Minus Thermic

I didn't use a jig on my first build. On the second one I used the carbon wing joiner to make sure ply and balsa were lined up. Kept using the joiner to make sure it was square while I glued formers in place. One deviation from the instructions was that the rear fuselage was taped and not glued at this stage...OK, I did glue it but on both of mine it ended up being slightly banana shaped, so had to be split in order to attach the fuselage bottom before re-gluing.

MikeSeale wrote: it ended up being slightly banana shaped.

Doesn't matter Mike, slopers are normally flying in a cross wind anyway!

Mike, Am I missing something or do we, or rather, do I need to enlarge the snake holes in PW4 and PW12 as they are smaller than the 2mm snake? The only reason I ask is that everything else seems to be cut at the right size!

I enlarged them, no jig needed just a simple drill bit will do

Yes. They need enlarging. I used a 2.5mm drill which is a little too big and I secured them at the former behind the wing with epoxy after finding that CA would not hold them in place....no need to fix them at the former in front of the wing. When you pull the tail in you can stick them with CA or epoxy and the whole lot will be secure

Thanks, funny that they didn't make the hole the right size. It's a fiddly little blighter isn't it

Chris, What servos are you putting in?

The pushrod tube is clearly too too big for the wire. I assume that the original kits shipped with a tighter fitting tube which would have fitted the laser cut holes. They've either gone for a larger tube due to cost. availability or because the slack fit is actually better and cuts down on the friction. Whatever the reason, drill the holes bigger.

The other areas where I found the need to fettle, were:

1. the ply tongue that hold the wing together would not slide through the fuselage sides without making the holes in the fuselage a little bigger.
2. the ply root rib would not slide over the ply tongues without opening up the slots a little bit. They also needed some adjustment so that the trailing edge of this rib lined up with the trailing edge of the wing instead of having it floating in mid-air.

I'm expecting the Acro to fit a little better because the laser cutting seems to be a little more aggressive, as if they used a more powerful setting. All the other ply parts have slotted in a lot easier than they did on the Thermic version.

MikeSeale wrote: ... Whatever the reason, drill the holes bigger....

Yes Sir, Sorry Sir



Are you taking the wing on and off or is it so small as to be pointless?

The wing has not come off yet.

I took the new canopy for a test flight this afternoon...attached to the rest of the model to make sure it balanced! Lovely weather and a great view, although it is beginning to get chilly now. It might look like summer but it's definitely autumn.