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Fairey Long Range Monoplane - Excuses and promises...


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Hello All,

I've had a set of plans and a hankering to build a Fairey Long Range Monoplane for a long time now (since 1997), and a testing group build on another forum gave me the excuse to get going.

There are no injection or resin kits of this, and the only vac-form I know of was produced in 1985. So it's a scratchbuild job!

I dug out my balsa stocks and had a look. I didn't want to carve a one-foot-something tapered wing out of half inch balsa, so I started messing around with a composite structure:

mystery1_zpsf5504405.jpg

The idea was to have a curved upper surface of soft 1/16 balsa wood. More support needed!

mystery2_zpsf9a0e2b4.jpg

mystery3_zps48ad5dbe.jpg

Shaping was done by plane first and then sandpaper. There wasn't too much to take off - mostly shaping the tips, LE and TE.

mystery4_zps36a343f5.jpg

mystery5_zps7cb31ea8.jpg

Dihedral was added with a saw cut.

mystery6_zpsde405bba.jpg

I painted the balsa with Ronseal wood hardener (designed for rotting window sills, which is where I know it from) and then sprayed with Halfords filler primer, which is a jaunty shade of orange.

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_Wing_Underco

Fuselage was six slices of 1/8" balsa, with the beginnings of a cockpit cut out, stuck together into halves which in turn were tacked together (hopefully I will be able to get them apart again) and roughly shaped with a razor plane. When the black line round the middle gets smaller, that tells me I am sanding down near the profile.

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_Fuselage_Sli

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_Fuselage_Hal

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_Fuselage_Rou

I made tail surfaces out of 1/8" balsa, and sealed them with superglue. I used a plastic bag over my finger to spread the glue around - it saves a lot of finger scrubbing later!

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_Mockup_zpsc8

After some sanding and filling, I could put a coat of regular grey primer on the wing. I still need to touch up a few dings before it's ready to detail.

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_More_Underco

So next up is to finish the fuselage, and then the basic shapes are done. Then I can resume regular modelling!

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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Nice one Adrian.

A very elegant aircraft. I am always keeping a look out for the old Vac-form kit, but no luck yet. Great idea to make one out of balsa (old school), will follow with much interest.

All the best.

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Very interesting! :) Classic modelling.

I tried once or twice with balsa when I was a teenager, then I quite, not satisfied with results, but now - after seeing your work - I will think about it differently...

Cheers

Jerzy-Wojtek

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OLD SKOOL, BABY!!! :goodjob:

Love this: great subject, great techniques. I shall look forward to updates.

One question: where did you get that plane? My smallest is a good bit bigger, and I could do with a tiny one like that.

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Having started out on Cleveland balsa models as a child (some 60 yrs ago) its really nice to some someone picking up the gauntlet and running full speed toward the finish line. Bravo sir..bravo!

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One question: where did you get that plane? My smallest is a good bit bigger, and I could do with a tiny one like that.

Thanks Mitch,

The closest to what I have (in fact rather better) is here but it's out of stock. A basic one that does seem to be in stock is here, but that uses special blades as opposed to standard razors. Mind you, I don't think I've changed the blade since I bought it 20 years or so ago!

I imagine a regular plane would work too, but you would have to move the plane (model) over the plane (tool). A spokeshave would be good too - I have my great-granddad's one in the garage!

[edit] STOP PRESS The one I've got is in stock, here

Hope that helps,

Adrian

Edited by AdrianMF
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Hello All,

It turns out that I was a little over-enthusiastic and cavalier with my sanding. I checked the fuselage against a template - I had gone to0 narrow and too curved under the cowling and along the fuselage. I cut out a former from plastic card and let it in to the fuselage at the appropriate point so that I have the option of slathering it all in Milliput and getting it right that way. But first I think I will make another fuselage and see if I can't sand it a bit less (whilst checking a bit more closely against the templates). So I will call this one a trial run, unless the second one is worse!!

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_Too_Much_San

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

Edited by AdrianMF
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Hello All,

I might as well call this post "Why it's a good idea to buy kits"...

