Rebuild Thread - EF 104 Extra

CNC cut parts would have been great Alan, just don't know anyone who could do it, or how much work it would be.

I will update on the wing as I am planning on starting on it today!

So, progress over the weekend.

One wing is badly damaged with the wing tube broken out, wing skins are damaged in some places.

First job is to remove the covering, I intended to try to get away with one side only, I chose the top as it will then be all nice and shiny when finished.

First a cut with a sharp blade along the aileron hinge line, then using a covering iron to heat the adhesive, the film is removed.

Some damage is obvious at the tip and root, root rib pretty broken!

I then carefully removed the balsa skins full length to reveal the whole structure as I want to be sure I have found and repaired all of the damage as there may be broken joints that would not be obvious without doing this, when doing this I was careful not to damage any of the structure which seemed intact..

Once removed, all of the damage is revealed, both the root and second ribs are basically destroyed, but further out the structure is pretty much unaffected, considering the carbon wing tube snapped in the crash, this says something about the strength of the wing structure!

In the photos I have inserted the carbon wing tube to straighten out the glass liner tube which was bent and is fractured, but all of the pieces are there. I just need to decide how I repair this while keeping it's shape and not gluing the wing tube in permanently! I have some ideas but haven't yet decided on the best one.

Most of the damaged structure is now removed in these photos, I also removed the vertical ply web still in place in these images.

Now the internals were revealed it was clear that to do a proper job I would also need to remove the covering from the bottom as well, as there are a few areas of damage to the bottom sheet, I think I should be able to patch these without having to remove all of this sheeting though.

Final bit completed was making a start on making new parts, using the original bits tacked back together to create a pattern, just as I did with the motor box.

To be continued!!

Looks like your making good progress, keep the photos coming will be interesting to see how you repair everything

Nice work Jon! Nice to see you are not frightened of a bit of major surgery on a model, as many would have binned it :woohoo:

flyingpete wrote: Nice work Jon! Nice to see you are not frightened of a bit of major surgery on a model, as many would have binned it :woohoo:

Thanks Pete, there are a few reasons I'm doing it, the model is too good to bin, I quite enjoy the challenge and I'm too tight to buy the spare parts

Inspirational work Jon - just shows what can be achieved with a potential write off.

When I had to re-glue the wing tube on the Giles I smeared the joiner with silicon polish, assembled the wing to the fuse and rotated the joiner periodically while the glue set. The epoxy wicked through the glass fibre wing tube and would have stuck the joiner fast without doing this. I don't know whether you can reconstruct the wing sufficiently to be able to do this.