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**mlachow** · 02-09-2022, 02:23 AM

Major accomplishment, the LE sheeting is completed. The wings look straight and stiff now. I still have a few areas to fill in sheeting and a few capstrips. The rear wing pin also needs to be installed, wiring, and I have to build some spoilers.

**mlachow** · 02-10-2022, 01:55 AM

I added a few more cap strips. Tomorrow I'll rip some really heavy balsa for the wing LE.

All the spoiler parts are cut and the holes all line up correctly for operations. I just used some 1/16 dowel pins to test the alignment of the parts. I need to apply some finish to some of the parts before it all gets installed.

**Swiss1** · 02-10-2022, 06:24 PM

A word of warning, I would replace the connection between the two spoilers with something more durable, such as G10!
Why you ask? At one time I had a glider with dual spoilers and one of the wood connections between the two spoilers split!
Save yourself a headache and change it, good insurance!

My

cent's worth.

Jeremy

SCC

AAA TT TN

**mlachow** · 02-11-2022, 02:03 AM

The leading edge was glued on and shaped. The inner 4 ft of the LE is made form some really, really hard balsa that came with a LoneStar sheet order years ago. It must be 30lb wood.
I also used a saw to clear the ribs for the spoilers. This Lee Valley plane is my favorite one for working on models.

The end result is a nice garbage can of balsa shavings.

**mlachow** · 02-13-2022, 02:45 AM

I built a locking drive for the spoilers kind of like on the commercial ones I need to finish installing it. I can remove it by pulling the two pins from the back of the box.

.

**mlachow** · 02-18-2022, 02:05 AM

Some real exciting stuff...... I cleared the temporary fuselage formers from the front of the fuselage and glassed the inside. Now I have a layer of glass over and under the 1.5mm ply strips on the front end. I did add a little west systems filleting mix along the ends of the stringers to cut down on bubbles under the glass over those places.

I also have all the bits for the wing mount ready. I still need to put some of the top sheeting near the root on the wing. But it is ready to set up the wing mount. First I have to build a nicer fuselage stand to hold things while checking alignment.

Other exciting stuff is doing the graphics for the paint masks for some fuselage stripes and rudder stripes. I considered doing an orange sailplane Schwarzhornfalke. But I ended up deciding to do D-8356. Nice white with red trim. Although the red stripes on the rudder are a little complicated. I'm going to give Oratex a try.

**mlachow** · 02-21-2022, 01:53 AM

The cover or the wing center section is built over the wing mount. It covers up the wing joiner, wiring, etc. Cross pieces get glued to the end ribs. Then the top sheeting is glued on. Finally some filler pieces for blending into the canopy and rear of the fuselage out of some balsa with creative bandsaw cutting.

**mlachow** · 02-21-2022, 01:58 AM

It is a simple canopy frame. The rear shape matches the fuselage and wing fairing. The front piece has a doubler in the middle since it is always a pain to glue up front and you need some place to hold the front pin on the frame. The side is some basswood. I stacked some short pieces at each end to reinforce the corners of the frame. and add a little more gluing area of for the front and rear plywood. It is pretty small. Especially compared to the big piece of plastic that I have to hack up for the small piece I need.

**mlachow** · 02-25-2022, 05:17 PM

Nose cone done. Laminated up some 1/8 balsa cut in slices. It's actually some bad 1/8 that I purchased that did the potato chip thing. So it is a nice balsa ply lamination now.

The fuselage is in the stand I made from some ply and EPE foam glued to the inside shape. I just have to unscrew it from the center board and I can attach to the fuselage carrier in the van when I take this one out.

**mlachow** · 02-26-2022, 01:51 AM

I did some work on the hinge lines. It is nice to tune the holes so the hinge goes in the correct depth. The "christmas tree" bit in the Dremel is perfect for that. The taper is just about right to open up just the top of the hole to get the hinge to slide in the depth that you want. I checked all the hinge lines on the model. It is also a good time to double check the radius on the curved leading edges for proper clearances before covering.

If you really want shape slots on the rudder or some other surface, face the edges around the hinges with some 1/64 plywood. This sands to a nice sharp slot.

**mlachow** · 02-26-2022, 11:43 PM

Sometimes things are just simple and easy. The wing tips are pretty simple on this one. Just a block and the bottom surface angles up to the top. I still have to make some skids for the tips.

**mlachow** · 02-28-2022, 12:56 AM

I'm going to try something different for covering. Oratex. It is mostly white so I will cover everything with oratex white and then do the red trim with paint. I got out my IR thermometer and checked my covering iron calibration. The dial is off by about 40 degrees. For some fun I tried something challenging, putting some covering on the center section cover. Multiple curves and concave curves. I was able to get a piece on there nicely at the low temperature stretching and getting it to follow the curves and even wrap around the thin ply edge. No cutting slits like on common plastic films.

There is a magnet to hold the canopy and wing fairing. I found some square magnets. They are a lot easier to cut some indentations with a chisel for gluing.

**mlachow** · 02-28-2022, 09:31 PM

The canopy is an interesting cutting project. It is a really big canopy intended for a much larger skylark.

As you can see it is a bit oversized.

After a few stages of cutting this is what I ended up with.

I think I cut it a little too far back It might have been a little better a little more forward in the canopy I was cutting from. It looks OK.

**mlachow** · 03-01-2022, 09:57 PM

Checking the fit of the pilot and the panel. I just cut some balsa to the panel size to see how things fit before making the actual panel. The model is 4.2 scale but the 1:4 pilot still seems to fit OK.

The tow release servo sits below the pilot.