Hi there Mike, Evan & Vic

Thanks for the support that you have provided so far. I must say that some things you mentioned are so logical that I can't believe we never thought it thru such as casting the otherside of the mould without removing the Plug.


Plug number 2


Anyway, The new plug has been shaped and layered up with one 50g cloth and one 200g layer. We have re sanded and got back to shape with minor blemishes.
Should we put on another layer of glass, as I noticed the previous plug developed small pressure indentations during the final sanding and polishing phase?

Our wings are progressing well with some help from Vic Oxley who is an old hand at constructing built up wings. He has kindly undertaken to construct the wings for us. We would love to try bagging, but without a vacuum pump and the suitable knowledge, we will leave this process in abeyance for the time being.
Vic has been building and flying in our area for the last thirty years or so!


Vic Oxley hard at work in his workshop


The foam cores have been cut and he has elected to build a balsa covered wing which poses a bit of head scratching as regards the fixing of the wing to the body.

The thought has been to cut the"canopy" opening down to the bottom edge below the wing so that the wing can be bolted down to the lower section of the fuse and the enlarged canopy will be shaped to the top of the wing profile. It may help to have a removable wing and we are looking to put a centrally placed servo for the ailerons....
We're getting ahead of ourselves!

Thanks for all your positive comments and support.
Kind regards
Johann & Daron

Johann & Daron

It all starts somewhere......
It was about messing around on the Internet, browsing to see what planes were around, when we happened to come across the Jart web site. After looking around the local builders and seeing Adrian's build thread it made us believe we too could build this plane..... how hard could it be?
The fact that neither of us had built a scratch plane (balsa or glass), other than damage repair, did not deter us.
We sourced some Iso board and shaped the plug... so far so good
Then read up on all the epoxy and paint coating specs.....
glassed and painted....
( not without mishaps)
And we were the proud parents of a Plug!!!!
All shiny and smooth.
This was then laid up as described by Evan and others

My daughters got so exited when they saw their Dad busy with blue paint that they volunteered to help....

This only lasted for 5 minutes until they discovered that it was all gooey and did not come off.

The splitter board came off with no problem.

And......

It STUCK.....

I'm trying to get over it!

I must admit it's hard not to just give up.

I'll give it a day or so to come to terms with my short comings...

I suppose it's part of the learning curve and life's rich tapestry of experience.

We'll post some more pictues of our next build....

Progress - down the twisty road now!!

Wings out of the bag, root ribs had to be ditched as I forgot about trimming to the fuselage angle before adding the ribs....

I used a rubber polising wheel on the dremel to dig out the foam. You can go right up against the skin without damaging it and it eats up the foam no problem.

Then I mixed a strong cotton flock mixture (with no cabosil to allow it to run) and

poured it in the gap. The leading edge was dug out to about 50mm to seat the alignment peg - a 5mm diameter length of music wire fitted with an alignment tool - just an old printed circuit board with two holes drilled through it.

A bit of paint, some articulation and a new twf pnf toy is born!!

Articulation

Side on -

Full turn!

Look Ma, no elevator- no aileron ................ no Brakes!!

Just two servo's to fit (DS8711's with plenty amandla) and a ledge for the canopy and were are done.

ps - anyone else done a twf Jart in SA?

Fuz

No I have'nt just been sitting around but trawling the internet for acticles and advice on fibreglassing techniques. Also been shaping the fuselage and finally got enough confidence to do my first fibreglass project. All done now and expoxied, in the process of micro balloons and sanding to get to some resemblance of the finishes I see produced by the Jarters. I think the fuselage is a little plumper than it should be as I did'nt allow for the thickness of the glass etc. Looks cool though. Pic's to follow. Also got a wing and stab from Adrian so that should shorten the final programme.