Okay, so it's not truly a scratch build since I'm building from plans, but you know what I mean. The full sized plans will be here on Friday, but in the meantime, I've been working out a lot of the details, using the screen images available online. This is a big 96" wingspan, 18 or 20 pounds, and will be powered by a Super Tigre 3000 on glow. With the full lifting stab, it'll be a fun, lazy flier, kind of like a Telemaster.

The plans call for a lot of spruce spar material, 1/2" x 1/2" for the main spars, and 1/2" x 1/4" for the rear spars, along with a pair of 1/2" x 1/4" fuselage stringers. I went to the Home Depot, and found a couple of nice hemlock 1 x 4s, and ripped them on the table saw down to the sizes needed. I have a couple of full sheets of lite ply on hand, so I plan to use it in place of some of the balsa on the plans.

Photos to follow once the plans get here. Any tips or hints are gladly accepted!

I've done the same thing with spars except I used Douglas Fir from Lowes. I wouldn't substitute lite ply if the plans call for balsa. I'd just go with balsa.

You better take out a second mortage if you're going to be flying that thing often. Those big Super Tigres are pretty thirsty. A buddy of mine had a 2500 and told me he could easily burn a gallon of fuel in one day of flying.

Post lots of pics.

carl

Hi Carl, don't worry, the lite ply will only be used for stuff like wing tips. the elevator and rudder cores, and the forward sides of the fuselage.

I mix my own fuel with 0% nitro, so the big Tigres are fairly inexpensive to operate.

Lots of pics to follow. The plans are being delivered today!

As promised, here's the first pictures. These are the hemlock spars I cut yesterday.

The plans arrived this afternoon, so I started out by cutting the forward fuselage sides, and the rudder and wingtips out of a sheet of lite ply. Using a framing square and a 4' ruler is kind of odd for model building, but hey, it works!

I also cut out the firewall from 2 pieces of 1/4" ply, glued them together with Gorilla glue, then clamped them up really tight.

Next, since I had the mini table saw set up, I cut the dihedral braces for both wings out of 1/4" plywood. The top wing has no dihedral, so the pieces are really just splice backers.

Tomorrow morning I start gluing pieces together!

I got a bit of work done today. First up was the framing of the vertical stabilizer and rudder. All hinged up and ready for final shaping to come later.

The two fuselage formers were built next.

Then I finished up the lite ply fuselage sides, and they're ready to go.

Next step was to start framing up the fuselage. The upper stringer is a 1/2" x 1/4" hemlock piece, with the rest being balsa. Everything aft of the wing is truss framed. Once I finish the framing, I will lay on the lite ply sides, which will be on the inside of the fuselage.

Looks like you're really moving out on this build. Is this going to be flat bottomed airfoil or semi symmetrical?

carl

I'm building it with the flat bottom airfoil. I want this to be a lazy day flier. I have lots of of other planes for stunting around.

Here's a shot of the two fuselage sides constructed. This morning, I applied the lite ply sides, properly weighted down to ensure flatness.

Yesterday I added the two bulkheads, then the other fuselage side. Next was pulling in the rear half of the fuselage, adding the crossmembers, the tail wheel mount, and finally the bottom sheeting. In between these steps, while glue dries, I've been cutting out the turtledeck formers.

Looking good. That thing is going to get big in a hurry.

carl

It is going to be a big plane!

Today I got the turtledeck formers installed, along with the wing bolt plate. I also got a start on the horizontal stab, first with the elevators. I'll finish up the stab tomorrow.

Now is a really good time to build both wings before you go a whole lot further on the fuse. You can check the bottom wing incidence against the top of the fuse and also the stab incidence. If you have to make corrections its much easier. Plus, with the f1 through f3 sheeting not in place yet, you can glue a jig to hold the top wing exactly in place while you bend up the cabanes, using the top of the fuse as a zero reference. Get the cabanes soldered up then knock the jig back off. I see the cabane mounts aren't glued in yet. Obviously you'll have to do that before you jig up the top wing. Two pieces of 1/4" plywood, cut from the plan side view with exactly the right height and incidence will make locating the top wing pretty easy.

carl

Thanks for the tip Carl, I was puzzling over how to make that work. I guess that means I get to spend tomorrow making wing ribs, something I look forward to, not!

I got the horizontal stabilizer built this morning, all pretty straight forward stuff.