Thought you might like to see how the Laser is progressing.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been doing the thousand and one little jobs that need doing, but the net effect does not appear that great.

One of the first things that needed doing was a fixing for the wing halves. Although the ally tube is a very good sliding fit in the wings and it all felt very secure when assembled to the fuselage, I felt it better if there was something to prevent any movement whatsoever. A friend of mine turned up some ally bar for me approx 50mm long and tapped M6 (thanks Dave) and these were epoxied into the wings; these are the shiny bits in the photo. When the wing and fuselage are assembled I simply screw in a M6 plastic screw into each wing panel.

I then made up the radio tray out of ply and epoxied it to some rails I had already epoxied in the fuselage. The servos chosen are JR 517 for throttle and ailerons (one per aileron), but I felt I would need a bit more power for elevator and rudder so invested in a pair of JR591's; these are 5.1kg compared to 3.1kg (ish) of the 517.

The elevator pushrod has been made up from 5mm diameter carbon fibre tube with 3mm piano wire epoxied inside, these are then terminated with metal clevises. On the elevator end, I will be using the internal linkage you can see in the photos. Whilst I can assemble the linkage & pushrod with nothing in the way, once the tailplane is in I won't have access to it so will make up a hatch in one side to be able to service this item.

I have already installed the aileron servos using a couple of neat boxes I saw hanging on the wall in Peterborough models, they were only about £4 for the pair and are made by Aviomodelli of Italy. The thing that impressed me about them was how the servo mounting lugs in the cover locate in the base giving a very secure fixing.

So what is next? The rudder will be closed loop and that needs to be made up and I will need to hinge and chamfer the ailerons and make up the linkages. Then I have the tank, batteries, switch, spats, throttle -  I think I have plenty to keep me going for a while yet . . .

With the wing finished, it's time to turn back to the fuselage.

Ply support fitted between cabin sides and heavy duty cabin braces fitted to the support and firmly epoxied to inner fuselage sides. The stub ends of the cabin braces protrude through the ply support and act as wing retainers, registering into holes in the leading edge of the wing which slides up to them, as shown on the right.

Sanding and joining the two cowl sides, after which the front face is cyano-glued into place. I don't like running  cyano into joints like this - I find the stuff hard to control!

Engine mounting box. The box sides extend into the fuselage and before fixing permanently into place, the engine is temporarily mounted and the box is slid in as far as is necessary to achieve the correct distance between the back of the firewall and the front of the engine thrust washer

This is the assembled cowl. The prop shaft aperture proved to be far too small for the RCV engine and needed enlarging considerably. Apertures also needed to be cut in the top surface of the cowl for access to the starter shaft and carburettor needle valve and on the underside of the cowl to accommodate the exhaust pipe. Here the engine is temporarily in place to add position the cowl for fixing.