Golden Era Model Service
High Quality Plan Sets for Radio Control Aircraft
Chester Chaplaskie's Thunder Bird 45



The digital caliper and the JLC saw allow for very precise cuts.  There is a table  of lengths
 for verticals and crossmembers on the plan.  The JLC saw is available at UMM USA.

Assembled fuselage sideframe.  There is a fair bit of curve on the forward end of the lower longeron.  It was sliced to facilitate bending.  On the prototype,
to save weight in the aft fuselage 3/32 X 3/16 crossmembers and verticals were substituted for the 3/16 square from 1 frame aft of the back window 
to the tail.  The large cross section of the fuselage makes it very rigid. A long stick was used for the longeron that starts at the back of the forward
side window and later sawed the inside face and cracked it to make the curve that starts at that point. That helped with placing the
top ply frame on in the nose as there were fewer parts that had to be held in place.  

A twisted wire with a fork formed at the end holds a small amount of glue for tacking together balsa joints.  The plastic cup is from TAP Plastics.  
When the fork gets too much glue buildup cut the wire back and form a new one.  Keeping fresh thin CA in the cup also makes for better joints.

On the very end of the tail there is no vertical so a temporary one was put in place, a stick of 3/32 X 3/16 turned sideways,
even with the outside of the frame to allow for sanding in the angle on the inside faces.

Assembling the main fuselage is easy because of the flat surface on top of the fuselage.

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