Cessna 180 Group Build

[Phugoid]

T

[Phugoid]

Lift both parts from the wax paper and give the reverse side a very light sanding (be careful the parts are now quite thin) then cut out any glue blobs from the joints.

The way the plan is laid out means that the letters on the tail plane are uppermost and get removed on the sanding to level the parts. However the fin letters face the board. At this stage I would be reluctant to sand the fin anymore (certainly not enough to remove the letters)

[Phugoid]

So to remove them I simply rub them off with cellulose thinners on some kitchen towel or toilet paper. I suppose any type of solvent would do for this, if you haven’t got any thinners then you may have to experiment. The picture below shows the fin with the numbers now magic’d away.

[Phugoid]

Cutting out the nosecone

The plastic nosecone on the majority of the Guillows models are not their best feature for a flying model. They are nice from the point of view of being a nice rounded shape etc, and certainly easier than trying to carve a lump of wood to the correct shape for the beginner. BUT they allow little scope to adjust the thrust angle of the propeller, and as you will see later this is vital for successfully trimming the model.

In order to try and use the kit parts and nothing else I have devised a simple compromise to allow us to use the part, but to give us the ability to make some simple thrust adjustments.

I cut my nosecone out from the plastic sheet almost instantly without thinking, therefore the pictures are the nosecone are from a BF109 kit I had in my cupboard, but the same principles apply.

The worst thing that you can do with these moulding is to try and be smart and cut too far up onto the radius where the moulding that we want to keep meets the “flash” that we want to remove. Cut away from the radius, more onto the flash so that your knife does not “ride up”

[Phugoid]

Cut around the whole moulding like this.

[Phugoid]

This leaves the raggedy edge on the part:

[Phugoid]

Sand off the edge using your sanding block at a very shallow angle close to the surface as shown:

[Phugoid]

This will leave a very thin “lip” of material:

[Phugoid]

This can now be removed by using the sanding block with fine paper across the edge of the moulding:

[Phugoid]

You can then use every finer paper to remove the sanding marks and scratches that are left:

[Phugoid]

Returning to the part for our Cessna, carefully cut out the centre following much the same principle, DO NOT throw the centre piece away, we will need it for the next step.

[sawingman]

Phugoid. You continue to do a great job with this tutorial. I find myself checking in a couple of times a day looking for your new posts. When gluing your balsa parts do you pre-glue? (That is, use thinned PVA glue, let dry, and then use full strength) Keep up the great work!

[Phugoid]

Thanks, I'm glad you are finding all of this useful. I only really double glue when there is end grain (which acts like a sponge for glue) or when there are two large faces to glue together.

In the next step where I make a nose piece I "doubled glued" where there are two pieces glued face to face....

Andrew

[Phugoid]

In order for us to make thrust adjustments we will attach the propeller nose bush to a nose piece that will sit flat to former B1 on the fuselage and give a guaranteed and exact position each time it is taken out for winding.

To do this we will make a strong laminated piece that fits snugly inside the plastic nosecone (where the piece we have just cut out came from).

Using scrap again select some of the large pieces, we want a piece that is large enough to replace the plastic piece that we just cut out with the grain running horizontally, and one with it running vertically, so we can laminate then together at 90 degrees - like how plywood is constructed.

[Phugoid]

There were plenty of options for the horizontal grain piece, but not one single piece for the vertical grain piece, so I made one up out of two separate pieces as shown, by gluing two pieces butted together the joint held with scrap and weighted down to keep it flat: