The outer perimeter of the fuselage is faired with balsa sheet and sanded (above left) to a radius. Each section is fitted between the former bays individually. The tail fairing is glued in place and contoured into the fuselage. Note the elevator pushrod (above right) exiting through the slot in the fuselage side.
all the ribs in place followed by the 1⁄8 × 1⁄4 balsa leading edge, tip bows, and 1⁄16 square balsa turbulator spars. When the glue has dried thoroughly, re- move the wing from the plan and rock it over to the left hand panel and repeat the assem- bly process. It might be a good idea to place a block under the right hand panel to pre- vent accidental damage during the framing process. Then, once the glue has dried, re- move the wing assembly from the board and sand to shape.
At this point, the flying surfaces are com- plete and ready to cover. I used Cream Coverite Microlite. The rudder is hinged us- ing Microlite or hinge tape, but don’t hinge the elevator yet or it won’t fit into the slot in the fuselage. We’ll fill in the details on that when we get to final assembly. Building the fuselage: Begin by gluing the Wing Saddle Doublers FSD in place on the fuselage sides. The doublers go to the in- side, so be careful to make a left and a right side. Lay the RH side on the board and fit all of the formers in place and glue. There are a couple of alternatives for radio gear in the AJ. The brick from any of the RTFs will work fine, but servos and a micro Rx will also do nicely, providing they’re small enough. If you go with the brick, secure it on the right hand side with a dab of silicone and let it dry. Then run the pushrods in as shown. If servos are used, locate them as shown. Set up the servos so that the output arms are at 90 degrees to the servo, slip the pushrod onto the servo arm and feed the rods in through the holes in the formers. Secure the servos to the fuselage side with silicone. Connect the servos to the Rx and test the system for proper operation. If there’s a problem, fix it now, because once the left side is glued in place you can no longer ac- cess the equipment easily.
Order Plan CD456 for $9.00 FLYING MODELS
Set up the motor mount and fit the motor in place. I made a mount for the E-flite Park 180 from brass tubing. The tube and motor were cross drilled and the motor secured with a small screw so that the motor could
be removed if necessary. The ESC was con- nected and the leads secured through the former and the tubular mount glued in place with a bit of right and down thrust. The mo- tor was connected and test run to insure everything was working properly. Once it was all good, the left fuselage side can be glued in place. The 1⁄16 × 1⁄4 balsa cap is glued in place all the way around the fuselage. The stick will need to be formed to the curvature at the front and at the base of the windshield by ei- ther steaming the wood over a wood form us- ing a MonoKote iron, or with a ship builders plank bender. Glue the cap in place at each former location. Once in place, sand the bevel into the edges using the cross sectional views for reference. The sides are capped with 1⁄16 balsa sheet, trimmed to fit between the for- mer bays, a section at a time. Then once all the sheeting is in place, sand the top and bot- tom to shape as shown in the cross sections. Now that the fuselage is all framed and sanded, fill the imperfections with balsa filler—I use wall board joint compound, af- fectionately refered to as “drywall mud”. I like the dry mix because it can be set up to virtually any consistency to best accommo- date the task at hand. Then once the surface work is done and the assembly detail sand- ed, apply four or five coats of nitrate dope or polyurethane varnish to seal the wood, lightly sanding between coats to remove the balsa fuzz to insure a good smooth surface to apply the graphics.
Applying the graphics
A full graphics package is available for the original AJ 404 color scheme from
www.callie-graphics.com. Callie can also do any of the colors that were offered on the original gliders as well. Applying the large panels can be a bit of a challenge, so start small and work your way up to the wing.
Starting with the rudder, peel the back- ing back from the top corner about 3⁄4 inch and fold it over onto itself. This will expose
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