F-18 AirToon Tutorial

[lastvautour]

Building the twist in the wing is next. Start by drawing lines to the forward lower tip to where the lex will merge with the wing. Draw another line from the forard lower to the rear upper tip. Remove the material as per the shaded area. Draw a line where the wing meets the fuselage and make a vertival cut at the rear wing root.

Lou

[lastvautour]

Remove the materiel from the bottom of the wing as per the photo. The bottom front leading edge is done in a similar fashion (darker area). The degree of twist is determined by the thickness of the wing tip so do whatever looks good to you. I often exaggerate these features.

Lou

[lastvautour]

The first is the template for the nose area, canopy and rear upper fuselage. I do only half and flip for the second side. I temporarily glued the wings in place and marked lines for shaping the canopy, nose and upper fuselage. Do vertical and horizon cuts until the materiel is removed. Final shaping using coarse sandpaper will bring the shape out of the wood.

Lou

[lastvautour]

Shape the canopy by removing the materiel between the lines seen a few pictures back. Once shaped, round off the nose section and the upper rear fuselage. The parts are just tacked on for display at this pint.  On checking against the templates I need to do some fine tuning so that is all for now.

Lou

Should you not have any plastic engine nozzles, dowels will do fine.

[buccfan]

Thanks Lou,Regards Paul.

[lastvautour]

In keeping with solid wood construction, a dowel of the approx diameter is used and a line draw 2mm from the edge. Remove the materiel between the line and the forward edge of the nozzle and there you go. Intake boundary layer fence is made by soaking some thinned out wood approx 1mm thick. More on this later once the wood has dried a bit.

Lou

[lastvautour]

To hold the vertical stabs until gluing toothpicks are used. The horizontal stabs will get the same treatment, but due to there limited thickness straight pins will be used. The lex is sanded to fit at the same angle as the wings. The shade part is rounded off and then glued in place. Check both sides. They don't have to be in the exact position, but they should be in relation to each other.

Lou

[lastvautour]

Once a good sanding is giving, the fuselage wing assembly is sanded as well as the stabs. All the major components may be sealed and readied for primer at this point.

Lou

[lastvautour]

While the dust is settling from all this activity the engine nacelles are glued to the remaining fuselage. Armament in in the what if and what can I do stage. The arrester hook, two crossed round toothpicks and the arrestor hook attachment pieces are also being manufactured at this point. I had sufficient Sidewinders to do all 5 models, but decided to go with wood. It takes a bit more time but gives greater satisfaction.

Lou

[buccfan]

Thanks for the update Lou, I'll have to stock up on toothpicks my stock is getting low.Regards Paul.

[lastvautour]

One cannot survive without round toothpicks!!!!!!!!

Lou

[lastvautour]

The engine nozzles are a bit to small so I found a larger dowel and will be redoing them. The arrestor hook and attaching hardware is in rough form but will be sanded today. The armament is coming along nicely and should work out. I still need a Sidewinder rail launcher and some pylons. I also experimented with an undercarriage but !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The intake boundary layer fences are cut and soaking to make them more pliable.

Lou

[lastvautour]

Not quite to scale but it give an idea how the undercarriage is being approached. The orange and purple parts are my faithful round toothpicks. The nose gear is straight forward with two wheels glued to a dowel and inserted in the bottom of the fuselage. Photos to follow. Bingo again tonight, so no more work today.


Lou

[buccfan]

Looking good Lou, looking at photos the main legs do kick out at an angle, dowels are the one thing I am not short of, they sell them in bags of 100 at the craft store. Don't take too long counting your winnings,there's modelling to do.Regards Paul J.

[lastvautour]

I won the 50/50 this time. $19.50 goes into my new camera fund. I had a chance to tinker with the undercarriage this morning and it appears to work.  With the main gear wheels so far back there are no problems with balancing on its tricycle undercarriage. Picture by this evening..

Lou