May 26, 2005

Some more drawing. It's difficult to make progress during the work week. At least the end is in sight for all this drawing stuff. Then I actually get to make some parts for my Falco. The frames I just finished are for station 3 and station 10. As you can see there was some funky stuff going on with the way I had to lay these out. Frame three is two halves of different sizes. The top half is about where the instrument panel will be and the bottom half is part of the cockpit. The top and bottom are glued together after the parts are made. In order to account for the overlap of the two halves, I had to raise the water line (horizontal center line) by 120 mm. For the station 10 frame, I still used the original water line. Everything should work out and the two finished C-sections for frame 3 will fit together perfectly.

After this, I have three more frames to lay down. These will be on two different 4' by 4', 3/4" plywood sheets. The largest frame that is under the canopy will be one of these, but this one is also two halves glued together and they are too big to fit for female frames on one 4' by 4' sheet. I'll split it up between the other frames I have yet to draw. It's just one solution but it should work.

I ordered the last few things I needed in order to get started making parts. I needed clamps (tons!), hand shield cream (like invisible gloves...coolest stuff ever), and a mass scale to measure the two part glue substances for mixing.

Once I get everything I'll spend some time making practice glue joints to test the glue batches I have and work out the technique required to make good glue joints. The first frame the manual suggests making is the diagonal frame between station 2 and 3. It's only a half frame and there are no tight curves so it should be easier to make. If that's not a disaster, I'll go from there. But for now, I'll keep drawing.

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