Got a bit more done, mainly placing the wing mounts. This is a tedious, time consuming, and very important part, as you may imagine. You place the wing on the fuse and measure from tip to fuse on each side, keeping it even. Then, you measure from tip to tail, again making sure you have the same measurements on each side. You keep doing this until it is consistent and you are satisfied you haven't moved it a bit in the process.
Then, you mark the locations for the pins on the leading edge of the wing. Here you see the wing in place with the pins (wooden dowels) epoxied in place.


After that is done, you put it in place, and check your measurements again. Once you are satisfied, a hole is drilled through the wing and into the wing mount block in the fuse body. The holes in the mount block get tapped, and now your wing can be mounted by screwing it down into the wing saddle.
Wing mount block with holes drilled.


Nylon bolts hold the wing down. The opening in the top of the wing is for the cockpit.


The wing is mounted. Of course, the wing is only mounted on the plane for flight. For storage and transport, the wing is kept separate.


On to a different part of the plane, the tail structure, which is constructed open, is shown here. The plywood gussets add a good deal of strength to the tail. It will be painted, and simulated rigging will also be installed. The control rods for the elevator and rudder will be visible as well.

really nice work.

Thanks Navigator! I only wish I had a bit more time! Now that the weather has gotten better, outdoor projects are taking priority, so building time is cut down! I haven't even had any flight time yet this season!

Anyway, here's the next stage in the construction - the cowling.
We begin by using some balsa sticks to construct a framwork. The sticks go in two sections:from the side former to a ridge in the fuse side and form the former to the nosering. This was a pretty quick and easy bit of construction for the most part.
Here's the initial stage:


And the stage from the former to the nosering


A couple of views of the finished framework:


and


Now to add the sheeting. To do this, I soaked pieces of balsa sheeting for about an hour in rubbing alcohol and then worked it in. The rubbing alcohol dries pretty quickly. Once I placed it, I used CA and accelerator to lock the piece in place, then liberally applied CA to the interior joints of the the sheeting and frame pieces.

First the left lower side:



Then the left top:



Then the right top:


Here you can see the issue I had with the right top piece. First, it cracked when I attempted to shape it in place. Then, I wound up cutting it a bit short.



I added the bottom right piece, and then some extra balsa to fill the shape of the cracked top piece.


Then a thorough sanding. Here's that right side again, the sanding has smoothed out a lot of the problems. Before I cover it, I will sand again and use some balsa filler to smooth it out even more. Once it is covered, you will never know there was an issue there.



The fuse construction is almost completed. Next up is a wing fairing, then some work on the landing gear. Once that is done, I'll be adding in the radio equipment, and begin the finishing process - sanding, filling, and covering. I'll also be painting the open framework at the tail and adding in some rigging for looks. So the bulk of the construction is behind me, but the detail work involved in finishing it up to make it flight ready will still be time consuming.

Thanks for reading!

Nice fix.


Wheels

This sure brings back memories. I built the same kit over 20 years ago.

Thanks Wheels!

Mbeaver - cool, the cowling was a pain, wasn't it? I also didn't care for the wing joint, I'd rather epoxy the root ribs with a dihideral brace. The three brace solution was troublesome for me.

Well the construction phase is pretty much done. Now on to covering, tail assembly, radio installation and setup, engine install, and a few other minor tidbits. Then run a couple of tanks of fuel through the (brand new and never run before) engine and it's off to the field!

But I digress....

Anyway, here's my latest status update.

Here is the final built piece of the plane. It is a fairing to smooth the joint from the fuse to the wing. I wasn't crazy about how the manual said to do it, so I took a piece of balsa sheeting and did it my own way. It came out pretty well, if I do say so myself.


The landing gear wire is pre-bent, but must be joined by a wrapped solder joint. I had to buy a small torch to get this done, but it will be handy to have in the future. Here you can see the wrapped joints. I will have more vintage looking wheels, but they didn't come in yet and I threw these spares I had lying around on.





I test-installed the engine to see how the fit was...and picked up a nice wooden prop from the hobby store. I usually use APC props as they tend to be a bit more durable than wood, but I figured the wood would look nicer on this ship.


After installing the engine, I discovered that the muffler wouldn't quite fit the cowling as designed. I kinda figured that would be the case, so no big shock there. The solution? cut out a chunk of the cowling!




As you can see, the muffler now fits quite nicely.

The inside of the cowling is going to need some fuelproofing, and for looks I decided to paint it with some dark brown rust-oleum followed by a clear fuelproof paint. Here is the cowling, and a closer look at the area I cut away for the muffler.





And finally, you may recall that the tail section is left open (ie. uncovered) so I went ahead and gave it a couple of coats of paint. You'll notice that some of the tail section is left bare, that will be where I attach the stab. I wanted a good wood-wood glue joint there so I taped it off prior to painting.



Right now, the fuse is sitting on the bench sanded and ready to be covered. Pics of that will follow!

Well, it's been quite a while since I last updated this thread. It's been a busy summer, but I've been able to get some work done on the model. I hope to fly it by the end of August (even with a week at Disney World coming up!).

After filling in irregularities with balsa filler and sanding the whole thing down nice and smooth, I've completed covering the model with Monokote. For those of you not familiar with this, Monokote is an iron-on vinyl covering material. It doesn't add any strength to the structure, but it does cover the airframe nicely.

I chose a beige color to give it a fabric type look. The decals came with the model. I had some scrap red and blue to give the tail some final touches.

Starting with the tail, here are before and after pics. Remember I made a mistake on the rudder, which is shown in the before picture, and is undetectable in the after picture.



Here is a before/after picture of the nose.



Here is before and after with the wing mounted. The before pic was pre-cowling too, so you can see the development of that as well.



And here is an up close picture of the open tail section with some simulated rigging.


Next on the to-do list is to install the servos, battery, receiver, fuel tank, and switch to turn the radio gear on and off. Then I'll connect the servos to the control servos with pushrods and program the radio for the correct control throws. Next would be to mount the engine and connect the throttle servo and finally add the landing gear.

Done? Not quite! Balancing is very important, and I've laterally balanced the plane already but I'll have to balance it fore/aft. Once that is done, it's time to break in the engine for a tank of fuel or two, and then she's ready to fly!

That's coming out looking real nice.


Wheels

Thanks Wheels!