High Quality Plan Sets and Laser Cut Partial Kits for Radio Control
Aircraft
Page 2
Thunderbird 45
The digital caliper and
the JLC saw allow for very precise cuts. There is a table of lengths for verticals and crossmembers on the plan.
The JLC saw is available at UMM
USA.
Assembled fuselage
sideframe. There is a fair bit of curve on the forward end of the
lower longeron. It was sliced to facilitate bending. On
the prototype, to save weight in the
aft fuselage 3/32 X 3/16 crossmembers and verticals were substituted for
the 3/16 square from 1 frame aft of the back window to the
tail. The
large
cross section of the fuselage makes it very rigid. A long stick was used
for the longeron that starts at the back of the forward side window and later
sawed the inside face and cracked it to make the curve that starts at
that point. That helped with placing the top ply frame on in
the nose as there were fewer parts that had to be held in place.
A twisted wire with a
fork formed at the end holds a small amount of glue for tacking together
balsa joints. The plastic cup is from TAP Plastics. When the fork gets
too much glue buildup cut the wire back and form a new one.
Keeping fresh thin CA in the cup also makes for better joints.
On the very end of the
tail there is no vertical so a temporary one was put in place, a stick
of 3/32 X 3/16 turned sideways, even with the outside
of the frame to allow for sanding in the angle on the inside faces.
Assembling
the main fuselage is easy because of the flat surface on top of the
fuselage.
