So I came across one of my prints from the vellum drawing I did up many years back. This was supposed to be my entry in the OZNoP build last year but circumstances, other hobbies and a healthy dose of procrastination kept me from even starting before it was way too late.

But in looking around for my EAR build Taylor E2 plans that I drew up as a later teen I came across the Sky Pursuit plan again.

You can see it HERE AT OUTERZONE. Credit is shown as Planeman since it was him that stitched and blended my two separate scans together... And thanks for that. In fact looking back at the link to the long running OT plans thread Planeman went well above and beyond in his efforts to stitch and clean up plans. A real trooper to the cause he is..... But it was me that drew up the plan back in 1991 from a book I'd gotten at the swap meet at the SAM Champs I'd attended down in Jean Nevada that Fall.

So if we include from Nov 91 when I drew up the plan to now and another month or two to build and finish the model this isn't a bad record for CAP, eh? Potentially29.3 years.... Not bad... not bad.....

Anyway as you can see I've made a start today. Ribs and strip wood for the wing along with two slivers of bamboo for the wing tips split from some used chopsticks. All sitting pretty on the well yellowed black line print.

If they don't work well I'm going to try again but this time split the stock out of proper purchased chop sticks that look to be better bamboo. Or I may try splitting some BBQ skewer. I might even do a video of the bending of the bamboo around a heated forming pipe and post it to my seldom used You Tube account.

Progress finally happened over the past week. Pretty good progress in fact considering I've been feeling like I'm on the edge of a cold or some other bug and overly lazy other than needing to run the snow tosser up and down the drive 4 or 5 times now.

Fuselage went together super easy. As did the wing.

And in a fit of enthusiasm I said "no" to laminated wing tips and tail outlines and went for the period correct bamboo. I've got a stash of really nice banboo BBQ skewers that are nice and "grainy". I save them for things like this. I split three of them which split really nicely with just a touch of "steering" as the splits progressed. And after a bit of dressing off the splits with a small cabinet scraper and some light sanding I ended up with some nice roughly 1/16 square stock with the outer face a little rounded.

Just bent out the tail surface outlines this afternoon and took pictures of all the progress. Included is the old 25W soldering iron that modified as shown many years back when I did a little bent wood sides music instrument (Appalachian dulcimer if anyone cares) It's served well as my bamboo bender on a few occasions too. The lamp dimmer in the box cut into the middle of a shortened extension cord serves as the temperature control.

Every time I do bent bamboo in this way I'm reminded of actually just how easy it is. I really like it. And best of all it's the "old way".

Starting to consider colour schemes already. Thinking either mid war US Army pursuit colors or going for racing colors. If I do racing colours likely yellow and red.

Lovely.
An art worth learning.

I like the bamboo bender. That's clever.

Very cool Bruce! On your bamboo bender is that just a chunk of turned aluminum in place of the soldering tip?

Mike

It's a chunk of 1" diameter drilled out on my metal lathe then slit with a bandsaw cut part way through then has two 4-40 screws drilled and tapped cross ways to tighten to the body of the heating element. The end where the tip for soldering would fit is at the end of the aluminium.

In actual practice I went overboard. A hunk of 1" round stock drilled to the size that just lets it fit over the heating element body then given a set screw or two in from the side to hold it would have been just fine. Perhaps given a smear of heatsink compound to aid with the heat transfer.

And that sort of work could be done with a regular hand drill and a few drill sizes and a tap for the set screws. Eyeballing the alignment for the hole would be just fine since nothing would be spinning around. So something that could be well within the ability for anyone's home shop that has a suitable vise to hold the hunk of aluminium.

Even with "just" a 25 watt iron the aluminium easily gets hot enough to scorch the bamboo. I turn the dimmer up full for about 4 to 5 minutes then down to about 2/3's and let it settle for another 5 minutes and that leaves the iron hot enough that it either doesn't leave a mark or it just slightly turns the part in contact a lightly darker tan.

It's pretty magical what the heat does to the bamboo. No water or anything. You'll touch and hold and it'll start to go then suddenly goes all limp and forms around the bender like it's overcooked pasta . Then lift it away and as it cools the full stiffness comes right back.

Thanks for the details Bruce. I've bent small pieces of bamboo directly on my soldering iron but it gets to be a bit of a juggling act. I've got an old iron tucked away out in the garage, it would be useful if jigged up as you've done.

Mike

I did some of the earliest bending around the smaller iron without the "shoe". I found it worked but tended to make it harder to do nice smooth bends. Even the 1" size makes doing smooth bends a lot easier. So I think you'll like the addition.

Mine is fairly long to allow for bending the side stock on the dulcimer. It doesn't need to be THAT long but I would not want to go much shorter than 1" or there may not be enough contact area to let the heat soak into the aluminium. And if you just do a basic hole in the middle for the iron body and a set screw or two to hold it then you could probably make a set of three. Something like 3/4", 1" and 1 1/2" by about 1 to 1 1/2 long.

And in fact I might just do that myself. I've got the sizes mentioned.

Starting into all the little detail stuff now. All the bits that are big time eaters with small apparent gains. But hey, it all needs doing before flying, right?

First pic is the nose block and landing gear area.

Nothing special about the nose block other than I'll be using a brass tube bearing and not the cut away opening and stub stick as Joe Ott showed on his original plan.

Next in the same pic is the ball point pen pointing at the sacrificial medium 1/8 balsa face former. This not only holds the "tombstone" shaped hole for the nose block key but it is also there as a sandable thrust angle adjustment. The nose block has roughly what I think I need for down and right thrust. But if shims are needed I'll trim with the shims to start. But then as a final solution I'll sand away this doubler to angle the nose block the same as with the shims. So in the end I should be shim free and have a nice clean fit. At least that's the plan....

Finally on the first pic is a landing gear doubler sub longeron. After covering I'll cut a little "V" groove along the red line for the 1/32 ply landing gear to glue into and against the lower longeron. This should provide a more secure joint for the landing gear plywood and at the same time toughen up the area to hopefully avoid broken longerons from rough landings.

Second picture is the cowl area. there's an added "instrument panel cut a little undersize for the 1/32 sheet cockpit piece. And the rear former's top was small enough I left it. Notice the notches at the back which are cut at a 45. This will be for the turtle deck fairing stringers that I'll fit after the covered tail surfaces are glued in place.

And finally the tail cone. It's hollow with 1/16 sides and 1/32 bent around the back surface and sanded flush. Inside is a small 1/8 x 1/4 block that the hook is anchored into. And then I glued in a short length of 3/32 aluminium tube for the winding stooge anchor wire to secure the model during winding.... almost forgot this last bit.... I didn't try a solid block but this assembly even with the rear hook felt like nothing in my hand and seems well worth the extra 10 minutes.

Oh, almost forgot the tail surfaces. Easy enough since I had a burst of energy before sleepy time and put them together at 12:30 last... er… this morning.

That's nice. The bamboo turned out well and has a great vintage look.

The plan is to cover the tail surfaces with pre-shrunk tissue and go correctly vintage single sided.

Very historical , Bruce. Great to see bamboo in use. I may copy your heat sink type idea. Controlling that heat makes a big difference ....

Best regards,

Jeff

To stay faithful to the core I've even used proper balsa cement for much of the construction. I'd forgotten now nice it is to use. And with multiple hobbies I've got lots to do while the cement dries.

Really other than using a scroll saw to cut out some of the parts and the light dimmer for the bending iron I'm not doing much that wasn't done back in 1931. Although I did cheat on a four or five joints and use a bit of CA....