Mindwarp

Hehe, well thanks I've certainly made mistakes on this kit, but so far I've kept them minor and easily fixable. Every time I have an 'oops' moment I just remember what my old driving instructor used to say to me:

"Experience doesn't stop you from making the mistakes, it just makes you a lot better at covering them up!"

Every one's a learning experience, and so far I've managed to cover up the little mistakes pretty well

abufletcher

Everything looks great to me and I'm enjoying your build. But EVERY kit can be improved on so unless you are trying to write a kit review it's probably best not to follow the instructions too slavishly. You can always build something stronger or lighter or more scale or more practical. I told myself I wouldn't change a thing on my Flair Legionaire build but I've already "upgraded" the UC to one with full suspension, reinforced the very twisty lower half-wing (added rear sheer webs and sheeted the lower LE to front spar, replaced the cheap mylar hinges with pin-style hinges, filed the aluminum bar stock cabane struts to an aerodynamic shape, modified the rear stab so that it can be attached with screws instead of epoxy (which of course also means I can adjust the incidence angle), and replaced the solid fuse bottom with a removeable panel. I'm sure I'll end up making one or two other changes. None of these are major alterations but simply the result of looking at the kit (any kit) with a critical eye.

With my Puppeteer, I'm pretty sure I'm going to replace the single wing servo with a pair of servos considering that this one servo is supposed to drive four ailerons via a bellcrank system and two sets of push rods. I might even do this with Legionaire.

Mindwarp

That's good advice, and definitely something that I hope to get into more and more as my experience grows. I'm still following the instructions pretty closely with this kit, not so much out of the desire to write a kit review but more to do with my complete lack of experience with building biplanes. My confidence levels are certainly increasing with every kit though, along with the fun I'm having building! This is my third plane and my third kit. I enjoy flying and building pretty much equally, so I really don't see myself owning an ARF any time soon. I've nothing against them, but they really just don't "do it" for me.

Anyway, I'm absolutely exhausted tonight so no building for me. I'm going to go to bed and rest up for tomorrow. Hopefully I can get the engine compartment strung and sheeted tomorrow night.

Later,
Neil.

P.S. You should upload pictures of your models to the RCUniverse 'My Hanger'. I was really looking forward to seeing your planes

abufletcher

Actually, we're at pretty much the same point on the trail. Other than three ARF's (a trainer, a Seagull Spacewalker II, and a Lucky Stik) I've only completed a single scale model -- an EIII which started out life as a BUSA kit but quickly ended up as a 90% scratch-build. To accomplish this I asked about a BILLION questions (thus my high number of post ). Here are some photos of the final product:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_19.../anchor/tm.htm

Then about 4 months ago I got frustrated not building anything so started a scratch-build of the Nieuport 11 based on a set of technical drawings. In the midst of this I realized that I need to seriously improve my flying skills before I finish the N.11 so I ordered a Flair Legionaire (sort of a N.17 copy) and am about 1/2 finished with that. Here's the "build" thread I have going over on the Scale forum:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_29..._1/key_/tm.htm

Maybe someday when I have enough planes to fill a hanger, I'll upload some photos!

Mindwarp

Oh, I think you're doing yourself a disservice there. Your planes are works of art! Same point on the trail? Compared to that EIII I don't think I've even left the parking lot yet

It's funny that you chose that kit - I absolutely love the Fokker Eindecker and was seriously considering it for my third plane. The reason I went for the S.E.5a was because I'd never built or flown a biplane before, so I have the Eindecker slated as my next kit.

If I get it looking even half as good as yours I'll be as pleased as Punch.

Cheers,
Neil.

Bruno Stachel

My Feedback: (4)

Mindwarp,

Your build is looking great so far. Don't sweat it. I'd say everyone looking at these build threads, first and foremost, appreciate the builders that take the time to post their progress. So keep up the good work!

I have the the Flair DVII I hope to start this fall/winter. So I'm watching this one, in case there are any similarities. I'm dying to start building it. But my son has been hounding me to build a GP Corsair. I'll have to knock that one out first.

Mindwarp

I'm glad that you're enjoying the thread. I actually really enjoy posting the progress reports; if others enjoy them too then that's icing on the cake!

I like the DVII too. I think I'll probably end up building one in the future, especially as it was one of the quintessential aircraft of WWI, but being a Brit I thought I should get a classic Royal Flying Corps model before creating my own Jagdstaffel

Mindwarp

With tonights work it's really starting to look like a plane! I'm going to be a little brief with this post as my web browser just crashed and destroyed the write-up that I'd been working for half an hour on. If I get time during lunch at work tomorrow then I'll re write up tonights build.

