Today I’ve started bending one of the lower longerons. I made a template of exactly the right shape to start with. I know the wood will spring back a little after bending, but I don’t know how much exactly, so by doing it like this first, I can measure the effect and adjust my template accordingly.

I’ve soaked the longer in water for over an hour (in a capped PVC pipe), clamped it to the template, and than heated it with a household iron, effectively steaming bending the wood. This method is way easier to manage than actually steaming the wood and should work great for these sizes:

I’ve made the template and fixture so that I can iron the wood from three sides, to maximize the effect of the iron:

After most of the water was steamed out and the wood appeared to be dry, I will now let it sit for 24 to 48 hours to fully dry, before I will check the results.

Here’s a small vid of the result, as it was difficult to capture the whole setup in a single photo:

There we go! Emptied my new workbench and stuck the plans to the wall:

Cutting the longerons and crossbars to size manually, taking my time to get everything fitting perfectly well and according to the plans:

Also test fitted the laser cut parts, seems to go well :-)

Today I received the engine for my Fokker, a 85 cc four stroke two-cilinder inline airplane engine from Roto!

Fits perfectly:

The cylinders are positioned behind the grill very well and the real valve covers fit very well underneath the dummy engine hatch:

I would prefer a scale exhaust, so that is still a puzzle to sovlve, but I’m first going to build up the nose and figure things while building:

I’ve reached my first milestone! All parts are cut, prepared and assembled. No less than 380 (!) parts:

Some more pictures of the process of laminating and constructing the pre-cut fuselage side parts. First, laminating three layers per part:

I’ve used a straight multiplex board as a guide to ensure the laminated parts came out straight and flat:

Which came out surprisingly well, only minimal sanding is required to straighten up the edges:

And then, I joined the laminated parts with Bison PU Max, which is slightly filling, a feature that comes in handy when the laminated parts aren’t perfectly square at the edge:

But still, I’m very happy with how those parts fit:

It took quite some time to get it straight and square, but it turned out nicely:

After some more sanding and cleaning up the surface, edges and glue residue, this part is ready for now:

I still need to build up a few more parts and then I’m ready to actually start building!

The past few days I’ve been busy with former F0. It’s quite a stack of wood! 10 layers of three parts each, 1-1/2″ thick in total. As you can see, there’s a little notch missing in F0C, something to change in the kit, but I can easily fix this for the prototype:

Considering F0 will be cut and sanded tapered, I figured I better not glue on the parts that would be cut off anyway, to save me some work later on:

Which triggered the following idea: I’ve measured all layers of F0 in width, and cut them to the right size:

Leaving this pile of balsa… I already look forward to not having to sand this off:

And after a long session of gluing layer by layer with Aliphatic wood glue, this is the result:

I also glued all layers directly to F1. The plans instructed to do this afterwards, but when F1 is already on the fuselage, it is way harder to calm F0 on there, and this way F1 acted like a guide to glue on the layers of F0 perfectly flat:

And for scale reference, and because it is such a nice part, one more:

I’ve added one more layer on top, to match the drawing, although it wasn’t part of the kit and most of it probably will be gone after sanding, it still gives me the opportunity to shape the nose as I like it without running short on balsa..

In the meantime, I’m also laminating fuse sides, but more on that later!

Currently still busy with sanding parts (laser cut edges need sanding for better gluing) and laminating parts:

It took a while to find the right technique, but I think I’m there now. Stacking laser cut parts asks for accuracy. Here you can see a part built up out of three layers. Came out very clean and straight (please note that the final kit will not require laminating these parts, this is only due to some changes during the prototyping phase):

The next step is to join the stacked parts. Turned out it is very difficult to get a precise fit on those Z-joints. And I don’t want to sand too much, because in the end that would make the whole part smaller… this is a about the best I could get:

My preferred glue is aliphatic. But you need a good fit for that. So I decided to go with Bison PU Max for these joints. That glue foams a bit and is lightly filling, so it would make up for the not so precise fit. Turns out that was a great choice, because it even penetrates the balsa as you can see in this pic… it traveled all the way from the joint through the pores of the balsa, creating a very strong bond:

After sanding the contours, this is the end result. A strong and light former, that came out as straight as I could’ve hoped for:

I still need to assemble former 0 and two fuselage cockpit sides. And during the curing of the glue, I’m sanding the cut out parts that don’t need to be assembled first. Already looking forward to starting the real construction of the fuselage, but I’m enjoying this part just as much :).

Finished cutting out the new parts tonight and started laminating:

The new laminated parts do fit the plans exactly!

… and figuring out construction and working order. I think I’ll start with the fuse, then the tail feathers and end with the wings.

Still very excited about the size and the cool presence of the plane! (and the level of detail and attention to detail of the plans, they’re really self-explanatory and well-thought-out)

Hurray! I’ve started building on my Fokker again! And thanks guys, the new workshop was a lot of work, but I’m so happy with it. Glad I took the effort to get it finished to this level before continuing the build.

Last weekend I managed to arrange and build a new, larger and more sturdy building table, measuring 230 x 95 cm, which should be large enough for this build:

The first step is to cut out all the new parts I’ve received from Ramses. This being a prototype build, I discovered some issues before I had to pause the build: the wing tube holes didn’t have the correct diameter and one sheet of ply had an incorrect thickness, which doesn’t work well with all the tabs of the self-aligning structure. With the new sheet, everything fits like a glove:

Also, we’ve discovered that the thicker balsa parts (1/2″ and 3/4″ thick parts) didn’t cope well with the laser cutter: the sides burned so much they got skewed considerably. This meant that after sanding, parts didn’t fit anymore. Ramses came up with the solution of cutting several thinner sheets, requiring laminating the parts to get to the same thickness. The fit is perfect now, but the parts count exploded :-).. I already cut 110 new parts tonight and I guess I am a little over half way. But removing parts from a laser cut sheet is very easy, so no issue at all. This is my new stash for tonight, waiting for some sandpaper and glue:

Very happy with the elegant solutions and new parts Ramses. And thanks for your patience while pausing the build during my relocation!

Finally, my new workshop is finished! I still have to decide on the exact workbench layout and I do still need to build a decent and flexible airplane storage rack, but I’m almost back to building and I think my new workshop turned out awesome! Well isolated all around, good lighting (13.000 lm on 13 m2 @ 4.000 K!), quality electric radiator and more space than before. Built the whole structure myself, including the door frame and sliding door, electrical wiring, false ceiling with built-in lighting, new floor.. the lot.

Here are some pictures of what it looks like at the moment (without planes though):