Ron Gray

Ideally, for me it would be the largest of these, but tbh I would go with any of them!

@Richard - personally I wouldn’t want the kit changing, well maybe the wing profile to flow more into the LE taper (but that’s me beIng finicky), because I like having to adapt and add things, so for me the kit gets a 9 out of 10! I’m also pleased to be able to report that many brownie points have been accumulated on the basis of the long shift I put in yesterday on the summer house, just need to finish it today, if the wind and rain (yes, rain) will let me. @Ace - if the film is well keyed with abrasive, in my case very fine (flour) grade sandpaper then the paint adheres really well. I’ve got a piece of balsa that I use as my experiment piece so will try and demonstrate its resilience later on today and will post the resulting photos for you to see. But as you have indicated, the fuel proofing, in my case Sadolins PV67, will also provide extra resilience.

Thanks Peter, but things will slow down a bit now as I need to re roof a summer house in the garden and the timber for that was delivered a couple of days ago!

Little odd jobs to do now to finish off the wing starting with scrap balsa infill to the retract pocket. Wing mounting bolt T nut ply plate (I know Richard only uses 1 but as there were 2 in the kit...) Made a start on the wing / fuse fillet. I used some small section triangular stop to give the balsa sheeting something to stick to on the fuse And once that was dry I stuck the balsa sheeting to the fuse. And again after that was dry I removed the wing and wet the balsa sheet and bent it to the profile of the ply base. As you may appreciate there was a lot of gluing, leave to dry, glue leave to dry so in the drying times I went back to the canopy and continued with the experiment. It seems a shame to paint it but it will be given a coat of grey then rubbed back to see what it looks like weathered.

Just had a sudden light bulb moment, I want a multi contour sand bar so why don't I just 3D print one - right that's tonight's job sorted.

@ Nigel - yes they are really good. I bought them directly from the US about 3 years ago the long one for use on wings to ensure even sanding. Great Planes also used to do various different shaped Easy Touch bars but I just couldn't find any for sale and have been looking ever since but still no luck.

Hi Bob, you've got it spot on with that forward sweeping bit and it really annoyed me! The lamination film has heat sensitive backing like standard covering film but no backing plastic to remove first! It also goes on really easily and can be pulled and stretched quite a bit, will also take higher temps than standard film. I have used it before on my foam wings where it gives a lot extra strength and ding proofing but also stops muck getting into the foam. I suspect your Solartex tapes will look better as they have been torn and will probably be more prominent than mine so very interested in what your look like after primer. Going back to the laminating film, will take paint if keyed with fine sandpaper and if you need holes just heat a piece of copper tube and push it through! Oh, and did I mention that it is very cheap! The thing that I didn't expect, having applied the rib tapes, is that the brain now tells me that these are built up structures so I handle them differently! Weird or what. Edited By Ron Gray on 22/05/2020 10:59:11

Things that aren’t quite right really bug me and here was another one. The LE of the wing has a forward rake where it meets the fuselage and the kit provides some shaped balsa to add to the front of the LE to form this rake. The problem is / was that when I was sanding the wing to get the wingtips and LE to the correct profiles I didn’t realise, until too late that by following the wing section near the root resulted in the LE getting sanded to a triangular section and in my opinion too short. The answer was to glue some balsa to both the top and bottom wing surfaces so that I could form a new profile. Pictures are worth a thousand words and I think this one shows what I mean. I was then able to form better profile and then was in a position to glass the wing join using epoxy resin. The next shots show how the balsa ‘filler’ pieces have been sanded back to give me a more pronounced forward rake. Whilst that first coat of epoxy was curing I continued with work to the tail pieces starting with the hard point for the rudder. Up to this stage I had been planning to cover the LA-7 with brown paper and diluted PVA but after a conversation with a good friend in which he reminded me that I had a good size roll of document lamination film I changed my mind and decided to go down that route instead. Not only is it cheap and easy to apply it needs no sealing or filling before painting plus it adds strength, something that the brown paper option did not. I had already decided that I wanted to give the impression of fabric covered control surfaces so using the elevators as the test bed I proceeded to apply strips of film to represent rib tapes. To give it some ‘depth’ I applied 2 layers to form the strips but as you will see in the next photo, once primed they are not that prominent. So for the rudder I used 3 layers of film. Then rubbed down with some very fine sandpaper (mine is actually used sandpaper that now feels like flour grade) This keys the surface of the laminating film as the base for the primer. The rib tapes are a little bit more in evidence on the rudder thanks to that extra layer of film, even if it does take a long time to apply. Next up the ailerons were given the same treatment. By this time the wing was ready for the joining bandage to be rubbed down and a second coat of epoxy applied.

The latest Taranis only has the buttons (3) on the left as there is a scroll roller on the right. My buttons also failed on my old Taranis so I 3D printed replacements, now works fine. Edited By Ron Gray on 21/05/2020 11:19:45

Posted by Peter Jenkins on 20/05/2020 23:50:20: Beginning to look very nice Ron. Could be an interesting formation coming up when we can all be down at the patch. Lavochkin, P47, Spitfire IX and Mustang IV! Darn, no enemy! I'm not too sure about that Peter, there are a BF110 and an ME109 waiting in the wings (well in their boxes at the moment!)

I use one of these, expensive, yes, but brilliant and I only charge it about once a year! For my Laser twins I connect them in parallel which works well with this glow driver. Having said that, I believe Neil Tidy starts a twin on one cylinder then puts the driver on the other!

I started to cut / carve the wig tips to shape. They were quite a big lump of balsa so I started with rough cuts using a hand saw, then used the razor plane followed by the Permagrit block. Hard points in ply were let into the ailerons, these will be the mounting blocks for the control horns. Now it was all about sanding and sanding and yet more sanding, not ideal if you suffer from Asthma as I do! Notwithstanding that as it’s one of my favourite jobs, I donned the face mask and off I went. It certainly helps to have some good tools to help and to this end I used both of my Great Planes Easy touch sand bars, one is about 10” long, the other is about 2' I also use their self adhesive sand paper which is really good (all of these bits came from the USA about 3 years ago). It’s amazing how much these sanding bars remove in a short space of time. After a few hours the wings looked like this and were ready for joining. usually use epoxy for joining veneered foam wings but this time, having seen how strong it was, I used Gorilla Glue. Once dry and the ply brace fitted I can then use glass cloth and epoxy resin to strengthen the joint.

Thanks Richard, that was the plan, glad I got it right. Despite all of the building I've done over the years I've never really done anything 'scale'. Back to the build. Before I forgot, the next job was to fit end ‘plates’ on the ailerons to cover the foam. (At this stage I was still planning on covering it with brown paper) Now over to the concealed hinges and fitting the Robarts which was not that straightforward given the varying taper on the hinge line. I first cut a short length of barbecue skewer and sharpened one end to act as a marker. After marking the centre line, shallow holes were made in the wing using a rat tail Permagrit file and the marker inserted. I then pushed the aileron into position and the hole positions were transferred via the sharpened marker. I could then form the holes in the ailerons using the Permagrit file Slots were then filed in the LE to allow the hinges to pivot. And a trial fit to make sure it all lined up and worked, it did! Just got the end plates to put on the outer ends of the ailerons, hence the gap. Edited By Ron Gray on 21/05/2020 08:57:59

Thanks Peter and Tim, the canopy was only an experiment to see what it would look like using aluminium tape but I must say that I rather like it so will continue with it when the next lot of glue is setting!