The Tommy

[lone modeller]

"Seems to work well"? Seems to work very well to me!

Stephen.

[RAGIII]

Such Beautiful work. I am always in AWE!
RAGIII

[Alexis]

Thanks again Ken , next time I'm at Walmart will be hitting the sewing section and toss the orange thread I have been using .


Terri

[kensar]

There are many common everyday items that can be used in modeling. 
Also, check out craft stores - look in the 'beading' section for small tools, rigging line, small wire, crimping tubes, etc.

[kensar]

Working on the wings

The top wing cores and skins before gluing them together.  The bottom wings are skinned.

[RAGIII]

Your wings are looking great! Sorry if I missed this but what do you use as a core?
RAGIII

[kensar]

Hi Rick,  The 'core' is five 0.020" thick sheets laminated together over a curved surface to put some camber in the wing.  The skin in 0.010" sheet with embossed ribs, done with a drafting ink pen (no ink in it), like Woodman has shown in his book.  I am skinning the top of the wings and using decal film strips on the bottom of the wings to simulate the rib tapes.  The Tommy's wings have very little camber and look pretty much flat.

When gluing the top wing skins on, I mis-aligned the cut out for the ailerons with the first rib on each wing, one being farther from the cut out than the other.  This would be very noticeable.  So, to hide this, I have sanded the first rib impression off each wing.  I figure it was the best course of action short of making another wing.  The arrows show where this difference is.



A couple of shots of the mostly finished tail.  A lot of stuff going on there.

[Alexis]

Hi Ken , I like how you did the mod on the top wing , very effective . Super job on all those tiny details on the tail , there is a lot going on 


Terri

[kensar]

Thanks for the comments, Terri.  I'll be doing some final sanding on the wings next.

[RAGIII]

Stunning work on the tail and fixing the wing. Looking absolutely Fantastic!
RAGIII

[kensar]

Thank you, Rick.  We'll see how the wing looks when its painted.

[Bughunter]

Wow Ken, that is again great scratch work!
I have to repeat it: you don't need a kit - no mass production kit producer can do such nice details as you shown here on the tail!
B E A U T I F U L !!!

Cheers,
Frank

[lone modeller]

Stunning detail on the tail unit. I like your method of making the wings but I am not sure that I will try it as I prefer to use the solid units and ribs via plastic strips, but your results certanly justify your methods.

Stephen.

[kensar]

Thanks for stopping by, Frank.  I guess I don't need a kit anymore, but it sure takes a long time to build one.

Stephen, thanks for commenting.  There are some pitfalls using my method - I put too much liquid glue on one wing core and the skin wrinkled.  I'm working that out now with putty and sanding.  I do like the solid wing, though.  It makes for very solid mounting points for struts and rigging.

[kensar]

After carefully looking at the upper wings, where I had put too much glue, the rib detail has 'disappeared' in spots and is not consistent.  I think the embossing was not heavy enough and too much glue sunk it into the top surface.  So, to salvage these wings, I am considering sanding off the embossed ribs and putting on strips of 0.020" styrene and blending them into the surface.  I'm thinking polyester resin for fiberglassing is a potential way of doing that.  Yet another experiment.