The Hawks' Nest

January 2004

Vol 2, Issue 1

Smoke Signals From The Bench

Air Age Inc. RC Encyclopedia Series
Many of you may not be aware of or may not be a fan of the magazine “Model Airplane News”. However since I am a fan I just wanted to take a few minutes to mention a series of soft cover 8 1/2” X 11” books they have from Air Age Publishers. Their not expensive and I have used them quite a bit when working in my shop.
The book I wanted to mention in particular is titled “Scratch-Building R/C Airplanes” by Rich Uravitch. He covers every aspect in the process of scratch building by actually building a Fokker D-VII. He provides many pictures and illustrations along the way that I thought were clear and well done.

He covers the following topics: How to Read Plans; Selecting Materials; Tool Requirements; Building and Finishing; Making Templates; Transfer Techniques; Alignment Methods; Engine/ Radio Installation; and Covering.
His approach is to provide as much help to modelers interested in scratch building, without producing a volume that it cracks the work bench every time you set it down. In the book you are able, if you choose, to build the 40 size sport-scale Fokker D-VII right along with Rich. This model is from plans Rich developed some years ago.

I particularly liked the chapter titled “Wire We Diong All Of This”. The Fokker, being a WWI model bi-plane, has wire as part of its’ design. Rich does an excellent job in this chater of showing how to create all of the various wire formed struts using simple home made jigs. His pictures and explaination helped me to create the wire forms I needed for my scratch build project the first time through. So If I can be successful using this book I figure it must be pretty darn good!

The 2 pictures above show a jig that Rich used in positioning the two landing gear struts properly so they can be soldered. As Rich explains, except for the axel length the two struts for the landing gear on the Fokker are the same. On the previous page he goes through the complete process for forming the two wire struts for the landing gear. Using a vice he explains how to first correctly mark the wire where it will bend by placing it on the plan template and then how to position the wire in a vice for bending it.

The picture above shows how to properly attach the soldered landing gear struts in the correct position on the under side of the Fokker D-VII fuselage. Rich uses at least two nylon clips per strut and sheet metal screws to hold it firmly in place.

The picture above shows how the axel part of the strut for the tail wheel inserted into a balsa block holds it in place A washer can then be soldered in the correct location for centering the tail wheel onto the axel. A washer is also soldered onto the wire where it meets the nylon tail wheel bracket to reduce the load on the rudder.

The picture above shows how to properly position and attach the cabane wires once they have been bent per the plan template. Rich notes that careful measurements are escential to ensure proper wing incidence.