Fuselage Formers and Stringers

The first task for tonight was the installation of the cowl runners and formers. These are not glued to the firewall or top longerons between the firewall and F3, so those areas were masked off with wax paper. The 1/4" balsa runners were glued on to the longerons between F0 and the firewall, then formers F1 and F2 were glued to the runners.

With all the formers installed it was on to the installation of the cabane mounting blocks. A slight 'oops' moment when reading the plans resulted in me gluing the ply reinforcing plate onto the wrong side of the cabane block, so I cut new plates from scrap 1/8" ply. Now my cabane mounting blocks are 'double plus reinforced!' Carefully measure where the cabane mounting holes are to be on the fuselage and position the blocks accordingly. Always measure to the mounting holes rather than the edges of the blocks, as there's no guarantee that the channels in the block are central and straight, or that the blocks are the exact width as shown on the plans. If you measure to the mounting holes then you're virtually guaranteed to have your mounts in the correct location. Once the mounts are glued to the top of the fuselage add 3/8" balsa tri-stock as joint reinforcement.

With the cabane mounting blocks in place you can install the stringers. This is a simple process if you have made sure that all your formers are correctly aligned and perpendicular to the fuselage. I started with the top/centre stringer and worked my way from F0 to F6 ensuring that the stringer was correctly seated in every former before gluing with thin CA. The process was repeated, installing the stringers in a 'paired opposites' pattern to ensure nothing was pulled out of square.

Once the stringers were correctly glued in I trimmed them to length with a razor saw then sanded the ends flat.

Tomorrow night will be joining the tail, and if I have time installing the rear formers and possibly the sheeting.

Cheers,
Neil.

tom johnston

My Feedback: (2)

Warp;
Looking at your posts really brings back memories to me. I've been flying mine now for about a year and everyone at our club still loves to see it fly. Keep up the goog work!
Tom J.

Mindwarp

You know, I've been hearing very similar comments from a lot of people who own this model. I certainly think it'll be a hit at our local flying field.

Out of interest how does the S.E.5a fly? What engine/prop combination do you have on yours? Anything I should watch out for when I finally take mine up?

Cheers,
Neil.

tom johnston

My Feedback: (2)

Hi, "Warped One";
I'm using an OS 91 Suprass with the 90 degree manifold so I can route the exhaust out the bottom like they show in the kit. A 14x6 prop is perfect. Even with a heavy hub, I still had to add a few ounces of lead in the nose, but it still is not too heavy and flies like a trainer (after you get it off the ground).

abufletcher

Here are those photos I promised you of the SE5a at the RAF Museum in Hendon. I hope they are of some use once you get to the detailing stage.

abufletcher

Hmm...for some reason these photos are not uploading as thumbnails. I'll try deleting them and re-uploading them again tomorrow.

BTW, the 90 degree manifolds from JustEngines really are useful. I'm using on my Nieuport 11.

Mindwarp

That's absolutely superb! Thank you!

D Bronk

VERY nice project and the photos are great too..DAVE B.

Mindwarp

Brick wall No. 1

OK, so it had to happen sooner or later. I've run into a part of the build process/instructions that, despite having stared at the plans for a good number of hours and re-reading the previous construction steps a number of times, I just can't figure out. The next step in the construction process is joining the ends of the tail together. The instructions state:

If you look at picture #1, that's what I'd get if I glued the ends together right now. The balsa stabiliser saddles seem to be in the correct place (flush with the outside face of the longerons) but since they're 1/4" thick versus the longerons 3/8" thick you end up with a combined gap of 1/4" between them. The next time the tail is mentioned is in step #34 which mentions the fitting of the Vertical Stabiliser Fillet Blocks, and cutting the 1/4" deep slot in the top longerons to accept the vertical stabiliser. Lo and behold, the picture associated with this step shows a neatly rounded tail surface with no apparent gap between the stabiliser saddles (although it's extremely hard to tell for sure as the print quality of this picture is very low.)

So, what am I missing or doing wrong here? Every kit I've had so far has had a shaped vertical piece that glues in between the two tail sides and matches the angle that the ends of the tail form on meeting. There absolutely can't be a gap between the two sides as I currently have as the plans clearly show the bottom rudder bracket fitting in to that part of the fuselage, which to me would again suggest that either the longerons have been cut at an angle to allow the wood to truly come together at a point or that there's a missing piece of vertical wood there.

The second troubling question is about the top and bottom lite ply tail spacers. The instructions state that after gluing the end of the tail together the tail spacers are glued in place flush with the bottoms of the longerons. The top spacer becomes the surface that the vertical stabiliser is glued to and the bottom spacer becomes the part the skid is attached to. If you look at the tail spacers though neither of them comes to a point. Am I meant to bring the tail to a point, then install the tail spacers as far as they will go, leaving a gap between the end of the spacer and the join in the tail?

