Sagitta 900 build

[Curare]

Well, I'm cheating a bit you see.

I have the wings already.

I made mention some time ago to one of the local soaring doyens that I'm a sucker for the old school woodies, and he mentioned that he had a sagitta set of wings and a butchered kit in his loft, and if I wanted it I could have it.

A set of dusty punctured but sturdy wings were produced and a kit box with primer all over it, and a lid that hadn't been closed in 15 years.

Man was I excited.

It sat in my list of things to do, until I moved to our new house, and felt that a new project would be the best way to make a house feel like a home, and also to settle myself a bit after the hectic move (4 fish tanks in one day is enough to hurt anyone!)

Anyway, first thing to do was to set up the workshop and roll out the plans. I'm one of those lucky guys who has access to a large scale printer so making a copy was easy.

Read the plans and rip out the glue!, ahh it feels good.

Lots of things were missing from the kit, and lots were added. I then noticed a SECOND set of plans for a sagitta 600 in there and half a completed wing panel! NEXT PLANE!!!

As anyone who's built a sag knows it's got a LOT of spruce in it, so I ended up having to repurchase enough to build the wings and tail, after that I was ripping into it.

First thing to do, is to get the fuselage sides sorted with their spruce longerons and control cables in.

[Curare]

With that done, it's time to join the halves, a simple matter, with the noseblock added, and the tails joined, and the main bulkhead just forward of the wing joiner all glued in and checked for accuracy with my favourite tool the laser level.

THen it's time to laminate 1/4 x 1/8 spruce to 1/4x 1/8 balsa for tailplane and rudder trailing edges. I think this has really been superceeded these days with a strip of 1/64 ply in the centre of trailing edges, and requires less sanding, but we're building this Lee Renaud's way, not mine!

[rogerflies]

Take the straw out, it's adding a lot of unnecessary weight that has to be offset by more unnecessary weight in the nose.

Tie a short piece of 20-pound line to the end of the antenna with a little loop on the loose end long enough to get a little outside the fuse when the antenna is installed. Put a piece of line in the fuse as you're building. Use it to pull the antenna through, and secure the line attached to the antenna. That keeps the antenna in place, and you can always use a piece of line to reinstall it if necessary. Adds no unnecessary weight.

Roger

[F3X]

Back in the day we used to mod the rudder by making the area ahead of the hinge line fixed to the fin. It took the wiggle out of the model.

Nice build, Airtronics made excellent kits!

[OVSS Boss]

My thought too Tom, no counter balance on my Sag's.

Marc

[Curare]

Roger, too late to take the straw out, and besides, it only weighs 3 grams. I think i can live with that extra weight in the tail to make the RX easier to remove (when I go to 2.4).

Tom, OVSS boss, I'm going to have the rudder hinged the same way I do my pattern ships and set it up so I can remove it, If I don't like the way it flies I'll probably make the mod, but for now i'll run with it as designed.



anyways, back to the build.

Time to start building the tailplane. The sagitta has an interesting way of holding the tail halves on with wheel collars on the wire. Using my special little tubing cutter I set up the tail tubes and zapped a pair of wheel collars onto the tail tubes,and epoxied them into their respective hardwood keepers. I had to cut my tail halves out as they were missing in the kit, so plenty of glue on the centre section parts but none on the centreline the two halves are build and shaped as a singe unit then cut in half.

Also while I was doing all this I built the rudder, as the plans show, for the first run. As I've said If I don't like it I'll redo it later.

[Curare]

Now I did mention before that the wings were already built. But they were looking pretty tatty.

I stripped all the covering off, and found that the centre section wasn't always the colour it was, underneath the cack orange, I found an even more horriffic colour, hot pink!..

This covering is the strangest I've ever come across, I'm thinking that the centre section was once painted with balsarite or something, becuase the pigment was really REALLY attached to the balsa. It took about an hour to scrape it off with a heat gun and razor blade, it doesn't sand either it just clogs your paper faster than sanding cookie dough.

Here's a before and after shot of the wings


While all this was going on, it's time to fit the top and bottom sheeting aft on the fuselage.

This isn't taking long!!!

[Curare]

the tails are all framed up and ready to be sanded.

Now I should mention, than anyone considering building one of these, invest in a power sander, preferably a linisher, as there is SOOOO much sanding to be done to get it looking sweeeet.

[FrogChief]

Go man GO!!! :D :eek:

[Curare]

Well, it's looking like a sailplane now.

It's just a blocky one.

