did it, with masking tape on the back of the first lower cowl part i trimmed the tape and held it in place on the plane. I Installed the magnets, they will only go in with the right polarity , once all four were in i then removed the piece and the magnets stay put stuck to the masking tape . Thin cyano was then applied to secure the magnets to the wood. Then with the piece removed i filled the void at the back with epoxy instead of using the supplied blanking/spacer parts. Excess epoxy was removed once it had semi cured to leave a fairly neat job. The rest of the lower cowl was built separate and off the plane. There are four little grooves on each on the blocks two square ones as you can see below , than two grooves along what will be the top edge. Using some scrap square balsa 3/16ths i think and the two alignment parts i glued all the main shaped blocks together. The square balsa and alignment blocks (shown below) were removed before the glue dried. Once the glue had dried it was just a case of gluing in the last few shaped blocks to finish off the lower cowl I did do a test fit and it was fine. The upper cowl was pretty much identical and did it in the same way. First shaped block with masking tape on the back, then offered into place and neodymn magnets inserted Piece removed from plane and thin cynao added initially to secure the magnets in the wood, followed by epoxy The rest of the main blocks were assembled off the plane and using the notches to self align as before That's all for tonight. I still have a heap of sanding to do on the wing fairing and i have not fitted the fuselage tail fairing in yet as i feel it needs the tail boom in place to ensure everything lines up.

Well its was an excellent show at Elvington, despite being a tad breezy on the Saturday still lots of flying, always a great LMA show. Met up briefly with Jorgen at the show too, gave me a chance to get a closer look at the finished Boomer so i know what to work towards. Back to the building board. So after the planking/sheeting which was really easy,. it was just adding on the wing supports and installing two more captive nuts , nothing tricky here, and as mentioned before due to the interlocking parts its self jigging. Also sanded down the planking just to make it easier to hold. Next is the wing fairing , this is series of 6mm balsa blocks glued in between the fuselage and wing support, there are lots of them, all carefully laser cut in descending sizes. Not much to say here other than its a long job easing each one out and gluing it in and keeping it lined up. I'm using aliphatic resin and tend to be over generous , never mind it all sands off Servo access area is snug but at least there is room to get in if needed. Just keep on gluing in more shaped blocks in sequence, each piece is clearly marked so its pretty straight forwards When it comes to the area near the captive nuts i was wondering how this was going to work as the blocks glue to the wing support, however Jorgen had already solved that problem in advance. The next bunch of blocks have a cut out on them to work around the captive nuts, a nice clever touch. Finally all shaped fairing blocks in place Next up is yet more shaped fairing blocks this time these are glued separately to the main structure for adding on later and have a handy alignment hole down the middle. I used some 6mm dowel i had to keep things aligned then removed it before the glue dried too well. This assembly will be glued on later and once sanded will form that rather funky trailing fuselage tail below the boom. That's almost it for tonight except i couldn't resist a quick blast with my sanding tools to make a start on the fairing Didn't get too far but its a start at least. More work tomorrow

Jorgen has been in touch, I've got the updated/completed build notes and hardware pack arriving tomorrow. so hopefully nothing to stop the build continuing at pace, though I am taking this weekend to visit the LMA Elvington show. Cant spend all my time in the garage building. Not much to report from tonight's work, planking is very straight forwards bit of sanding and tweaking as you would expect but nothing tricky. Opted to use Deluxe materials super-phatic glue on the planking instead of cyano, whilst it takes longer to dry it doesn't dry as brittle so hopfully sanding the fuselage down wont be a pain. pics show work in progress and the standard hedgehog method of pinning Yes I spotted one of the planks had eased out slightly but managed to squeeze it back in All planking pieces now fitted, last piece needed a little fettling to fit into the right spot but overall very impressed, never been very good at planking, so this was a interesting way to do it , and as Jorgen says in his notes its a fast way too. Next step tomorrow is the wing/fuselage fairing

Hi Tim, your boomer bus is a work of art, hope I can get somewhere close to that standard. The kit makes a few changes to the design that I can see so will be interesting to see how mine ends up looking. Thanks for sharing those pics , gives me something to work towards.

Magnets arrived today, so on with the build, 8 magnets epoxied in securely and as flush as possible with the front of F1. I've also installed the landing gear and secured that in place with F1A and five small servo screws. Make sure this is secure as I suspect you cant get to it afterwards. Round the back ply washers are epoxied to the back of the magnets to act as a spacer and also to further prevent the magnets slipping out forwards. The build now picks up some pace, these are parts for the forward fuselage up to the motor mount, the fit was pretty good straight out of the sheet Motor mount also installed , careful to maintain correct alignment. Next up is the receiver tray , simple construction, again goes together really well straight off the sheet Next up time to start building up the rear fuselage, also including the servo tray with two servos pre installed . I'm using Hitec HS-85BB , probably overkill but its what i had to hand. And with parts dry fitted to rest of the fuselage. Ignore the mess in the background, my workbench is never tidy during a build. last step for tonight, final few fuselage former's ,dry fit then glued. Just using thin cyano at this point which is helping with the speed of the build. Must say spent just an hour and a half on it tonight , and its coming together really nicely, strong but not too heavy. As the majority of the parts interlock with at least two other parts its self jigging and as long as you ensure joints are flush and tight its looks pretty straight so far. Notes are pretty good as well , plenty of photos which help when occasionally the description lacks detail. Tomorrow looks like laser cut planking/sheeting for the fuselage so that could be interesting.

