One upper wing done!

Well, the roundel on the bottom is wrong - too small - but an easy thing to fix.

Here's part and parcel to building....

Here's the other side of that wing:



Sigh.

So here's me re-doing it so it will be at the right scale and size:



Looks very 1960's mod here, but it got all better!



Nothing makes one madder than having to do something over because I was doing more working than thinking.

Wow!

It's gonna happen Dart....

Looking great Dart! Maybe next year year you and Chill can have dawn meetup over the AL/GA border.

Yep, she's starting to look more and more like an airplane!

Of course I caused a bit of a dustup in the WWI replica arena over paint color selection that was eerily like those in flight simulation forums. I picked the powder blue version for my Horizon Blue because it was in the range of interpretation and fit nicely in with the blue I had selected for the gear, cabanes, and interplane struts.

"The trim wasn't blue, it was gray," says one guy.
"That's not definitive, and there many written accounts of blue trim," says another.
"And that blue...it's clearly the wrong shade!"
"Oh, but look at this surviving aileron from a Nieuport 28, it's the same color!"
"Looks like an overpaint done for the Americans, and probably not done at the factory."
"Why would they overpaint a French roundel for the Americans when they used the same one?"
"Because they made some for the British, too, and this might...."

And we're off to the races with color interpretation of black and white pictures, surviving examples of fabric, autochromes, paintings, and written accounts, each backing up a different position with documentation and reasons for why the other guy's documentation was crap...though in a very civil manner.

One of the members of the forum PM'd me to say I had amazing tact and patience in dealing with some of the more ardent opinion holders and I responded that this was nothing compared to, say, the bar at the bottom of the FW-190 sight or the turn radius of the Bf-109 F4 versus the Yak-1b discussions I've read.

Like all good fussy debates I just sat back and read all the stuff, trying to separate the steak from the sizzle and actually learn stuff and not saying much because I just printed a good looking profile and aped it as best I could (and it's really not that good when one looks at it versus my plane).

SimHQ flight sim forums - teaching life skills without even trying.

In the end I must admit that the case for gray trim and the darker blue is compelling, but I'm not changing it. Switching colors in a drawing is one thing, adding paint (and thus, weight) to a flying aircraft is another.

I've got to take a step back and finish putting together the gun. It dawned on me that covering both upper wings without first coming up with a mounting system that will involve cutting the fabric and fitting said mounting system is probably a very bad idea. Since the other wing is uncovered I can use it and simply mirror the mount for the other side.

I firmly believe the rivetcounting wouldn´t stop even if people had a timemachine and could back to the orignal planes...
;=)

Of course once I got into building the gun I did a double check and found most of them are bolted onto the sheeting that goes between the upper wings and needn't of bothered.

But hey, it had to get built sometime!

Second upper wing done..



Roundels match from wing to wing...



So that's three wings down, one to go.

Next week is the other lower wing getting its leading edge, cover, and paint.

After that I have to take a week off of the aircraft in order to take care of some house maintenance, but then on to the fuselage. Of course once all four wings are done I'll have to "test fit" them to see how the plane will look with them on.

I know I am not the only regular viewer of this thread that is anxiously awaiting your builds maiden flight. Wishing you continued success on its progress to that eventual milestone and many years of flying bliss to follow.


Wheels

Wheels is correct. I'm keeping an eye on this too. Good luck, Dart!

Fourth and final wing done!

Top o' the wing...



That's the one just finished on the left, I pulled the other one out to ensure they were uniform with each other.



I still have to cut them for the landing wires, and on the upper wings do the same and make sure the interplane struts and forward cabanes fit the holes I cut in the leading edge for them, as well as make that center section.

But it sure feels like I've reached a milestone. On to the fuselage!

You have! You have wings!

Good! tidy your workplace first (trip hazard by the look of the pic)

You have no idea....