Here it is in it fullness.

[Curare]

AND HERE WE GO!

the sanding. THere's tonnes of it. Due to the spruce throughout the fuselage and tail I'd not suggest trying to bore through this without a power sander.

Here's the fuse before starting.

And my trusty tool to make it round, it's a 25 year old dremel, onto it's second engine now.



more to come later, but you've had all the build nourishment you need for today.

[cosmicpossum]

Geeez.....I've always LOVED the lines on the Sagitta! Well done so far, Mate! Guess I'll have to get out that XC kit I've been squirrelling now......

A word of caution: the aft fuse on these are notoriously weak and the standard practice used to be to glass it, especially for slopes.

[Curare]

You're gonna love these shots then.

After MANY MANY MANY hours of sanding, first hitting the balsa parts with the razor plane, then the dremel sander, then 120 grit then 180, then 240 the slippery shape of the arrow appeared before me.

Let me tell you guys, I'm In LOVE with these lines.


THe fuse is going to be done my usual F3A way of 3/4oz cloth, primer and paint.

Hopefully she'll be strong enough, as I am only planning on thermal soaring with this bird.

[IHAVAWDY]

either my screen is crooked or I've had too much vino but in the middle photo the stab looks out of "plane" with the wing? :confused:

[Curare]

IHAVAWDY, yeah you're right, I tend not to glue stab tubes in until I've finished the whole plane as this way it stops those little 1/8" tubes filling with epoxy, primer and paint. The tube is cut, but it wasn't in the fin when I took the photos.

[IHAVAWDY]

Good, I feel much better now, I'll continue with my bottle of wine!

[Curare]

Yes, in my wonderful mastery of the sanding block I made a boo boo.

I sanded the fuselage around where the wing root sits and lost my nice join to the fuselage, so I think I'm going to have to make a new fillet to suit the wing.

Durrr!!!

[FrogChief]

Yes, in my wonderful mastery of the sanding block I made a boo boo.

I sanded the fuselage around where the wing root sits and lost my nice join to the fuselage, so I think I'm going to have to make a new fillet to suit the wing.

Durrr!!!


YOU FAIL!!! ;) :D


On a side note, that plane looks sharp enough to kill vampires. I think it fulfills the whole "wooden stake" requirement... ;)

[Curare]

Epic fail!

hehehe.

It can be used as a stake I'm sure, but only if Buffy does it ;)

[FrogChief]

Epic fail!

hehehe.

It can be used as a stake I'm sure, but only if Buffy does it ;)

EPIC FAIL!

[Curare]

Well it's time to start covering now, but before I do, here's a couple of little pics that you might find interesting.

[Curare]

I'm planning on doing this fair dame in the original sagitta style, using metallic blue, gold and white. hopefully it should look the business. Met blue on the bottom sides, and the typical sagitta style on the top.

observe:

http://www.aerosphereonline.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/Sagitta-900_LG.jpg
Here we go, everything has been sanded, and sanded again, vaccuumed, and tag ragged, we begin.

[FrogChief]

I'm planning on doing this fair dame in the original sagitta style, using metallic blue, gold and white. hopefully it should look the business. Met blue on the bottom sides, and the typical sagitta style on the top.

observe:

http://www.aerosphereonline.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/Sagitta-900_LG.jpg
Here we go, everything has been sanded, and sanded again, vaccuumed, and tag ragged, we begin.


What a classic man. Great work.

By the way, I might of missed it in the beginning, but how did you happen upon this bird in the first place???

[Curare]

Interesting story that.

you recall the Stepp 3? Well it's still a talking point at the field, and I happened to be talking to one of the "old salts" (anyone with an LSF IV is old salt to me) about getting a new ship. I said that I love my "older women" and was waxing lyrical about a Sagitta. He said "oh I have half a kit at my house and a set of old wings if you want it". I nearly fell over. I also got given two fuselages for A dodgson windsong. It sat in my pile of things to do untill I happened on a set of plans for it, (they were missing) and the instruction booklet from one of the guys here on RC groups.

After that, I was itching to get rolling.

[alstrahm]

Curare,nice thread and great work, been following with interest, just finishing up a 900 restoration project myself, man, getting that old covering off is a bear. The fuse was glassed just not very smooth, a lot of sanding and filling. I like the transparent look over the open bays so covered one side in red and the other in blue, old eyes, so I know it's orientation to me. Just need to finish the white trim on the top and bottom, then off to fly. Keep us informed on your progress

[Curare]

Will do.

