The main landing gear is 5⁄32-inch wire (at left) attached to ply mounting plates in the wing bottom using three nylon gear clips. Ply gear fairings are attached to the gear wire with two gear clips. Completed model (above) before paint and detailing. All cardboard joints have been covered with gummed paper tape.
sion to give adequate spinner clearance. Cut holes in the cowl block for the cylinder head, exhaust and needle valve. Apply epoxy to the inside of the cowl and front of the firewall. Glue the horizontal stabilizer in place in the aft fuselage slot. Glue the rudder to the fin with the trailing edge offset ¹⁄₂ inch to the outside of the flying circle, then glue in place on the fuselage. The tail fairing is made of three sections. First, add carved balsa fair- ings on each side of the fin above the hori- zontal stabilizer. Then glue the balsa fair- ing, located between the elevators, to the bottom. Then make a one-piece balsa fairing to finish the bottom fuselage.
Glue the wing to the fuselage. Add wood
filler to the ends of the fuselage side fairings to smoothly blend into the wing root section. Make each main gear from ⁵⁄₃₂-inch diam- eter wire as shown. The pieces are attached to the mounting plates in the wing with ny- lon gear clips. Make the gear fairings from ¹⁄₈-inch ply and attach to the main gear with nylon gear clips.
Bend the tail wheel strut from 3⁄32-inch wire
as shown, place on the ply support, wrap with nylon thread, smear with glue and mount in the bottom aft fuselage cutout. Slip black fuel tubing over the tail gear wire for better defi- nition. Adding a couple of drops of oil in the tubing first will make this much easier.
Finishing
Apply a coat of sanding sealer to all the balsa parts of the model and sand smooth. Give the cardboard sections two coats of clear dope, sanding lightly after each coat with #400 sandpaper. Then follow with two coats of color. The color scheme I used for my model was desert sand upper surfaces and light gray lower surfaces. Aluminum Mono - Kote pieces were used to simulate the cock- pit windows for piece W1 and on the cockpit constant section. Outline the cockpit win- dows with black trim. The lettering, num- bers and logos were made from black MonoKote or from designs developed in drawing program ModelCADD 3000 printed
on Avery full sheet sticky labels (#8165) with an inkjet printer.
Final assembly
Pass the leadout wires through the wing tip line guide and tie off. Attach the nylon control horn to the elevator and hook up the pushrod. Attach 31⁄4-inch diameter wheels to the main gear and a 11⁄2-inch diameter wheel to the tail gear. Add an 11–6 prop and a 21⁄2-inch spinner to the engine and your ship will be complete. Be sure to balance the model at the point shown on the plans. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions concerning the cardboard Am- brosini 207, please write to me at the follow- ing address: Chuck Felton, 825 Lake Park Drive, Lakehills, TX 78063. Or e-mail me, maybe with a photo of your completed card- board model, at
charlesfelton@earthlink.net. You can also visit my website at http://
www.feltondesignanddata.com to see more cardboard model airplane designs and build- ing techniques.
Numbers and trim do a lot to add character to the model (above, at left). Trim includes aluminum and black MonoKote and insignia developed in ModelCAD3000 and printed on Avery #8665 Clear Labels. The canopy (at left) is simulated using aluminum colored MonoKote outlined with black striping. A solid cardboard cockpit makes the model stronger and easier to build. The logo was printed on Avery clear labels. The Ambrosini 207 (above) is a distinctive looking design with its lower fuselage side cheeks and large nose air intake cutout. The scoring and folding method makes it an easy airplane to model using cardboard, while still giving good scale appearance.
FLYING MODELS 55
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