Scale 1/3 Scale Extra 330L Build.

[Snoopy1]

What you need to do is make a pressure tank for forcing some water into the wood. I use, for most sizes, a piece of 4" pvc 4' long with a glue on cap on one end and a threaded cap on the other. The threaded cap has a fitting for the air hose and I will, depending on sheet thickness and how quick I want to get it wet, pressurize it from 60lb to 100lb. No matter the pressure it is sure better than just wiping the sheets down. This also helps a lot when trying to bend a curve into balsa and even more so with hardwood.

You know, when your wetting that to get it to bend down you can run your covering iron on high over it wet and it will make it bow.

Ammonia also helps to get the wood to bend, the higher the concentration the better.

It does the same in either, expands the outer surface of the wood. Another cool trick with water and the heat is a method of gluing I use when I sheet an airframe, especially wings. I apply an ultra thin layer of wood glue on both surfaces such as ribs and the sheeting where the ribs touch it, let dry to the touch, place the sheeting in position, spray the outer surface with water and using the highest heat iron the sheeting in place. The heat will reactivate the wood glue causing it to glue together and the steam the heat generates helps soften the wood for shaping. This works extremely well but I would advise trying it once on a test piece to get familiar with it.

Beautiful Snoopy! Keep up the awesome work. FWIW, On the sheeting tight bends, I found if I place masking tape on the outside radius of the balsa, it tends not to crack when bending into place. Run tape perpendicular to grain. Almost like it holds the grains together to mitigate cracks.

To all you gentlemen I really would like to thank you for your input and help. Some of the methods to bend balsa wood around difficult bends is very interesting, and hopefully I can try one of them on the next job. Like they say you learn something every day. One thing it proves that making balsa conform to difficult shades is a common problem among us in the hobby.

 

[Snoopy1]

Got the frame work done on the rear turtle deck. It always amazes me the front went on great everything fitted as it should but rear was bad had to cut the formers apart and make them fit and the slots did not line up so the slots were re done . Got everything to line up and looks ok now. Start sheeting tomorrow.
Got ammonia, water and a hot iron ready for the job.

 

[TonyHallo]

Let's get it started!

 

[acerc]

Let's get it started!

Yea! Why put off until tomorrow what can be done today....

 

[Snoopy1]

Let's get it started!

Yea! Why put off until tomorrow what can be done today....

Bunch of slave drivers.

 

[Alky6]

 

[Snoopy1]

@MuttsyFlyer can you help please. Looking at the cowl. I tried to fit the cowl to the plane and it looked way to big. I do not understand because the F1 bulk head is cut by the manufacturer and I did not change the shape. After struggling with for a while I gave up, made template of the fuselage and fitted it into the cowl and yes way to big. If I push the top and sides of the cowl against the template the cowl has over an inch clearance or bulge on the bottom. And no it did not get bigger because it was split if anything it got a tiny bit smaller. How well did yours fit and if you had the same problem how did you solve it.

 

[BalsaDust]

Well that’s no good. Just a thought maybe it was made that way to provide an air exit on the bottom without having to cut holes. May be way wrong on that and don’t think it would exactly look wall that great but just a thought.

 

[Snoopy1]

Well that’s no good. Just a thought maybe it was made that way to provide an air exit on the bottom without having to cut holes. May be way wrong on that and don’t think it would exactly look wall that great but just a thought.

Not sure what there intentions were but it does not seem right. When pushed it into place on the top and sides the bottom did not look right, and had to push pretty hard. Starting to have bad ideas like making a balsa cowl. That is difficult, expensive and very time consuming.

 

[Snoopy1]

Got a start on bending the sheeting, will do this for a while till it starts to make “U” shape. Who ever mentioned the ammonia thanks that stuff is not good for the sinuses but it does seem to work better.

Got the rudder in place will glue in some blocks to center and locate the rudder and can be glue to the blocks after the sheeting is installed.