Traditional balsa wood free flight aeroplanes.

[midlife]

Silly question from 40 years ago, do the plans design in some washout when you dope the wings?

 

[chriswoody]

Now that's interesting, there's no mention of wash out at all on the plans, however, I did come across the term for the first time on the website where I found the idea for the spice bottle method. The author advocated placing a thin slice of balsa under the trailing edge wing tip before then waiting the whole thing down.

http://www.ffscale.co.uk/comp8.htm

I did ponder this for a while, but in the end decided it was best to leave it. Primarily the Tiger Moth is just for me to have some fun building and then it will primarily be displayed on my desk, whilst I will try to fly it, I'm not sure if my skills are such that it will achieve much of a flight!

 

[midlife]

Thanks, I was just curious. Maybe with such a small model and a biplane it won't make much difference. Yep, lots of fun in the building

 

[rogerzilla]

I remember the smell of dope now

 

[Illaveago]

I can remember building a KeilKraft JU 87 Stuka when I was young . I thought I took great care in building it . Doped it and used bright green dope , it was all I could get .
Come the day for it's test flight . I carefully wound it up and let it go ! It flipped onto its back and crashed into the ground . I tried several times but it persisted in rolling onto its back, it hardly went forward . Thinking back now I assume that it didn't have enough side thrust to counteract the torque of the propeller !
Not sure what happened to it . I probably set light to it .

 

[chriswoody]

Well after I managed to work out how to shrink and dope the wings without warping them, it was time to use my new found skills on the Pilot and get it finished.

Doping is no longer with the infamous, fragrant dope that @rogerzilla remembers , instead the current liquid of choice is Eze dope. Unlike the old dope, Eze dope is legal to send through the post. You water it down quite significantly (70/30 water/dope) and then paint it on, before popping the parts back under the spice jars to prevent warping as they dry. Not having had any successful experience with the old dope, I can't say how it compares, but the result seems more than good enough.

There's a tiny bit of final fettling, but in essence we're done. The markings, along with the top and bottom panels of the fuselage, are cut from a printed paper sheet. The supplied sheet in the kit is tightly rolled and difficult to flatten, but their website contains a downloadable file of them as well, so I printed a fresh sheet out to use. I'm still not 100% sure about the fuselage panels, they can't be doped and are susceptible to damage, so I might yet just use some spare tissue paper instead.

Finishing the kit coincided with a period of high winds, which is set to continue for the next few days, so no proper test flights sadly. However, a tentative few throws down the garden suggests it glides well, if a tad tail heavy, so I possibly need to look at trimming it.

 

[rogerzilla]

The old dope worked like magic on the paper, but the whole house smelt like Middlesbrough.

 

[BoldonLad]

The old dope worked like magic on the paper, but the whole house smelt like Middlesbrough.

Middlesbrough never smelled that good

 

[chriswoody]

So the Tiger Moth is a completely different build to the Pilot, not least in the fact that it's meant to replicate a real airframe. So once I'd covered, shrunk and doped all of the flying surfaces, my attention turned to all of the ancillary bits which help to make it look like a real Tiger Moth. Lots of time, cutting, sanding, profiling, bending and painting later, we had this pile of parts.

With that job out of the way, attention turns next to joining the top wings together. First the oil tank is pinned back to the board, (the plain balsa construction in the middle of the picture above), on top of the plan it was built over. Then the wings are placed back over the plan they were built on and then propped up, so the wing tips are 9.5mm above the board. The inner rib was built at an angle to provide the dihedral, but blocking the wings helps ensure it's correct. The whole assembly is then glued together.

In order to cover the oil tank, VMC want you to use a paper pattern covered in tissue, you can either cut this from the plan, or like I did, download and print your own sheet of paper templates from their website.

This template has black lines printed on it, I can only presume to mimic the metal corrugations on the original. Once covered I glued the edges of the tank and wrapped the paper around it. The edges were blended in using the water/glue mix from earlier.

Attention then turns to finishing covering the top of the fuselage, first the finished top wing is used to aid placement of the cabane struts that hold it up, once they are glued in place, the top wing is removed and attention turns to covering the top of the fuselage. Like the oil tank, paper patterns covered in tissue are used to cover this area.

Some of these pieces were a right pig to work with, the small sections that sit behind the cabane struts contain many changes of angle and the edges of the tissue paper needed folding over to hide the edges of the paper, this part drove me crazy.

The finished article looks pretty good though, it's a little wrinkled in the photo, but it's still drying out and looks pretty good now, not perfect, but more than good enough. Close to glueing the wings on now and finally it might start to look like an aeroplane.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Very nice; I really appreciate good model making.

 

[chriswoody]

Thanks @Andy in Germany that's nice of you to say. I've not done anything like this in years, so I'm going very slowly and feeling my way, I'm just happy that it looks like an aeroplane!

 

[Illaveago]

I've got a problem !
It is a bit related to modelling . I can remember back in the late 60's when my friend and I were into model aeroplanes , the powered variety that we had to use hot fuel proofer to protect the paintwork and also preserve the wood from rotting . It was a problem with the new E10 petrol that reminded me of it . It can soften some paints .

 

[Jameshow]

So the Tiger Moth is a completely different build to the Pilot, not least in the fact that it's meant to replicate a real airframe. So once I'd covered, shrunk and doped all of the flying surfaces, my attention turned to all of the ancillary bits which help to make it look like a real Tiger Moth. Lots of time, cutting, sanding, profiling, bending and painting later, we had this pile of parts.

View attachment 646503

With that job out of the way, attention turns next to joining the top wings together. First the oil tank is pinned back to the board, (the plain balsa construction in the middle of the picture above), on top of the plan it was built over. Then the wings are placed back over the plan they were built on and then propped up, so the wing tips are 9.5mm above the board. The inner rib was built at an angle to provide the dihedral, but blocking the wings helps ensure it's correct. The whole assembly is then glued together.

In order to cover the oil tank, VMC want you to use a paper pattern covered in tissue, you can either cut this from the plan, or like I did, download and print your own sheet of paper templates from their website.

View attachment 646504

This template has black lines printed on it, I can only presume to mimic the metal corrugations on the original. Once covered I glued the edges of the tank and wrapped the paper around it. The edges were blended in using the water/glue mix from earlier.

View attachment 646505

Attention then turns to finishing covering the top of the fuselage, first the finished top wing is used to aid placement of the cabane struts that hold it up, once they are glued in place, the top wing is removed and attention turns to covering the top of the fuselage. Like the oil tank, paper patterns covered in tissue are used to cover this area.

View attachment 646507

Some of these pieces were a right pig to work with, the small sections that sit behind the cabane struts contain many changes of angle and the edges of the tissue paper needed folding over to hide the edges of the paper, this part drove me crazy.

View attachment 646506

The finished article looks pretty good though, it's a little wrinkled in the photo, but it's still drying out and looks pretty good now, not perfect, but more than good enough. Close to glueing the wings on now and finally it might start to look like an aeroplane.

View attachment 646508

My dad half built a plane called ironsides prob about 4' span low wing but with same style of fusilage as yours I'll try and find designer probably Vic smeed!

I must finish it with him!

 

[gbb]

Brings back memories of watching my dad building those kits.

Brings back memories of me doing them, whacking great plans spread over the dining table, great fun

 

[gbb]

for the life of me, I can't remember if, or how I used to dope tissue on to an airframe or wings now I see the term washout above. I do remember the smell, lovely.