Small Flying Arts

Made up a pusher prop (fan method) for the SAAB and will try it out before fully finishing (relieving the hub). P/D about 1.4:1 using the article by Fred Hall and made it fairly wide-bladed to help compensate for the small diameter. Diameter is 5.8 inches, giving me about 3mm to boom contact - may h...

Went outside last night (10PM) since it was dead calm for a test toss or two. First from a kneeling position (nice) and then from shoulder height standing. It went clear across the yard :D . Humidity was high and the covering ended up very limp. This afternoon was again near calm in the back yard so...

The tissue on the booms runs lengthwise which tremendously helps trimming the waste off and I used this characteristic to advantage when covering the remaining open frame area. I cut a handy sized scrap of tissue, smeared glue stick on the rough side. Then smeared glue stick on the spine, the two st...

Used coloured note paper for the forward fuselage/wing closure (more of an experiment...) that turned out "adequate" - re-discovering the reason that I stopped using the method more than 60 years ago. Then I formed the fillets using my preferred method - balsa sanded to less-than-paper thi...

One of my posts has gone AWOL :?: . Had a wedding last evening (14 May)! Booms joined to wing, horizontal stab attached and wing married to fuselage - all covered areas have two 50/50 coats of dope. Balanced it out and gave it a few tosses to the bed - looks promising and then put the airframe on th...

Was not able to do much over the weekend - lots of rain, high winds and shopping. Fuselage is covered to the point where I can attach it to the wing. I've left the upper rear portion uncovered to aid getting everything aligned, and the same applies to the booms. DSCF6478.jpg DSCF6479.jpg Covering ha...

Covering is progressing, with the booms done except for the portions that go over the top of the wing (for ease of alignment). The nose portion of the booms was filled with StyroDur (green foam), which is easily shaped and then coated with thinned Titebond. The fuselage is about 3/4 covered, aiming ...

More progress. Weight is climbing exponentially...

Got the nose block roughed out and started covering. The booms are a PITA to cover and are very prone to SHS (starved horse syndrome) - have to figure out a lightweight cure...

Those are actually pretty darn good times! Charlotte seems to have given the "experts " a hard time...