I must be missing something really fundamental here, but try as I might I can't see what I'm meant to do with this step. Could anyone who's built the FunAero 60" S.E.5a help me out? What did you do when you joined the tail together? Anybody else have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Neil.

abufletcher

Hmm...that's a stumper. Since I haven't built this kit all I can offer is what is done on the Flair kits and what seems to be the standard practice on all these stick fuse constructions. Normally, the instructions (or sometimes just a note on the plans) calls for the inside faces of the tail of the fuse to be beveled such that they come together for a butt glued joint. It's always a little hard getting the faces even and even harder making sure the stab saddle area is level. In fact, no matter how careful you've been the saddle almost always has to be leveled out later relative to the lower wing.

Butted together the top and bottom triangle pieces should fit with just a little sanding. But don't get too hung up on this. If the parts don't fit just cut yourself some new parts! There's nothing sacred about a kit and this part is hardly critical. In fact this is one of those areas where you might want to make some minor alterations. For example, following the example of others much wiser than myself, I now try to attach stabs with scres instead of epoxy. This makes it possible to adjust the tail incidence and also to use thin spacers to do any finally leveling that might be required. It also lets me easily replace the stab is I happen to damage it. You might also want to somehow reinforce the attachment of the tailskid -- but then again maybe you WANT it to rip off in a rough landing.

But I have to admit that top view has me stumped. It does show the longerons coming together in a rounded shape indicating that there might be (should be) a piece between them. Actually, I'm sure you could do it either way.

Once again even the best of kits and the best of instructions do not allow you to completely operate on "mental autopilot" And once you acknowledge that you've got to think at least a few things out on your own anyway, you start to wonder whether the way the plan says to do it is in fact the only or the best way to do it.

And once you start thinking thoughts like this you'll be on your way to being a better builder. Always question EVERYTHING the plan tells you to do. Most of the time the plan's right but never always.

Mindwarp

Work pressures have stepped up this week, so until last night I just didn't have the time or energy to spend in the basement. Last night I really needed some 'balsa therapy' though, so I decided to bite the bullet and complete the tail.

Joining the tail

Well the tail certainly wasn't going to join itself, so I decided to take the plunge and start gluing. I spent fifteen minutes reading [link=http://www.airfieldmodels.com/information_source/how_to_articles_for_model_builders/construction/fuselage_construction/03.htm]this[/link] article on fuselage construction and joining at the excellent [link=http://www.airfieldmodels.com]Airfield Models[/link] site, then went downstairs to try out what I'd read.

The first step in joining the tail was to clamp the ends together, making sure that the longerons and stabiliser saddle cut-outs were correctly aligned. With the ends aligned and clamped I started measuring and marking the bevels for the join. I found that taking 1/4" out of the middle of the joined tail would result in a good tail end width, and still give me just over 1" of bevelled surface to glue together. Bevel lines were drawn onto the longerons parallel to the center line of the fuselage, then the bevels were sanded. Once I was satisfied with the fit, they were glued into place.

Next comes fitting the rear turtle deck formers. The rear turtle deck is not sheeted, so the formers need to fit flush to the outside of the longerons. A large clamp was used to draw the tail sides together to provide the correct fit for each former in turn, and the former glued in place. This process was repeated for each former, working back towards the end of the tail from TDF1 to TDF6. With the formers in place the 1/4" TDF cross braces were cut and glued between the top longerons along the backs of TDF1 through TDF4. These cross braces are glued in so that they protrude 1/8" above the top surface of the longeron. This allows them to be glued to both the longerons and the back surface of the former.

With the top longerons joined the cross braces for the bottom longerons were cut and glued. Since the top longerons had been pulled together slightly to ensure a correct width fitting for the turtle-deck formers I checked the squareness of the tail sides with a builders triangle at every step. The bottom cross braces were cut to ensure that the bottom of the tail was pulled in to square with the top, and the cross braces glued into place flush with the bottom of the tail.

Once the tail sides were joined top and bottom the lite ply tail spacers were fitted between the longerons at the rear of the tail. A large amount of 'adjustment' was applied to them with a balsa plane and a sanding bar, and eventually the spacers fitted between the top longerons and the bottom longerons snugly. I considered reinforcing the inside joint between the longerons and the spacers with triangle stock balsa, but was concerned about adding extra weight this far out on the tail. For now I will settle with a thick fillet of CA along the longeron/spacer inside joints with the option of adding triangle stock later when I know what balancing issues I'm facing.

