Yesterday I was able to get in a building session with Peter after quite a break so we started with a detailed overview of where we left off and where we were going next. I started hands on work by making the sawdust fly by sanding the tops of the triangle stalk placed behind the firewall for added support. The key here was to sand the tops such that they were rounded with the top of the firewall (that is rounded) and smooth with the top of the fuselage side. In order to achieve this you need to sand with what I’ll call the sanding ruler, lol, from various angels until you obtain the desired effect.
Next I sanded the slots on the tail of the fuselage where the stablizer mount fits into and also the edges of the mount itself, did a trial fit, and eventually glued it into place once I obtained the desired fit. It is important to make sure that the top of the stabilizer mount is flat with the tops of the fuselage sides as this is a key component of the aircrafts tail since the stablizer, etc will be mounted to here thus it provides the connection between the tail of the aircraft and the main body (fuselage).
Next I did a trial fit of the fuselage stringers making sure the 3 that go through the slots on F6 fit nicely with some extra (that will eventually be cut off at both ends and sanded smooth) and the 2 that but up to F6 do so with the desired shape. I then glued them in place and pinned where I could to the stringers tight while the glue dried.
My final task for the night was to start assembling the left wing. Before placing the ribs, etc. I read through the wing assembly instructions a couple times to familiarise myself with what needs to be done. Looking at where we started the wing before, with the gluing the spar doublers and pinning that along with the balsa trailing edge to the work surface. Good thing I read and looked as we had the spar doubler going the wrong way! The doubled side needs to be on the end of the wing up by the fuselage. We then took a tea break to let things percolate in my brain before starting assembly.
Upon returning I started assembly of the wing by finding the necessary pieces (ribs, diagonal braces, main spar web & rear spar web), gathering them, and then doing a trial fit with everything but the rib W-1 as need to use the dihedral gauge side of the laser cut plywood dual tool to set the root rib (W-1) at the proper dihedral angle of 2°.
Once we ensured everything fit properly, all the ribs were at, or really close, to 90°, doing no sanding since we need to make sure of a tight fit, we traced the necessary parts to mark where we needed glue and then started gluing. We did the ribs to the spar webs and trailing edge first. We then did the diagonal braces ensuring that we applied enough glue at the wider end to fill the gap. Need to make sure the diagonal braces go from wide to narrow (front to back of the wing). Ensured that all the ribs were at right angles and pinned some blocks to the far left rib (in the pic below) to keep it pressed against the spar webs where it is glued. Once all that was glued into place we glued the leading edge into the pre-cut angle slits at the leading edge of the ribs and clamped it into place (the top piece that it is clamped to is not glued into place yet but is their for something to grip). We then weighted everything down and that concluded the day as glue needs to dry.