So I carved myself a new fuselage and kept a closer eye on cross sections:

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_New_Fuselage

Meanwhile I tried out some epoxy green stuff (comes as a strip of putty half yellow putty and half blue hardener) to beef up the first one. It says it dries "flexibly". So I slather it on the old fuselage and get sanding... Flexible it is!

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_Old_Fuselage

I had left it a day to harden but it stays flexible. When I started sanding I noticed it was starting to peel off! It's nice to work with but I think it's more suited to figures than this mullarkey. Good news is that it peels off cleanly so I can do it all over again:

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_Old_Fuselage

Meanwhile, back on the new one, a touch of green putty (the good ole' Squadron one this time!) and some hollowing out of the cockpit

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_New_Fuselage

You can see the cockpit walls are getting pretty thin - a wipe of superglue makes the outside layer almost like plastic, so it's a question of hacking out all the soft wood:

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_New_Fuselage

Next step is to prime the new halves so I can see what I've got, and we will go from there!

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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Good progress Adrian, if that green stuff does not work, use either milliput or super glue, in layers hardened with accelerator. I hardly ever use the green stuff or fine grey fillers other than for small seams that need filling.

keep up the good work, Ali

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Thanks Chaps!

The trouble with superglue as a filler next to balsa is the extreme difference in hardness. Once you go through the superglue, you almost instantly have a crater in your balsa wood! Maybe I need some cellulose dope and talcum powder...

Regards,

Adrian

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Adrian, the green epoxy is superb for figure sculpting but there are two things it doesn't do: sharp, straight edges and being sanded. For what you are doing, I have used milliput successfully in the past. The downside is how long it takes to dry!

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Cellulose dope shrinks. I used Banana Oil and Talc on all my wooden patterns. Humbrol used to make it and good flying model shops might still sell it. As a filler on wood try some thing like P.38 or any of the easy-sand car body stuff. It's very quick setting. I fast cure Milliput by putting it on domestic radiator (not night storage) of for small stuff I put it on top of my magnifier light.

BTW are those drawings from FANA and by Robinson? A superb project , and nicely done.

John

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This is really enlightening stuff, and the shapes are lovely!

A guy at our club suggested mixing talc and CA to get something which sands a bit more like plastic - it works, sort of, but I don't know if you could get it as soft as balsa that way? Might be worth trying though.

Will

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BTW are those drawings from FANA and by Robinson? A superb project , and nicely done.

John

+1 for two-pack cellulose filler. How did I forget that option? Maybe it was the styrene fumes! :D :hypnotised:

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Thank you all for the interest.

John -
Yes, those are the plans. I am using the FANA ones for general layout, because they measure out to the published dimensions exactly, and the Robinson for detail. There are mentions of reduced wingspan and shorter fuselage for K1991, so it could be possible that FANA is drawn to fit the measurements of the first and Robinson is a more accurate representation of the second. But they are both pretty close to each other (4mm fuselage length difference), which is about the same accuracy as my whittling and allowances for "nearest integer percentage" photocopier resizing.

I actually have still have some Humbrol sanding sealer (and dope!) in the garage, but I've switched over to superglue for grain filling. And I've not put anything on a light to dry since a rather embarrassing accident with a Gladiator instrument panel.

Will and Mitch -
I have used two-pack cellulose filler before. Ronseal wood repair filler is fast setting, in fact I'm not sure I've ever used it without it setting before I've finished applying it. However, the Squadron green bonds well to the primer and sands down nicely to feathered edges, so I'm staying with that.

So yesterday I sanded, sealed, filled, sanded, primed with Halford's orange rattlecan filler/primer and filled again.

This morning I sanded:

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_sanded_zps2d

primed:

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_primed_zpsf6

and sanded and filled again!

Fairey_Long_Range_Monoplane_filler_zps57

The amount of filler shown here is not as bad as it looks. I have a bit of a valley going on in the rear of the fuselage so I will be sanding the filler down to a very thin (but hopefully convex) shim and then I hope it's one last primer coat after that.

The fin shows what happens with superglue. I had broken the fin along the grain and repaired it with superglue, smeared over the joint. The ridge that this left behind needed some targeted sanding to remove.

Thanks for looking,
Adrian

Edited by AdrianMF
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