High Quality Plan Sets and Laser Cut Partial Kits for Radio Control
Aircraft
Page 5
Carl Goldberg's 1938 Comet Clipper
All the glue applied to this point has been small amounts of CA just to
tack the joints in place. Once free of the trestles, Tightbond
III is liberally applied with a brush to all of the joints.
Goldberg used 1/4 balsa for the
leading edge of the fin, and 3/16 for the trailing edge and rudder, so
1/32 shims are placed under the 3/16 parts
when assembling
the perimeter. A bridge was glued on to make the rudder trailing
edge continuous with the fin during assembly. Note the
balsa key in
the front fin join, included in the laser cut parts next to the parts
for the fuselage front trestle sides.
To align the rudder spar during
assembly, it is spot glued to the fin aft spar with 1/32 shims placed in
three places between the parts.
The
ribs are 1/16 X 1/4 balsa, pick some fairly stiff pieces at least for
the bottom ribs. It might also be a wise idea to put 1/16 balsa
spacers between the ribs in mid span areas.
Taper the ends as shown to mate with the leading and trailing
edge parts.
There are shims (.144") on the 1/4 balsa sheet of laser cut parts near
the right end to place under the fin 1/4 inch parts. Add 1/32
balsa to the ones placed
under
the 3/16 parts, and the thin one (.049") under the base of the front fin
spar. The thin one for the fin spar base is not in this photo.
Second side assembled using the
same shim placement. The rudder upper rib has also been
installed, from scrap 1/8 balsa.
The
assembled parts sanded out.
The parts separated out. The
rudder front spar will later be sanded to a round shape. There is
a lower fin rib to be installed when the fin is
assembled to
the horizontal stabilizer. It is in the laser cut parts.