The condition of the workspace waxes and wanes with the pace of work. In this case, since I was working on just the lower wing (the other was brought in at the very end), it didn't present much of a problem - loads of room to move. So paint cans got moved around just wherever, the boards for bending the leading edge went into the space under the wing (where one doesn't walk), and the extension cords are actually pretty compact and out of the way.

In painting, the tape was just thrown out of the way to where I wouldn't stomp on it and get it caught on my shoes, and the pans with the paint in them placed in a specific place on the side by the cords to where I wouldn't step on them.

The wife snuck back to watch me work last week and remarked that I step around and over things without looking; no suprise, since I've been working in this confined area with stuff basically in the same place for almost three years.

Once I cut the wing it'll go out into the storage shed and I'll pick up all the trash, sort the tools, and sweep the area before getting into the fuselage. And then relearn where everything is! But I'll need "hopping room" to get around to both sides of the fuselage, and the top of my work table clear for new turtle deck reinforcements, making the gusset mounts for the harness, bending fuel line, manufacturing a throttle quadrant, battery box, brake mounts, instrument panel, and the top sheeting and cowling. Plus covering. I'm going to have to come up with some way to put the fuselage on its side so I can cover the bottom. I'll probably just manhandle up onto the sawhorses.

I'm at the point of the build where I'm having to use my noodle again, which can cause a slowdown in progress. I'm going to put in the panel mount after I replace the turtle deck reinforcements (since that's an easy task), and from there can figure out where to run the fuel cutoff lever. Most of the Noops I've seen have the cutoff at the tank where one can't get to it when in the air, but that's outside of my comfort zone; in the unlikely event of an emergency I'd like to be able to kill the fuel supply to the fire side of the firewall.

And I still have to come up with a good solution for rudder pedal stops. I'm guessing it's a wedge behind them, but how to make them strong enough and light as well could be a challenge. One has to be a taildragger pilot to understand just how hard one can stomp on a pedal when things start to go sideways (with all one's might is the answer).

Looking great! Thanks for posting the updates

To illustrate the difference between type certified (factory) planes and Experimental ones in building tolerances and materials I figured I'd show the installation of new turtle deck stringer reinforcements:

First, wings got put up with a small frowny face, as I failed to put towels down on the sawhorses and will need to touch up the paint in a place or two on the wings.

But it's no longer a complete OSHA nightmare!



The turtle deck supports I had made out of scrap plywood did not fare well out in the weather, since I didn't varnish them. That's okay, they were made as test pieces to begin with!



What I really wanted was something light, robust, corrosion resistant, and thick enough for the tubing to have some purchase when resting on them. Hmmmm, I thought as I looked at the aircraft supply section of Walmart, that fits the bill pretty good:



So the quarter inch thick nylon cutting board got measured using the crappy wooden ones as templates, drilled and cut.



They're held in place with rubber lined adel clips and standard (non aviation) bolts with locking nuts. They just have to keep the stringers from sagging when I cover, and are gooder enough for that (they ain't moving around), I reckon.

Our SimHQ A&P's are probably spitting at their monitors at that, but Welcome To The World of Homebuilts. While I've used AN bolts and nuts and other aviation quality hardware thoughout the aircraft, this is one part where I deviated. Why? There's no real load on those bolts, and if they fail it means the aircraft has been impacted in an inverted manner and the fuselage itself has been bent, at which point the stringer support bolts will be the least of my concerns. Second, those nuts and bolts shown cost about twenty five cents....AN4 bolts with locking nuts would cost ten dollars.

Look at those tiny little wheels.

Great undertaking Dart. Must be very satisfying. But I bet you can't wait until the first flight.

Heavy duty bicycle wheels FTW. The tailwheel is just a hard solid rubber one about four inches across.

Hmmm, restraining harness in...



And the panel is fitted and ready to be removed for instruments:



Which means I can now put on the top sheeting, which means I can cover the fuselage, which means I can put the combing around the cockpit, which means I can do the side sheeting....