The final step for tonights build was fitting the rear turtle-deck stringers, then gluing in the cockpit floor and cockpit back. All the careful measuring on the tail seemed to pay off as the turtle deck stringer alignment was spot on. The stringers were glued in with thin CA, then the TDF1 ends cut off and sanded flat before the cockpit floor and back were glued in place.

It took a good three hours to get the tail to this state, but I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.

Cheers,
Neil.

P.S. One thing I forgot to mention is that pulling the tail together seems to have induced a bow in the bottom of the BF6 former (diagonal former underneath the cockpit) and the sides of the wing saddle. At the middle of the wing saddle the fuselage sides have bowed out maybe 1/8" on each side. I think I'm going to cut a hardwood reinforcing strip to glue on to the lower back edge of BF6 to pull it back in to line. If that doesn't cure the bow in the fuselage sides then I'll consider adding a couple of cross-braces within the fuselage at a later date. If anyone else has any ideas about how to fix this, or how to avoid it in the future, please let me know.

abufletcher

Lookin' very good there! Keep it up.

Mindwarp

After a busy weekend visiting the in-laws in Iowa I finally had a chance to make some progress on the plane:

The Cowl

The first step in creating the cowl is to saw through F0 at the points where the cowl separates from the main fuselage. Once this is done a craft knife can be used to cut the joiner tabs along the cowl separation lines before sliding the cowl away from the fuselage.

With the cowl separate I decided to do something about the bow induced in the B6 former by the joining of the tail. A 1/4" hardwood spar was cut to fit along the back of B6, and the spar and former were glued and clamped tightly. As you can see from the picture this has virtually eliminated the bow in B6, and should strengthen the fuselage at that point without adding too much extra weight. The fuselage sides have also had the bow removed from them by doing this - the fuselage width is now a constant 5 1/4" across the entire wing saddle.

With the cowl removed you now glue the Fuselage Side Gussets (FSG's) inside the fuselage between the Firewall and the Firewall Gusset. It was at this point that I really wished I hadn't installed the floor pan of the fuselage as access to inside the firewall was somewhat limited with them in place. Examining the instructions shows that you're actually told to install the floor pan pieces twice, once when you're initially joining the fuselage sides and once just after you finish the cowl. From personal experience I'd go with the latter one unless you have very thin hands, and fingers like E.T.

Once the cowl is sanded to fit snugly up against the F3 former the hold-down dowels are installed into F2. This allows the back of the cowl to lock into the holes in the F3 former, and keeps the cowl securely in place.

The final task in finishing the cowl is applying the 3/8" balsa sheeting. It's at this point that I remembered that I SUCK at sheeting. A mis-alignment of the first piece of sheeting I applied resulted in a panicked moment of 'violent adjustment' with a craft knife, which ultimately needed an hour of careful work to correct. I ended up having a seam top-center of the cowl, whereas I should probably have made sure that the seams were pushed off to the left and right of center, but the joins between the balsa sheets have actually ended up very tight and shouldn't be anything that a little epoxy/micro-balloon mix and a few hours of careful sanding can't remedy.

Later,
Neil.

tom johnston

My Feedback: (2)

Lookin' good! You are going to have to consider what you will do about your glow plug. I mounted a Dubro remote connection in the cockpit along with a charger/switch combo. It seems to work very well. The only things I have marring my cowl are the remote fuel filler and my needle valve extension. It would be nice to get rid of those, but it would be pretty tough.
Tom

abufletcher

The terrible thing about build-threads is that I end up wanting to make one of everything!!! I've already got three projects to finish, have collected reference on several more and yet am STILL fantasizing about this and the Funaero DIII! Help!

Mindwarp

That's exactly what I plan on doing Tom! I have a Sullivan remote glow starter and an MPI voltwatch switch/charging harness ready to mount. I'd been thinking about including a pilot in the cockpit though so I'm not 100% positive that's where I'm going to mount the switch and glow plug socket. I'm definitely going to try and keep the cowl clean though (apart from, as you mentioned, the fuel dot and the needle valve adjustment.)

Cheers,
Neil.

ElectRick

My Feedback: (2)

Actually, the fullscale SE-5a used an undercambered airfoil on its wings. The old discontinued Top Flite SE-5a kit was one of only a couple of kit renditions I know of to reproduce this undercambered wing detail correctly. It also incorporates a near-scale airfoil thickness, which necessitates live rigging wires. It also used scale incidences and scale false ribs in the wings and stab. I built a Top Flite SE-5a about 18 years ago (still have it), and I have to say its scale fidelity simply blows away the Dynaflite, FunAero, and Flair offerings. Not saying those aren't just fine for sport flying, however.

I sure do wish Top Flite would resurrect this magnificent kit.

Rick

Mindwarp

Do you have any pictures of it Rick? I'd be interested to see it.

Cheers,
Neil.