Posted by epoxyearl |
Feb 25, 2015 @ 11:34 AM | 21,737 Views
It seems that all my life, I've seen those beautifully rounded , strip planked fuselages by someone, and thought how wonderful it must be to be able to do that.
The nearest I ever came, was to use 3" wide sheets on the large Connie of many years ago.
This year, I bit the bullet, and started a "Snow White" the 1937 model without a single straight line on it. I enlarged the plans from 96" to 120", and began cutting formers and ordering balsa trees. In this case, I bought many sheets of light 3/16" balsa, 4" X 48"... I have the Master Airscrew Balsa stripper, and I sliced several sheets into 3/8" wide strips.
It is not as difficult as you might imagine.Glue one on arrow straight at the top, bottom, and at 3 and 9 o'clock, in reference to the fuselage. Use full width strips, and do one on each side.I use Titebond 11 for edge gluing, and Medium C/A to glue it to the formers. A very light pass on one edge will be enough angle for a strip to meet it's new partner. Only two strips will require fancy fitting, on each side. I didn't taper a full length strip, rather just the ends of several where they meet at front and rear.
Harder than planking, is gluing blocks in place, and shaping them as a smooth flowing fairing, in all directions.
Posted by epoxyearl |
Feb 04, 2015 @ 03:30 PM | 22,254 Views
Last year, about this time, my computer went south, and it took about a week to get it repaired and back in my hands.
Saturday, I sold a landing gear to a Corpus Christi native, and told him I'd ship it Monday.....Well, the computer took another dive Sunday, and when I got back from the Post Office, the darned thing wouldn't light up. I desperately tried everything I knew to fix it, and finally hauled it to my computer nerd. He said he'd call with an estimate, and I said if it's less than a bill and a half, proceed with the repair.
In the meantime, I'm sweating bullets, worrying about getting a tracking number to the buyer. I traipsed off to my Daughter's house to use her computer to email the number.After getting back home, I realized I had sent the WRONG number !....by now, my neighbor was home from work, so she obligingly sent Dean the CORRECT one.
Today with my still sick computer in my possession, I sent my apologies and the true tracking, just for safety's sake.. Well Dean's okay with it, and I've learned to record everything by hand, just in case.