Here's the latest on Chris Hardie's progress on his model of this unusual Luftwaffe WWII plane.

This is the completed tail construction, now fixed to the fuselage.

Chris has now started covering, although you cannot actually see it! He is covering with Flair nylon covering cloth which he is applying  with water-based polyurethane varnish, which will then take normal enamel or fuel proof paints. This use of polyurethane varnish was something which fellow club member Pete Lambert first tried out as an experiment and which proved very successful over solid areas. There is very little odour to the treatment and brushes can be cleaned up with water.

Here, the crew pod has been covered whilst the fuselage has not.

chardie@lineone.net

Building goes on apace on my Citabria and I must say it is most satisfying! At the last report, I had constructed the starboard wing panel and the centre section of the wing.

	Next came a repeat performance to build the port wing panel, thus completing the basic wing construction. The instruction book suggests joining the three panels at this stage, but I've put that to one side as the completed wing will require more space than I can afford just now.
	The tail section comes next, starting with the stabilizer,
	then the elevator halves,
	fin and rudder.
	After sanding all edges other than the elevator trailing edge to a nice half-round profile, the elevator halves are joined with a 3/32" wire joiner, elevator hinged to the stabilizer and rudder hinged to the fin and the tail surfaces construction is complete.
	First moves on the fuselage. The cabin frame construction is very weak at this stage, simply being butt-joined on the top edge of the fuselage. In fact, it is so weak that I knocked it off several times during the ensuing stages!
	Trouble! After I had tapered the longerons to join the fuselage sides at the tail as shown here, I fitted braces between the two sides and then found that one side had curved in more than the other, so the tapered joint was no longer on the centre line!
	My answer was to remove the braces, separate the tapered joint and start again. This time I cut small triangular notches in the longerons of the side that was not bending in enough in order to slightly weaken them, then I firmly anchored the fuselage over the plan top-view, fixed a set-square in dead alignment with the centre line and gently bent the sides to meet at the blade of the set-square. Finally, I re-fitted the cross braces. It was a silly mistake to assume the sides would bend in exactly equally, but I'm learning!
	Moving on, stringers are now in place down the fuselage sides, the landing gear block is in place and stringers have been added along the bottom front of the fuselage. The undercarriage legs are separate and simply slide into a prepared slot, then being held in place with bolts engaging in blind nuts on the lower ply plate of the 'sandwich'. This makes them easily removable for continued construction, fuselage shaping and possible replacement at a later date!

The cabin frame still seems a weak spot, although there are a couple of braces yet to be fitted; the separate window frames should also help to make the cabin more substantial. It certainly needs to be, as the wing is bolted to the top of the cabin!