J H Models wooden biplane jig.

[DaveM]

I know its not a completely new product,but I thought you might like to share the experience with me on this accesory,I bought one of these at the Hinckley show from Littlecars stand,UK price of £28.00,product No 4802.
Made of wood from the Czech Republic with laser cut shapes to allow you to construct a biplane assembly jig.Also included are a number of nuts,bolts,butterfly nuts,rubber bands and a strip of rubber material.Instuctions are pictorial with Czech/English text,and on the header card are 2 photo's of the finished article.
I'm unsure of the wood used,but its of a softish type,but harder than balsa,but my sample had some dents,nothing too serious though,possibly from a rough transit!
First off,I cut out the parts,there are for the most part,2 'nubs' that you have to cut through to release the part from the main frame,then I sanded the nubs and the piece.Where there were nuts to be glued into certain pieces,I hollowed the joining face a little as the bolts sat a little proud.Then I applied 2 coats of sanding sealer to all the pieces,(Mmmmm,sanding sealer,I was high for couple of hours after that little exercise!),then I remarked all the calibration marks with a black pencil,(I tried a felt tip first,but the wood was still too absorbent and leached a bit!), this was followed by 3 thin coats of Tamiya gloss varnish just to seal everything in and provide extra strength and protection to the pieces.Then I sourced some washers as I reckoned that tightening up the nuts and bolts without them would cause some damage to the wood.The rubber strip was cut into 5 lengths and applied to the appropriate pieces with 5 minute epoxy,the instructions reccomend CA glue,but that stuff hates me with a passion,so I played safe.The 3 rubber bands that are supplied is so that you can secure your model to the stand for transportation purposes.
IMHO,I think its a tad overpriced,but it does save me having to dig out my Lego blocks,Now I suppose I'll have to see how it performs,mmmm,which kit to dig outta the stash.......

Parts cut out,sealed and varnished.

Base unit with support blocks and feet added.

Assembled unit,now awaiting a model!

Dave.

[coyotemagic]

I look forward to your thoughts on how this one works.  I have both the Aeroclub and Sram(?) jigs but never use them because the Sram is challenging to adjust and the Aeroclub scratches the paint.  This on seems more practical than the others.
Cheers,
Bud

[Graham t]

I'm afraid I hve one of these & never used it.  In addition to it being missing quite a few parts on receipt (nuts, etc.), it's just too imprecise, flimsy & lightweight.  I hope you have better luck!

[DaveM]

Just placed a model in the jig,and have noticed some misgivings already.The model has the port aileron dropped,which doesn't allow the wing to fully butt upto the stops on the wing support arm.Looks like I'll have to rig up some packing pieces.There are no vertical alignment aids for the upright pieces,making it especially difficult to judge if the jig is set square,most noticable on the tail support piece.Perhaps taking it apart and drawing some vertical reference lines may do the trick!I too was/am concerned about the light weight of the whole jig,but it appears sturdier than I first thought,but maybe could do with a bit of metal affixed to the underside of the base unit.I'll have to have another think on it,where's that sanding sealer,Mmmmmm.
Dave.

[IvotB]

I have one of those jigs too. I didn't really use it yet. I am planning to build a 1:72 Farman HF20 kit from Omega and I am going to use the jig them. I don't know how I will be able to build this kit without such a jig. So when I do I will share my experiences with the jig here.

regards,
Ivo

[DaveM]

DOH,just plain stupid (stop tittering at the back there!),senior moment or too much intake of sanding sealer fumes,but my gripe about the wing supports fouling the dropped aileron has resolved itself,DOH!Just move the wing support arms inboard of the ailerons on the wings!!!
Another thing I hadn't noticed was that the wing support arms are paired,something thats not that clear on the destructions.I hadn't paired them and consequently,one arm was lower than the other,DOH!Again,thats now resolved!
RB,yes the rubber and wood components do help avoid paint scuffing,and some of the screw accessibility postions could have been better thought out,especially those under the base for the wing and tail support uprights.
IvotB-good luck with your jig,and keep us updated on your use of it.

Dave.

[pepperman42]

Just cant see myself paying that much for it....but then I spend a bomb on other stuff......

Steve

[IvotB]

IvotB-good luck with your jig,and keep us updated on your use of it.

Just to show my ideas about using this jig. I dated my purchase back to 2008, but as said before I didn't really use it yet (I haven't been building much biplanes).