I tend to work fairly quickly as I like to keep my momentum up, or otherwise I wane, and will probably stop working when I run out of enthusiasm. I should note that I rarely use CA these days, but will work on as many things as my workbench or the jobs will allow. If this was scratch built I'd have the fuselage drying while pinning the tail feathers and fitting wing spars, and shaping the rudder.



Thankfully this has been a lightning build because of the completed wings.

[atmosteve]

Hey thanks for posting this!
I had a 900 I used to fly meets and competition with back in the 80's around SE Qld, man I miss it!
One of the best all round gliders I ever owned, fantastic on a winch (well, it was for way back then).

I'm busting to build another for flat field flying at my local club, from scratch perhaps.

Have fun and fantastic flying. :)

[Curare]

Cheers mate!

[FrogChief]

...and be sure this one lives longer than the Stepp 3. ;)

[Curare]

HEY! That wasn't my fault!! :(

[rob1978]

ha funny.. i have a set of wings from an old friend sitting in my shop right now.. only thing i'm missing is the plans and wood for a fuse and rudder.. any chance of getting a copy of the plans you have? ;)

[FrogChief]

HEY! That wasn't my fault!! :(


Sure...Thats what they all say. :cool:

BTW...save this one. It had me rolling for almost 5 mins. :D :D :D

[Curare]

ROFL!

Everyone's allowed a few stuff ups in their jobs. It's what makes me go back and try and build better next time.

:D

[Curare]

oooh I can almost taste it. Maybe I should stop chewing on monokote...

Here's the top halves done.

Just about there!

[Curare]

All this covering might make you wonder. where's the fuse in all this?

Well As I said before I hit it with 3/4 oz cloth all over, and did it in my usual pattern plane style.

So, what I do is get my laminating epoxy, (west systems!) a GOOD foam roller, make sure it's not one of the cheapies that has the roller that "pops" on and off, because as sure as my a$$ points to the ground it'll pop off and you'll go through your fuselage side with the roller pin. Don't ask me how I know.

I then cut all the peices of cloth I need, turn them over and spray them lightly with spray adhesive. THey're then layed on the model and smoothed out so there are no wrinkles and the weave is straight. crooked weave is weaker and harder to fill. Then load up your roller and roll the epoxy through the weave, and use as LITTLE as you can. when the whole thing is done, I then sprinkle microballons on the surfaces (this stops it being sticky and starts the filling process and absorbs excess epoxy), give it a light rub to make sure the micro ballons are stuck without disturbing the cloth, and then I wrap the fuse in saran wrap, to make sure the cloth sticks around corners and stuff. it works well!

After that, the first sand is easy, due to the micro ballons, block sand as far as you dare without sanding through the glass. then hit it with primer, sand that down as far as you dare, hit it again, untill the weave is filled. then one light sand and onto colour.

Here she is in primer, and covered in spot putty. I can hear some of you scream in horror, but most of it gets sanded off.


One other important thing to add, is if you're using automotive acrylics like I do, WAIT. wait a long time between primer coats as the paint shrinks while drying. if you sand too early the primer will still shrink after sanding. Patience is a virtue.

[Curare]

Right, the covering is now done.

And the fuse has been sanded and receives another coat of primer.

[Curare]

some photos of the primer work, for you primer buffs out there.

[Curare]

hehee, now you've got to wait a week for the next installment.

Colour!

[Double Pappa]

This is a great thread and a wonderful build. It has motivated me to finish my Sophie....

[Curare]

To be honest, I'm so inspired I need to start something new..

*starts to twitch*

[FrogChief]

To be honest, I'm so inspired I need to start something new..

*starts to twitch*


Hmm...how about something with flaps and ailerons!?!? ;)

[Curare]

Oh I have something in mind;)

Mind you at the moment my F3A ship is starting to fall apart, maybe I should start another 2m pattern ship....

[atmosteve]

looking nice, very nice.. Oh how i want one again... :cool:

Hey I used to fly a 60 powered Curare F3A pattern ship years ago, sweet ride!

[Curare]

I'm still chasing another one....

one day. one day I shall have my namesake.

[Thermaleer]

Nice work Curare!

[Curare]

Thanks!

A bit more spot putty went on last night, but it'll be a ways off before I get colour down, things are afoot this weekend.

[Curare]

ladles and jellyspoons, we HAVE COLOUR!

after wet sanding the fuse in the bath with 600 grit, a quick coat of white all over, (real thin on the areas that are getting trim colours just to make sure the trim colour is even ) and she's looking like a mouldie.

