My next project is the Australian Commonwealth Boomerang.  Its a plane I've loved since I was a kid - always wanted the Airfix model but never got around to buying one.    After comparing a couple different measured drawings - of course none of the measurements agree - I've settled on this set.  They are sized to my peculiar 1/56 scale.

Looking forward to your Boomerang.

Lou

Made a few photocopies of my plan, glue to the wood and then band saw through:

Moving along nicely. May I suggest you move this Boomerang project to its own post. I will move it if you wish.

Lou

Today I started shaping the fuselage with my favorite tool:  This is a 1x4x24" board with 60 grit emery cloth (belt sander belt) glued to one side and 100 grit to the other side.  My technique is to drag the piece along removing quite a bit of material with each pass.  As I get closer to the desired thickness measurement I'll switch to finer grit on smaller sanding blocks.  Not much blade work in my method. As I sand I keep replacing the horizontal registration pencil marks to maintain the symmetry.

Keeping those reference lines can make or break the model. Good work.

Lou

Progress today - fuselage is pretty much done and got the horizontal stabilizer glued.  Wing has correct airfoil shape - now need to set the angle for the dihedral. 

Over the weekend I got the four main pieces assembled and wing fillets done.  I use 2 part epoxy putty for fillet and for filling in all the seams.

Looks great John. I use wood filler for my filets.

Lou

Doing a bit of excavating today.  I use a dremel to hollow out the cockpit and front of the engine cowl - no bloody fingers yet!  Still deciding if I want to build this with landing gear up or down. Also, not sure yet how to simulate the boomerang's "porcupine" exhaust baffle...

Love it so far.

Lou

Model is looking great!!

I have the same problem with the porcupine exhaust for the Halifax models I am currently working on. I've been pondering this for a while and have come up with three possible approaches.

1) Placing some "dabs" of body filler onto either a piece of brass tubing or a wooden dowel and then filing / shaping the "dabs" to a uniform shape. I'm not sure how well the dabs will adhere  to the dowel / tubing long term, so this may not be a viable option

2) Crank up the Dremel with a cut off disc and grind diagonals into an oversized dowel. Alternately a triangular file could be used to cut in the diagonals / final shaping on the oversized dowel.

3) Use a wood burner / soldering iron with a wood burning tip to burn away material from an oversized dowel.

Not sure which would be best approach, but hopefully the above may provide you with some options for consideration.

-ken

Ken,

I had one last idea regarding the porcupine exhaust which involved filing/dremeling cross hatch through the threads of a brass wood screw...  but in the end I wimped out and decided on the early style straight exhaust pipe...   

The concept of a threaded "something" to assist with establishing a uniform pitch is certainly a great idea. I will have to do some pondering, but I'm thinking of a jig using a large diameter bolt with a course thread rotated through a correspondingly sized nut to advance / reverse  a wooden dowel attached to the bolt. A wood burner held stationary would then to burn away the excess material. Will have to do  some experimenting.

I'll keep you advised. - thanks - ken

Just about finished.  Now on to the primer.  I use a spraybomb sandable auto primer, with some 220 grit sanding between coats 1&2