Almost done bending

Completed 3 of the 4 fuselage bends. They've gone well, but have taken longer than the instructions led me to believe. Each has taken between 25 and 50 minutes, while the instructions said they should take about 15. No worries, though. Also cut out the fuselage doublers and wing reinforcements.

Bellcrank supports

Started work on the bellcrank supports. Cut them out and glued/clamped them together. The 1/2" dowel I bought is actually 15/32", so it's too small for the holes in the nose plate. #@$%*!&....

Bending practice

Sanded the edge contours of the fuselage sides. The next step will be bending the sides, which I'm a little nervous about. I practiced on a small scrap tonight, and it seemed to work well. Don't rush...
Started work on the nose plate. Cut out, drilled holes, and glued the doubler plates to the backside.

More dados

Added the last dado to each side of the fuselage. Cut the tapers at the nose and tail. Listened to the Twins lose 8-4 to the Yankees. Boo.

First dados

Cut a few dados on the interior of the two fuselage sides.

Grooves and a jig

Cut a few thin (1/8") dado-like grooves in the fuselage sides to allow for easier bending in the next step. First cuts came out rather poorly, but the last ones looked good. Practice, practice, practice...
Also built the jig used to bend the fuselage sides.

Pedal Plane - The Commencement

Alex and I went to Rockler today to buy the first stock of wood for Grant's pedal plane. Baltic birch was on sale (50% off), so I picked up 4 2x5' sheets, for a total of $48.
A later trip to Kinko's yielded some lovely 100% copies of the blueprints ($18), and I was ready to go. After cutting out the fuselage pattern, that is.
Tip: To attach the pattern to the wood, I used an Elmer's glue stick, which held the paper well, yet allowed it to peel off easily when I was done.
Accomplished: Fuselage sides cut out, holes drilled per pattern.


Here is the goal:


Want more info about the plane? Look here.