Hi Tim, yes your are right Tim Hooper did do a plan build of the same model. According to Jorgen, MVM took up the challenge to produce a kit for it. And yes definitely quirky which is what caught my eye

Ok so not got as far as I wanted, best laid plans and all that. So to start with the Boomer Bus comes supplied in a big box. All nicely packaged, I've bought the hardware pack and motor , the motor was on hand just waiting for the hardware pack to arrive. Within the box is a build log, very detailed, you will note its says BETA on my copy, this is because I've got an early release , MVM will send out updated notes once finalised. The actual cut parts are well organised and very clearly labeled, so any mistakes should be easy to avoid (famous last words) Each piece is held in by a few very small tabs easily cut with a scalpel The above two parts are the motor mount and needed some M4 tee or captive nuts installing, then the whole assembly gluing together with epoxy. I used 15 min 2 part epoxy and used the motor x mount to ensure the captive nuts stayed in the right alignment Next was bending the landing gear , using 5/32 piano wire Whilst a full scale plan isn't included in the notes supplied the shape is shown as are dimensions so its fairly easy to bend to the right shape. After that i needed some 8mm disc neody magnets which i didn't have so had to suspend the build till i get some, the magnets will fit into the pre cut holes in the former F1. You can also see where the landing gear goes with the piece I still have to ease out. All in all, happy so far. The kit does go together fairly quickly depending upon having the right hardware to hand and using the right adhesives. Approx build time spent so far around 2 hours. Whilst i could have jumped ahead on the build notes to start on the tail boom , Id rather work methodically through the build to make sure I don't miss a step. More to follow soon.

Hello All. I'm a bit of a trad builder, usually building from plan or kit , nothing overly adventurous though. Have recently taken a shine to vintage or vintage style planes . Vintage to me means how the plane looks, more elegant graceful curves than straight lines and pointy bits. It started with an Avanti 60" pattern plane Oz : Avanti plan - free download (outerzone.co.uk) Plane flies better than I can , and is helping me towards my "B" cert. Next was the Peter Miller designed, Peggy Sue II , again a lovely plane flies just great and has a certain bygone era charm to it, no offense meant to Peter. Whilst at Weston Park show earlier this year I was taken with the Boomer Bus, laser cut kit, from Modern Vintage Models and was able to pick the kit up last weekend at the Model Air event at Shuttleworth, Old Warden. The design originates from 1940's and just has a certain look to it that appeals. RC Aeroplanes - Models - Laser Cutting - Modern Vintage Models The ethos behind modern vintage is rapid builds, and Jorgen, the owner of the company recons the plane could be built over a weekend. I have an empty build board a fresh scalpel and some free time over the next few day's so let's see how far I get.

Ok slow progress, managed to grab a couple of weekends away from the hangar, even got down to Shuttleworth and took some more photos of the JAP J99 aero engine. My visit coincided with a Model Air show weekend, which was pretty impressive, some amazing models , not to mention some very skilled people, I've a long way to go yet both in building and flying. So back at base cracked on with the faux engines Same process as before lots of ply and balsa discs, cut using a cheap circle cutter, takes ages on the thin ply, but the end result is worth it. Though I i don't relish having to do it again. Fairly happy with the approximation, few tweaks, lick of paint and bent ali tube et voila Not the best pic in the world I know, but I'm pretty happy with how they have turned out, even managed to make a left and right hand one, nearly didn't though. Had to invest in a tube bender though, ended up kinking so much tubing. The blue wire is actually strimmer cord, i used a little heat shrink to simulate the spark plug housing and wire. Once its housed in the cowl, I'll trim it size and tack the ends down. So engines done and its time to attack the cowl, following Tim's log and the plan seemed fairly straight forwards to do it, though I must confess to being a little hesitant, after all get this bit wrong and the look of the plane is gone. So did my initial blocking out , with scrap pieces of various thickness soft balsa. Used a clamp just to hold the front piece in whilst I aligned the side cheeks, tacked everything together with thin cyano , whilst taking care to not hit the motor. Once that main bit was done just bulked out the top and bottom parts to give me something to carve those curves from. So all blocked out, next time to attack with the trusty Aldi power sander, then copius amounts of dust creation , first shaping done and mounted just to see how it looked. Really starting to come to life now, its amazing how much character the cowl adds to the plane. Couldn't resist adding the tail plane on for a quick progress so far shot , looking really good. My hat goes off to you Tim, this really is a miniature cygnet. Next step will be a dry fit to weigh the progress with wings and struts and check COG to see how that is looking. Then it will be time to do the ailerons and fettle getting the servo leads down to where the receiver will be. happy landings all, stay safe. Goth