I'm pretty happy with the results. now all i"ve gotta do is get some time to do the trim colours.

[Hossfly72]

Two days and no updates Curare? Give us a fix!!! What's she looking like now?
Apparently, my memory is just shot because while reading this thread I just remembered I owned a 2m Sagitta. Got a goofy wind on landing approach one day and she went into a tree. Halfway up the tree, I realized it had thorns around the trunk. Once I got the plane out and started to climb back down, I twisted my knee cap out of place and screamed like a little girl! Maybe that's why I forgot the plane.....Too much pain associated with it. Love it though. It would actually handlaunch quite well and never had a problem on the winches we used way back when. I think I gave it to a friend in Nashville when I quit flying years ago. If anybody is in Nashville, look up Emerson Ford. He's got a stash of planes that'd make a preacher jealous! Eighty years old at least and I swear he could thermal a cement block! Couldn't see it, but it would fly well.
Sorry, I digress... Great build thread and beautiful plane! I'm loving it!



Hoss

[Curare]

I'm currently in the process of getting the trim colours sorted out now.

The gold will go on tonight if I can leave work early enough to get the warm weather, and then blue's next, followed by a clear coat,and we're ready for business!

[camdyson]

Just found this thread - looking really nice there Curare. I scored one (kit) in mint condition, and the fuz is awaiting shaping, wings done. Looking fwd to your finished shots.

Saw my first 900 at a comp around 1980 and decided I just had to have one - just a bit of a procrastinator :p


Still agonising over a colour scheme, but agree a "classic" one like you chose looks great on the Sagittas. Bit of balsa dust to make first anyway.

Cheers,

Cam

[Curare]

I sprayed the gold trim on last night, (actually bailed from work early to do it too!)

funnily enough a good match for gold profilm (oracover) is 1975 fiat champagne metallic!

blue will go on probably on saturday, followed by a clear coat.

[Miraj]

Awesome!!

[Curare]

Thanks man!


What has been seen, cannot be unseen!

[Lance Prior]

Nice plane!

When you going to fly it?

[Curare]

When it's done!

I doublt I'll get the blue trim, clear coat and radio install done this weekend, so I'll pin it on next week at the moment.

Unless things change of course, like time expands and I have more hours in the day.

[Curare]

IT IS DONE.

finished it on saturday night at about 6:30, she tipped the scales at 1535g or 54 oz, which is heavier that i'd like but I'm not complaning too much, she looks soooo nice tho.

I had to go to a party on saturday night which pretty well ruined me and I was unable to leave the bed for most of sunday, and hence missed a golden oppportunity to get in the air. Next weekend will tell all.

i'll see if i can get some pics tonight.

[Curare]

okay, this isn't much, but it's a start.

first handlaunch she just slipped out of my hand, needing some clicks of up,and one click of right.

I hooked her up to my little upstart, and let her rip, off to the left, off to the right and then off the top and she just sails. She's a bit quicker than my other gas bags but responds well to lift.

Second launch was even less eventful. Staight up, straight off, and a bit of a wiggle on the spoilers, she drops like a rock with them fully deployed, I might have to tone them down a little. they're savage.

Anyway, here's some shots for those that love a good pic.


I'll give you a better report when I get her up to proper launch height.

[Curare]

some gear shots for you tech heads.

[Hossfly72]

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL Curare! You need to enter that sunrise (or sunset) pic in a contest. I fly HLG these days, but I may have to start looking for another Sagitta. Had a 2 meter one (The 600?) years ago, but I never thought of it as a gas bag. It was old, heavy and fast. Very heavy! But it flew like a dream!

[Curare]

Hoss, that's my front yard, at sunset.

Well it would be if it weren't for the street and houses between me and that view.

Thanks for the compliment:)

[kzimmerm]

Great build thread! I always wanted to build a 900 and stretch by 2 bays on each side. I recall back in the mid 80's the "Stretched Sagitta" was the plane to have. It was lighter loaded and would out perform anything else in the field.....

Some day...

Kurt

[Curare]

It would be good, and I might still do that later.

Then again, I've got a sag 600 to do too,

hehehe

Now after Hossfly's comments I thought I might just enter one of the pics in the photo comp.

Which one do you think is the best?

[atmosteve]

Great pics, she looks a beaut.
Third one for composition, its a shame the wingtips got the chop.

[Hossfly72]

I like #3 but I think the "Hero shot" is #1... That sunlight just snaps!