Here you see a Fokker C.V sitting on the jig showing how it can be used:



The idea behind this jig is that you can position the wings correctly above each other and then glue the wing struts and cabane struts in between. The support behind helps in positioning the fuselage at the correct angle to the bottom wing. All supports can be adjusted and there are scales on the parts to put them at the correct angles:

.

The vertical wing supports at both sides of the fuselage can be put at the right angle allowing the leading edges of the wings to positioned correctly to eachother. Then the angle of attack on each wing can be set as desired. If you have positioned the back support correctly now you can glue the fuselage to the bottom wing and after that glue the top wing to the cabane and wing struts. You can then leave all glued joints to dry as long as you wish having all parts in the correct postion. This is all theory, but this is how it should work.



Now onto my ideas for using this jig on the Farman HF 20:



The kit comes in a lot of resin parts and 2 steel rods to connect the wings to the elevator and rudder (similar to the DH2)

You also see a rather poorly detailed fuselage, but as far as I can judge this the shape is correct. On the internet I found some really helpful 3D drawings made by DraganSaler (copyright 2004 and 2007) (follow this link) These drawings will help me put some detail on the inside of the fuselage. There is a replica of the HF 20 in the Luchtmacht Museum in Soesterberg, but at present they are moving and have stored this plane. Besides that I expect that compromises will have been made.

But back to the jig:

I plan to first position the wings correctly above eachother and then glue all struts in between:





I am not particularly pleased with resin struts as I expect them to be rather fragile, but because there are so many I hope it will be enough.

Then the fuselage can be glued to the bottom wing and the elevator should be positioned correctly on the back support.



Then the 4 steel rods between the wing assembly and the elevator can be attached. After that it is just painting, decalling and rigging 

regards,
Ivo

[Chris Johnson]

After the wing stagger fiasco on my recent WnW Bristol Fighter, I've been considering investing in one of these jigs so that mistake never happens again. Frankly though, from what I see here, I think I'd get too frustrated just trying to get one of these rigs set up properly. I wondered about whether they'd scratch the model's paint too, and it seems that they do, so that's another negative for me.

Does anyone feel like elaborating on using Legos to make a jig? It sounds intriguing.

Cheers,

Chris

[coyotemagic]

After the wing stagger fiasco on my recent WnW Bristol Fighter, I've been considering investing in one of these jigs so that mistake never happens again. Frankly though, from what I see here, I think I'd get too frustrated just trying to get one of these rigs set up properly. I wondered about whether they'd scratch the model's paint too, and it seems that they do, so that's another negative for me.

Does anyone feel like elaborating on using Legos to make a jig? It sounds intriguing.

Cheers,

Chris

Chris, so far the very best jigs I've ever seen are the ones that come with some of the Pheon sheets.  I've used Rowan's jig on my Dolphin and I'm fixin' to use his jig on the Halberstadt twins.  The jig that comes with the Biff sheet is brilliant and, in 1/48 scale, can be used with either the Eduard or Roden kits.  Not sure if any of the 1/32 scale decal sets come with a jig.  Maybe someone else can chime in on that one.  At any rate, once you've used one of the Pheon jigs, it's a simple matter to apply that same style to any aircraft using Datafile drawings as a guide to make your own.
Cheers,
Bud

[Rizzo]

Well I hadn't thought about using lego as a jig before reading this thread, but it seemed like a great idea. And as my son and wife are both big fans of lego, there's not exactly a shortage of the stuff around here.

So I had a go at making a jig a little bit like the ones posted here. Took a lot of parts to make it all rigid but it works quite well and is nice a stable Three controls... one for upper wing height , one for wing offset, one for tail height... yeh I had a really lazy bank holiday Monday 

[pepperman42]

That is awesome - I think I have most of those parts too!!

Steve

[GAJouette]

  It kind of reminds me of one of those Rube Goldberg mouse traps. Excellent jig Rizzo.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[Edo]

Hey Rizzo!
That's awesome! You should post the instruction for that jig!
Then I just had to steal from my childrens' 
They already argue with me each time I go modelling instead of playing with them, figure it out if they were to discover I stole their LEGO...
I think I will have to buy my own...
Ciao
Edo

[coyotemagic]

Brilliant, Rizzo!  That's the most elaborate Lego jig I've ever seen.
Cheers,
Bud