Thanks folks!
I borrowed the undercarriage jig idea from Rick or Lance or someone here. It's particularly helpful whenever the undercarriage does not have pre-made fitting holes in the fuselage.
Vickers: Yes, the upper cowling is vacuformed, along with the chin cowling (see earlier pages of this log for details). It was a bit of a struggle, as the first basswood master did not produce a shape and fit I was happy with, so I made a second master and fiddled with it until I got an acceptable shape and fit over the styrene stringer fuselage frame. It took about a half dozen pulls to get it right. I am happy with the way it turned out. The "fabric" portions of the fuselage are 10 thou styrene sheet over the styrene stringer frame with bulkheads. I adapted techniques Des used in his Taube scratch build log. Lots to be learned there!
Terri: I borrowed the wing technique from Des, as described in his Bataille build log. Two 1mm pieces of sheet styrene were cut in the shape of the wing then glued together in a lamination and immediately taped to a cylinder of appropriate camber/arc. Des used an aerosol can, I used the wing bending jig I made for my Lloyd C.V scratch build, which jig I also borrowed from Des as described in his Voisin build log. Allow the glue to cure overnight, and the airfoil shape will be permanent. As you can tell by now, I owe much to Des for all of these techniques. Thanks Des!
I am currently applying Von Buckles's 1mm vinyl strippers to the primed wings to make the ribs (yet another technique borrowed from Des in his Bleriot build log!). I'm really just a copycat!
I will post more pix soon.
Regards,
Bob
