Well now I've gone an done it, my first attempt at scale sloper of my own design. I’ve always had a fondness for racing aircraft, especially the modified warbirds. There already seem to be quite a few Mustangs, Aircobras, etc flying at the slope. I wanted to try something different and looked at the Sport Class racing aircraft. The most appealing to me are the RV-6, Lancair and Nemesis NXT. I decided on the NXT because I really like the look. It’s my first completely scratch built glass plane and boy what a learning process it’s been.

The design part was reasonably straight forward. I found a lot of pictures and a set of side and top views. I just traced out the side & top in AutoCAD and started making adjustment. I decided to work toward a 48” wingspan plane. I looked at some of the Slope Scale kits and found that most seem to be around 30” long, so that’s the size I scaled my drawing to. I consulted the experts here on the group and the consensus was to narrow the fuselage a bit and stretch the wing and tail. I did that and decided on an 8.5 % RG14 airfoil for the wing.

I decided to start carving a plug. I couldn’t find any large pieces of basswood around here, so I went with foam covered in glass. This decision while initially appearing to save time, a few incidents with the foam almost ended the project.

Glass, prime and fill the plug. This is where one of my mistakes happened. I had a hole about ¼” diameter in the wing saddle. It was right at the wing leading edge and the bottom of the cowl, so it was going to show and had to be filled. I had the Bondo glazing compound handy squirted in a big glob. Initially it looked good, but there was a hidden surprise! When I started to sand it dropped into a bigger hole about ¾” diameter. The bondo had eaten away the foam in that area. So make sure you don’t use that glazing compound on your unprotected foam plug.

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I cut out a parting board and mounted the plug in it. I used ¼” hardboard because I had it on hand, ½” melamine shelf board would be a better choice. I used 3 layers of 6 oz and 1 layer of 12 oz glass for the mold. The first half came out pretty good, just one hole near the edge of the spinner that had to be filled. I decided to fill it with epoxy and cabosil. Here in Utah it was too cold in the basement to properly cure the epoxy so I set a halogen lamp about 12” above that area to heat it. It was a great idea that with help from the cat came the closest to ending my project. The cat knocked over the lamp and I found it about 2” from the plug in the morning. Remember my plug is glass covered foam. After work I took a closer look and at first it looked ok. I touched the spinner area and watched it crumble. The heat from the lamp had melted the foam inside the glass all the way back to about the first ½” of the cheek cowl on the right side. I had to cut out the damaged area, add foam and sand it back to shape. So lessons learned: 1. Make both halves of your mold before making any repairs. 2. If you use a foam plug secure any heat sources and keep the damm cat out of the room !

Cool,thats a funky lookin plane.
Are you doing the same paint job as in the pics?

Good luck

Tim

I used three layers of 6 oz glass and a 2” strip of 6 oz carbon fiber to stiffen it up. The first two layers of glass are full length, the third piece runs down about 2/3” of the fuselage. The carbon strip runs full length and really seems to help stiffen the fuselage. I had hoped to try joining this one in the mold, but just couldn’t get the hang of it. I had to use the tried and true method of spot gluing the halves together with CA then gluing in a 1” piece of glass on the seam. I think it turned out ok. The second fuselage I managed to glue the seam while it was still in the mold. It looks much better that this one.

The wing is a blue foam core with balsa trailing edge and a laminated basswood leading edge. I covered it with one layer of 6 oz glass and 1/64 ply skins. The tips are plain old balsa blocks. I used about 2" of dihedral and it seems about right. All the tail parts are 3/16 balsa with 3/4 oz glass.

My First Nemesis NXT is assembled and I can't wait to test fly it.

We had a windy day come up this weekend. So I headed for the point of the mountain to get a test flight in.

Really nice plug. What primer is that?

Thanks. I have been using plain old Kyrlon. The color on the plug is their 1318 All Purpose Primer Gray.

I've got a two short videos, but they are too large to post. They are 29 MB & 121 MB MPG files. I need to find a converter to make them smaller, cause zipping doesn't do much.

SteveB

Love that NXT, Steve. Can't wait to see which color scheme you decide to go with.

And, of course, I can't help noticing that you have another interesting project going there...

Vary racy. Excellent molds and plugs, will be refering to this for my Zulu build.

killer

Originally Posted by SteveB

We had a windy day come up this weekend. So I headed for the point of the mountain to get a test flight in.

And.............................................? It's not nice to keep us all hanging!