What a mess 503 hellcat

[hellcat]

I just started building balsa models and so far im enjoying it, but im not very good at it.
First Question is on cutting out parts I get 1/16 th notches to big or to small . Is gluing paper to the back a good idea?

[wmikedavis]

What are you using to cut the notches

[joecrouse]

First off relax... This too shall pass as it is an squired skill.

Cutting notches is tricky if you haven't done them before.

Take a small strip of 1/16th of square stock balsa
Glue a tiny bit of sand paper to the stick. Trim the sand paper to be as exactly as wide as the strip as you can manage.

Use that to sandpapered stick the notches to the correct depth. the 500 series have the bottoms of the notches pre cut. and in reasonably close proximity to where they should be.
The best bet is to take each fuselage former and match it up to its left and right hand sides (same for the wing ribs) and pin them together so they match up nice and tight. and cut the notches in the same place on each side. Use some pins to pin them together.

You can even glue the stick with the sand paper onto a good sized scrap to make a decent handle.

There is a great bit of info here on the building of Notch cutters/sanders. Using the forum search.

[hellcat]

Thanks for the info Ill try that on my next build. I just got 2 900 series in the mail sat.

My Next Question is Square How do I get it Square Im building on a ceiling tile using pins
A speed square is to big so i got a gauge from House of balsa Its orange
It helped a lot but I need some thing better

[joecrouse]

to get things square and true,

Some folks use angle iron or aluminum and a couple of high power magnets. That will hold things to gether verticaly.

I simply build 1 piece at a time
Working from B8 or 9 to the b 1 former. Using a small (3-4 inches long) 30/60/90 triangle)
Then I use a long (6- inches long ) set of Reverse action tweezers to hold on the other side nice and tight after one side has dried. straight and true.
This USUALLY wlll keep even the formers pretty close to true.

Same for the wings. You can even use the edge of a cardboard box. For some ungodly reason the square edges of a cardboard box are something like .003 away from true. Cutting the corner off and pinning the edge vertical to the board at 90 degrees to the part will get things good enough for any rational human being

[joecrouse]

Stupid browser.

[hellcat]

I blame it on the cat

[hellcat]

First off relax... This too shall pass as it is an squired skill.

Cutting notches is tricky if you haven't done them before.

Take a small strip of 1/16th of square stock balsa
Glue a tiny bit of sand paper to the stick. Trim the sand paper to be as exactly as wide as the strip as you can manage.

Use that to sandpapered stick the notches to the correct depth. the 500 series have the bottoms of the notches pre cut. and in reasonably close proximity to where they should be.
The best bet is to take each fuselage former and match it up to its left and right hand sides (same for the wing ribs) and pin them together so they match up nice and tight. and cut the notches in the same place on each side. Use some pins to pin them together.

You can even glue the stick with the sand paper onto a good sized scrap to make a decent handle.

There is a great bit of info here on the building of Notch cutters/sanders. Using the forum search.

That works great Thanks a lot

[Wildpig]

Here is a link to a thread on notchers:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2399&p=15551&hilit=notcher#p15551

To answer an earlier question: Gluing tissue paper to the backside of the formers does help in some instances. But, you will probably do o.k. without it.

[hellcat]

thanks for the link

for my next Question How do i post pics?

[hellcat]

I got it

[hellcat]

I got it covered,I used uhu glue stick to cover it. I followed the plans to cover it, 32 small peaces on the fuselage i dident do the best job but its on thare sprayed it with water let it dry good then I sprayed it with Krylon crystal clear satin
If im not doing this right Please tell me

[Wildpig]

Looks o.k. to me. Keep on truckin' , dude.

I use stick glue and Krylon clear, also.

Your tissue covering looks o.k. to me. After some practice you can cover the fuselage with larger pieces of tissue. The instructions show all those little sections, which can be a little tedious to cut out but, less prone to wrinkle.

[joecrouse]

the zillion little piece method works on for the OLD tissue that they used back in the 50's and 60's

[hellcat]

Im going to call this one finished. I dident do the inside of the cockpit and messed up the nose spinner but im ready to move on
I painted it with Krylon true blue

Its not going to win any contest and the only it will fly is if I buy it a ticket but im proud