Haven't posted in awhile, but have made some good progress on sheeting the fuselage. Have it about 80% covered, just have ~4 more panels to do at the front. Realized I needed to complete the sheeting before I started soldering the landing gear and cabane struts together since I'm not sure those will come on/off easily after being connected.
Here are a few pics of the sheeted fuselage so far: I'm using painter's tape and rubber bands to hold panels in place while the glue dries. I can do 1-2 panels a day, there are a total of ~18 on the entire fuselage.
I've been soaking the panels in hot tap water for a few minutes to soften them up (it's 1/16" balsa sheets) and then I tape/rubber band the wet panel to the fuselage overnight to set the curvature. Then the next evening I'll glue it on and let that dry overnight.
There's definitely some art to this and I've gotten a little better along the way. (so the front of the fuselage is likely to look a lot better than the rear!).
I'll have to next sand all the edges flush & fill in gaps with some sort of putty...but I'm not sure what to use since most of the fuse will be just stained and clear-coated to give the natural wood finish..don't want the putty fills to stand out.
I also have been playing around with techniques for soldering the 1/8" music wire pieces of the landing gear together. I first tried a propane plumber's torch but it overheated the wire way too fast and turned it black, at which point I couldn't get the solder to wet. (I am wrapping with copper wire first) I then tried my higher-power electrical soldering iron and it seemed to work quite well...as long as all the metal was very clean, grease-free, and fluxed appropriately, and I didn't overheat it. I'll post some pics of the soldered landing gear once they're done.
