Building the Fuselage

The first order of business is to mark and drill the holes in
the firewall for the motor mount, throttle cable, and fuel lines.

Its a lot easier to do this now out in the open rather than trying to
do it after the firewall is mounted.

The motor is an old venerable ringed OS 61SF. No powerhouse by todays
standards but utterly reliable. It has turned out to be a good choice for
this plane and is what was used in the original prototype.

I didnt use this spinner. Its too small. You will need a 3 inch spinner.

These are the lite ply fuselage doublers. I made yet another mistake
here. (nobody is keeping count...are they?)

The plans show lightening hole in the doubler that would be in the
tank area. I didnt notice this on the plans until I had glued the
doublers to the fuselage sides. Not a big problem.

Doublers and fuselage sides.

When you glue the doublers to the fuselage sides make sure you
glue them to what will be the INSIDE of the fuse. And be sure to
make a right and a left. Lets just say that I ALMOST goofed here.

Here we have all the needed fuselage formers all cut out and ready
to go. The formers from F3 forward are made from good birch ply.
The rest from Lite ply.

A scroll saw is handy for cutting out the interiors. I didnt have one
at the time so I cut the interiors out by hand with a drill and Dremel
Moto-Tool. I now have a nice scroll saw and it sure would of saved
some effort.

Build the fuselage upside down over the plans. Be sure to keep everything
aligned. We dont want any banana shaped fuselages here.

You can see the Lite ply fuselage doublers glued in here.

I used lots of weight and clamps to keep everything down flat on
the building board. Note the use of old dead gel cell batteries as weight.
They are perfect and heavy. And free from your flying pals.

Even though there is a bottle of CA on the table most of this construction
was done with aliphatic resin...Elmers Yellow Carpenters glue. It allows
plenty of time to get things properly lined up.

Now the fuselage is beginning to look like something useful.

Use good 30 minute epoxy on that firewall and make absolutely sure that
its square with the rest of the fuselage. This plane has no side thrust or
down thrust.

Installing the pushrods now. I used the Sullivan blue #505
pushrods. Crossing the pushrod tubes allows for a nice straight
run for the pushrods. BUT...if you are building this as a tricycle
dont cross the tubes.

I decided to go as a tail dragger. It handles very well as a tail
dragger. You can also see the servo rails installed here. I made them
from scrap pieces of basswood left over from the wing spars.

Bottom view showing the wing hold down plate installed. I cut this
from a scrap of 1/4 inch birch ply and it has 1/4-20 Tee nuts installed.
Use plenty of 30 minute epoxy here and triangle reinforcements.

Top view showing the servo rails and the back side of the wing hold
down block.

You can also see the installed Lite ply stabilizer mounting base at
the rear of the fuselage.

Adding the cross grain bottom sheeting.

I didnt take a picture of it but since I was making this a tail
dragger I added a piece of 1/8 inch birch ply to the rear of the fuselage
underneath the cross grain bottom sheeting. I installed 4-40 T-nuts in this
piece of ply to attach a Sullivan tail wheel mount. This ply reinforcement
is a good idea if you are building as a tail dragger.

Getting a start on that great looking Ultra Sport nose.
You can see here the cockpit floor being installed. I had the
tank mounted temporarily so I could glue in foam padding in the tank
compartment before sealing it up.

Also note the chin block has been installed.

The motor mount and motor are installed temporarily so the nose ring
can be installed. The easiest way to do this is to tack glue the nose
ring to the back of your spinner. You will need to cut back the chin block
somewhat and then mount the spinner on the motor. Glue the nose ring in
place making sure its square with the firewall.

Then add the top block and left side blocks extending them out to the nose
ring. You basically end up with a square box.

Add some 1/2 inch triangle stock in all the corners and get ready
for some major sanding.

I got a little carried away with the sanding and carving bit.

Maybe I should go find that vacuum cleaner...maybe later.

Here is what I had after the first shaping session. Like on the wing
tips I cut the corners off with a razor saw and then went at it with the
Master Airscrew razor plane. (A must have item I might add)

There will be lots more sanding and shaping later on before we have
that nice Ultra Sport nose.

You can also see in the picture that the cockpit rails have been added.

OK...now we are ready for the turtle deck. Here we see the formers for
the turtle deck in place. Take some care in getting the angle right on
the F3A former since it forms the back of the cockpit. There is a gauge
for this on sheet #2 but I found it easier to set it using the canopy.

Left side sheeting installed

And now the right side.

Here we have the top in place. Its really beginning to look like an
airplane now.

Lots of sanding required to take off those square corners and give the
turtledeck a nice smooth shape. Use a long sanding block and sand the
turtledeck length-wise.

From the right side. The turtle deck is looking pretty good here and
you can get a good look at the engine opening in the cowl. There is
plenty of room to get the engine in and out of the cowl.

Test fitting the canopy. Wow...this thing is really starting to look
good. Almost looks like an airplane.

I've been doing some more sanding at this point. Getting the nose shaped
a little better. Final shaping of the nose will involve creating a smooth
transition from the cowl to the spinner.

Bellypan...

Even though this is part of the wing you need to have most of the
fuselage done before you can build it.

The plans and construction article dont give you much to go on here.
Searching on the Internet gave me some possible methods. Some use
a solid balsa block and carve it. Others use lightweight spackling.
I opted to build it up from 1/4 inch sheet stock.

Here we have it roughed in. Note the two holes in the bellypan toward
the trailing edge of the wing. Those are for the 1/4-20 nylon wing
mounting bolts. The holes are large enough that you can fit a washer
on the bolts.

Now mount the wing on the fuselage and work on the bottom plate and
bellypan to make a nice smooth contour.

The smooth lines are what give this plane its distinctive look.

The wing fairings are optional but really look nice and are not too
hard to do. The base is made from thin 1/32 ply. Pin it down over the
wing. Place some wax paper between the ply and the wing. Then attach the
wing to the fuse and then glue the wing saddle to the ply fairing bases.
Since you had them pinned to the wing they should fit the wing perfectly.

The fairing itself is made from lightweight spackle. Once dry it sands
well and is easy to shape.

This photo shows the fairing base glued to the wing saddle.

You can also see the Lite ply fairing extensions attached to the rear of
the fairing. This makes the whole assembly a lot more solid.

Once the fairing was completed I coated it with a layer of epoxy to seal
up the spackling. I used a heat gun on the epoxy to make a nice smooth coat.

I was concerned about being able to cover the fairing well enough to
look good so I opted to paint it instead. Shown here is masking off
the area to catch the overspray.

Two coats of Lustrekote white primer.

And two coats of LustreKote dark red.

This matched the Monokote dark red I covered the fuselage with
quite well.

You can see my trusty Dremel table saw here as well as a homemade
disc sander. Both of these tools were indispensable in constructing
this plane.

Looks like the fuselage is about done. Lets move on to the tail group.