MODEL BUILDING THE MOULDED WAY

The normal work load has dropped off so much progress on the STILLETO project has occured, looks like the other development team is at a similar stage in there endevours.

The second half of the mould is made up against the other side, that is the splitter board is removed but not the plug/form, edges are put in place and everything release waxed , buff the wing only , lots of wax on the rest helps losen things later on.

The wing mould is now complete and will be cleaned up and the rough edges sanded off.

Its like opening a present always good when it turns out ok.

The tailplane mould had some of the tailplane left behind ,this was soaked in water and then carefully picked off a little at a time, no not with a screwdriver or modeling knife.

Now it looks good and ready for waxing up and preparation to

lay up the first tailplane .

Next we mark out and cut with a jigsaw the fuselage profile as close as possible to the line, the
fuselage is waxed and not buffed at this time to a shine, while the fuselage is set in position with ,in my case off cuts of superwood . The splitter must sit halfway and the taper towards the rear requires carefull alignment.

When done the body filler is carefully scraped into the gap and allowed to go rubbery , once again it is scraped down to an even shape as close to 90 degrees against the fuselage as you can get it, a clean up with thinners, and release wax on everything splitter included. The fuselage is now buffed up and on goes the gel coat ,allowed to gel, followed by cloth and resin, thin fine cloth first , build up a good layer as I dont build an edge on my fuselage mould( makes clean up easy later).

This will be my last posting of this glider build for this year and when I resume in the new year the prototype will probably have flown, if there is any interest in the actual layup ,materials and technique used I will document these for later.

Have a good festive season

and remember friends dont let friends fly junk.