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[Dan Workman]

Hi Simon.
I used 15mm strips of 3/32 balsa cut with a steel rule and scaple. The time consuming bit is shaping each strip, each one needs a bevel to make a nice tight joint, especially round the tighter radius towards the top of the former. Also, because i used 15mm they needed tapering towards the nose. 10mm would have been easier but a lot more strips and glue joints.
Mainly used Aliphatic glue because it sands well and bit of thin cyano to tack in various places

[Simon Clark]

Thanks Dan - Sounds like a very careful and time consuming process is required, but well worth the effort.
One day, I would like to do something similar myself, but I think it would take me about a week to do each plank, so maybe a decade to build a complete plane!


Simon

[Dan Workman]

Fuselage is pretty much complete now. Just the rudder to cut out and face.
Planking the bottom of the nose was very time consuming, each piece had to be shaped and soaked to bend up to the nose ring. Also aliphatic meant only 2 strips at once. Worth it though, even with a rough sand its come up nice.


Happy with weight, its 880g at the moment with the canopy, so prob be about 900 when its cut out and hinged. So its about 20g lighter than the old one, without using contest grade balsa

[Graham Gooch]

Hi Dan,


Very impressive and great building skills, let alone patience.


Well done, it's good to see that traditional building skills still exist rather then all these composite offerings.


Graham

[Dan Workman]

Thanks Graham.
Few pics of the finished fuz.

[Peter Jenkins]

Great work Dan!

[Dan Workman]

So the airframe is pretty much ready to cover now, hoped to have had it flying for the next comp but that seems unlikely now. Small things like checking the wings are square seem to take ages, especially when you cant put it together easily in your shed! Cutting ailerons out was also a pain, mainly because theres 4.
Not too many pics of the wings, but heres the ones i took.

[Dan Workman]

The wing structure was glued to the bottom sheeting as a whole, then each half had the top sheeting glued on seperatley. I used a jig top and bottom, weighed down, which i've done with all my wings. As long as the bench is flat, so should the wing.

[Dan Workman]

Tail is very basic when there's no elevator or servo!

[Dan Workman]

So this is where its at at the moment, bar the ailerons and rudder being cut out

[Peter Jenkins]

Looking good Dan.  Great workmanship.  Seems a pity to cover all that beautiful balsa wood!

[Dan Workman]

Got it finished and flying this weekend. Had 4 flights with it yesterday, even managed a p19 with it on the last flight.
Very pleased with it so far, bit of work to do with it re rudder trim but apart from that its great.
As with most biplanes, rudder is very powerful making rollers and ke manoeuvres a lot more stable and easier to control. Problem is the powerful rudder control amplifies any unwanted yaw trim.
It was very calm aswell so will be interesting to see how it performs in the wind.

[Graeme Jones]

Hi Dan - brilliant. I wish I could still build that quickly! What's next, triplane or quadriplane?


Graeme

[AUGUSTO RAMBO]

Olá Dan, muito lindo ver oque você construiu, teria um lugar onde eu pudesse baixar os plano de corte?
Sou do Brasil e ficaria muito grato.


Augusto

This is the translation from Brazilian....

Hello Dando, very nice to see what you built, would there be a place where you could download the cutting plane?
 I am from Brazil and will be very pleased.