Sorry a litle the O.T. but please let me give my two cents about. At firs here is a very interesting thread discusion about...
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...ing-Tip-Design
Used these wing tips during many years and on many sailplanes and even powered models..., some of my own..my opinion about is that if built light they improves de performance on light lift and turning on tigh turns at relative slow speeds... use on some slopers even on the same model with and without and even performance gain is marginal but itīs there... up and down they actually does the job ..., sometimes you must have or flight same model during a time with and without them to notice the eficience... but if done righ and light improves the performance on that conditions...of course that they add some drag and a bit of less speed but on these type of models jaw dropping speed is not the only factor...
Regards buddies.
Manolo.

Thanks Manolo - all good points, and at the end of the day experience of how effective they are in practice will always be the final arbiter, Anyway - they look nice - and usually if things look right they often are. Great pictures too.

Anyway, here are some shots of the latest progress. Wings now pretty much finished, and apart from final shaping, fitting and sanding a few small jobs they are complete structurally. On to the tail feathers next. Forecast is for more snow this weekend so looks like the building season will continue !

Fin assembled today. Nothing special to report, other than I have strengthened up the structure somewhat. I don't like the very light version on the plan, so although I've sacrificed a bit in the way of weight increase I don't expect it to be a problem as there will be plenty of hardware up front to compensate. It still needs a lot of sanding, and the hinges fitted.

The rudder hinges fabricated today, using soldered brass tube & thin plate. These hinges will be carrying more load than usual (for my models) as its an "all moving" fin so a strong slop free method was adopted. I guess there was priority hardware in the original kits.

Further work on rudder/fin hinging - it has worked out okay. Wire hinge pin will be shortened in final assembly, with a small retainer fitted to allow future removal of fin if necessary.

Amazing job... top notch craftmanship... actually on my Aquilas never beef up that area and have not issues at all, just only the main tube that serves as bearing to the horizontal stab just be sure that have a very good joint so on future doesnīt have any sloopy stab issues...love how you resolve to find these kind of hinges nowdays and did them yourself...
On mine what I did is just glue as tube bearing reinforcement on each side of the stab box a conic alum. washer and hollowed the area on the farings..
Manolo.

Originally Posted by ultimatetwo

Amazing job... top notch craftmanship... actually on my Aquilas never beef up that area and have not issues at all, just only the main tube that serves as bearing to the horizontal stab just be sure that have a very good joint so on future doesnīt have any sloopy stab issues...love how you resolve to find these kind of hinges nowdays and did them yourself...
On mine what I did is just glue as tube bearing reinforcement on each side of the stab box a conic alum. washer and hollowed the area on the farings..
Manolo.

That's a nice solution Manolo - really neat. Thanks
Ref the tail feathers - I'm going to be using tissue and dope for covering, so I'm not keen to have large unsupported areas of covering. I'm going save some weight anyway as I'll be using balsa rather than ply for the fuselage sides, so hopefully the slight increase wont be an issue. Anyway, as the fin is removable it would be easy to replace with something lighter if the worst came to the worst.

Question Manolo (if you don't mind):

The 1/8th brass tubes for the stab are very short, and the wire joining stabs is only 3.75 inches long. That doesn't seem very practical to me, so I'll be lengthening them. Did you increase these too ?

Regards
Chris

Chris... actualy on mine doesnīt enlarged the stab wires... neither find neccesary to do after more than hundred of flights.. but thatīs up to you.. if you want for a peace of mind could be enlarged over 1cm. more or so.. what it is important is that the pivoting tube must be very well glued and long enough to reach the outer face of the fairing stabs, the more longer the pivot tube is the better to avoid flimsy movements and gap on control... more important too during those electric powered climbs... on my electric version what I did is widen over 1/8 inch each stab fairing and so the pivot tube, but still used the original horizontal stabs; ( built on 1.980 ) with the glued steel rods on one side of the half stab for not lost them...

Thanks Manolo - widening the root fairings sounds like a good idea, and something I will take onboard. I've used silicon sealant in the past to secure the rods, but I have to say I'm not a fan of all moving tail-planes

Stab halves finished (apart from final sanding).
As with the fin, I made these using 3/16th sq for the internal bracing, and added some further fore/aft elements to avoid bowing of the trailing and leading edge during shrinking of the covering tissue. As Manolo suggests, it's not entirely necessary but for the small increase in weight I considered a few deviations from the plan not a bad deal. Hopefully using 1/8th balsa for the fuselage sides rather than 1/8th ply will save some weight aft of the balance point to compensate. The hardware will all go as far forward as possible - so we will see Target weight for the completed model is 50 ounces or as little over this as possible. This will give a wing loading of 9 ounces/sq ft, whereas 55 ounces would give 10 ounces/sq ft.
Regards to all
Chris

A very enjoyable build log, Chris - I'm following with interest as I'm also building a similar-sized electric power glider (Olympic 2). First glider of this size I've built.

I'm glad I saw your first post regarding the use of 8mm carbon rod for the wing joiner, as I was going to use the recommended 5/16 (7mm) steel rod for the Oly but wasn't looking forward to cutting it as I only have basic modelling tools. If carbon rod is strong enough for your model then I'll use it too - I can cut that

Looking forward the rest of your build; your photos are about the clearest I've seen on here!

Steve

Hello Steve,
Glad you are following the build and find it of some use. I must say that I look at build logs all the time, as they give a good insight into other solutions to the same problems that one encounters in every build.

Ref the 8mm carbon fibre rods - I don't think you will have any trouble with them strength wise. I've used them extensively over the years in as large and larger vintage models with nitro power with no problems, and also on my Monterey 100s glider (for which there is a build log on this forum) with good results. You will find the carbon rod lighter, and obviously easy to cut with a standard hacksaw - although blades tend to go blunt quickly I'd advise you to shop around for suitable brass tube though - 8mm inside diameter tube can vary in tolerances, and many online vendors quote outside diameters with a nominal wall thickness. So some are a tighter fit than others. Likewise the tolerances of the rod can vary from supplier to supplier. In the UK I get my carbon from Easy Composites - cheap and accurate.

Work on the fuselage starts soon - so watch this space !

Cheers
Chris

Greetings all.
Stab fairings sorted out (final fitting when tail assembly mated to fuselage). They are laminated from three pieces of 1/8th balsa. These little jobs seem to take ages !
Plus some some shots of the current state of play.

Fuselage taking shape.
As I'm using 1/8th balsa rather than ply for the sides I've added a bit of carbon fibre under the 1/4 triangular corner pieces for some added strength at minimal weight penalty. Front fuselage has 0.85mm ply doublers installed.
As 36 inch lengths of balsa sheet are a little too short for the sides some splicing was necessary down aft.
So all in all nothing unusual or especially tricky in the build of the fuselage so far. Hopefully the weight savings in the fuselage aft of the CofG will compensate for the extra wood I put into the tail feathers.