Scratch building an F-100 ( It fly's )
 

I am building an F-100 from RCM plans that I reduced by 25%.

The fuselage construction is something that is a little different but it looks like it will work. In the first pic I tack glued the formers ( formers were cut from hard balsa) onto a piece of fiberboard. The entire fuselage is then plank with 1/8"by1/2'" stripes. I left a gape on the bottom so that I could cut the formers from the building board.

After the first side was done I cut it from the fiberboard and turned it around and glued 1/4" piece of plywood to both ends. I then glued it back to my building board. Then I tack glued the other former halfs to the finished side and planked the rest.

After letting the glue dry over night I removed the top half. I then sanded the glue and any sharp edges off on one side of each former. I glued a strip of carbon fiber strands about 1/2" from the former with epoxy. Let it dry over night, the next morning I nocked the formers out, sanded the inside of the fuse. I sanded it till all the glue and any sharp edges were gone. I glassed the inside with 2oz glass cloth and doubled it up were the stab, wing and nose wheel former will go.

After everything had some time to cure I glued the two halfs together. The outside has been sanded and it came out pretty nice I think. It weights 13oz and is much stiffer than a fiberglass fuselage. The outside will be glassed with 1/2 oz cloth as soon as I get to my LHS.

Till then I will build the tail pipe and landing gear.

John

Looks nice ! What size is it, and what sort of power are you looking at putting in it ?

Is that the actual fuselage or are you making a plug to pull a glass fuse/mold?

Either way I am sure its going to be cool... 8)

The fuselage lenght is 49"
Wingspan 42"
Wing area throw the fuselage 525 sq inchs
Will be using a Wren MW44 for power.

That is the fuselage, the formers in the front and back will be remove after I glass the outside. When building a fuse like this from wood it is so full of stringers, formers that it is hard to fit the turbine and radio gear in. There will still be a couple of formers but no more than what you would have in a fiberglass fuse. I have no idea if this will work but I have wanted to try this for a long time now.

I built most of the pieces for the pipe today. All that is needed is the corrugated spacer in the back. I hope to machine a die to from it tomorrow.

John

A few pics of the tooling and finished pipe.
Over all lenght 15".
Total weight of the pipe 7 onces.

John

Missed one.

Are you in the mechanical trade by chance? Is the front of the pipe ( the flare) spun or formed another way?