Building a Nieuport 11...

[Frank Giger]

So I had to order more leading edge material and some covering rivets, which I found at a company for half of what AS asked for them. Shipping took longer, but turning a hundred dollar invoice into a fifty dollar one was worth waiting a few days.

In the meantime there was still work that could get done, like cutting out the panel mount and tightening some things on the "as there is time" list.

Here's the gear all painted and pretty:



Everything I needed arrived, so here's an upper wing pretty and prepped to be covered and made more pretty:





Gonna cover that sucker tomorrow and bring it to primed.

[Frank Giger]

Woohoo, it was hot today!

I got into covering the wing and forgot to take pictures!

Needs final tension, tapes, and rivets:



I must say this is one day I'm sort of pleased with myself on the job, especially since all the sins of that aileron leading edge were disguised by covering!

[Frank Giger]

I guess a few notes on covering the upper wing are in order, as I was kind of rushed in putting the picture up:

1) Obviously I couldn't "wrap" the wing with one piece of fabric, so that's two pieces, a top and a bottom. In a lot of ways it's actually easier to work with one piece per side, as one is only worried about pulling up slack on one side versus making sure it's as tight as one can have by hand on both.

2) While one can cover using any technique one pleases on an experimental, I followed standard STC guidance as if covering a Champ or other certified aircraft such as a minimum four inch overlap on the leading edge. I came out at around four and a half inches owing to how the fabric laid and my sloppy glue lines.



The trailing edge is a three inch glue weld, give or take a quarter inch extra.

3) The picture shows what looks like a very ugly glue line, and it is ugly. However, what I learned from the lower wing is that as long as there isn't a glue ridge it is really a waste of time to try and be clean - especially since a finishing tape is going over it. Even then, so long as one wipes up excess so that there's no clumps or ridges the glue just acts as sealer to the fabric.

One of the real upsides to using latex paint is that ugly glue lines vanish under the primer, and by color is completely overstated by my why-bother-sanding orange peel effect.



4) Removing the ugly strips of aluminum right before the aileron was a good call. The ribs at the rear of the wing before it caused no problems in covering, and now the air flows to the control surface unimpeded. In fact, the leading edge of the aileron sticks up a bit from the rear spar of the wing, and lends itself well to some sealing tape if I decide to use it.

5) I was careful in trimming to fit the wing itself and had enough to do the aileron; one more advantage to 7/8 scale!

[Frank Giger]

Edging tapes and final tension applied - rivets and tape today, and maybe some primer!

[Frank Giger]

My wing had a bad case of porcupine syndrome:



But I made it all better with some blue medicine and bandages
.




Prime and paint tomorrow. I didn't want to start this afternoon and run out of daylight; better to give myself the whole day and get it done all at once.

[Frank Giger]

Work goes apace!

Top of the wing done, less making the cuts on the end of the wing so I can have a way to get the inevitable dropped nut.





Bottom of the wing painted in my very pale CDL. Forward tape removed to show my patented wavy transition, edge tapes are still in place for the blue trim to be painted tomorrow morning, along with the roundel, as well as the cuts for the lift tangs for the flying wires and interplane struts.




I also made a training aid for my class at the next EAA chapter meeting on how to paint with latex. I'll take a photo of it tomorrow, but basically I took a long picture frame, covered it, and painted it from primer to final coat, taping off each section to show how it looks and progresses, with one end raw, unpainted fabric. I'm glad to have something to contribute to the chapter, as it's been nothing but me getting help and learning stuff!

Plus it's not fair to rely on just a couple guys to have something to show and learn about each meeting! That and I learned long ago that one can't gripe about boring classes without stepping up to the plate and try to keep things interesting.

[Frank Giger]

On positioning the roundel, one look at the Ronny Bar profile and I knew the 7/8th scaling of my aircraft wouldn't allow for such a large roundel, so I figured I'd have the roundels in position relative to each other instead.


So I pulled out the lower wing I had done - 50-50 chance I had done the same side of the aircraft fell in my favor, as I grabbed both wings at random from the stack of four when covering - and laid it on top of the upper wing. I put a ruler under the roundel's outer edge, lifted the lower wing off of the upper one, made a pencil mark, and drew some circles.





It looks too far inboard of the wingtip; I'll have to see when the others are covered and I mount them just to see how it looks. In fact, I think I'll hold up on the right upper roundel until I do just that.





Definitely a 30 foot roundel, but at this angle one can see the blue trim turned out just fine.





Upper part of the wing in the "sunshine test." The colors really do pop a little too much but look great in shade!





Oh, and here's something I worked up for this month's EAA chapter meeting:





I monkeyed with the saturations and contrast of the pic, but it just wasn't amiable to being taken in direct sunlight.


I volunteered to give a short presentation on painting with latex since I'm the only one doing it (or has done it) and like all chapters we have to stop relying on the same couple of guys coming up with stuff every month.


Anyhow, the left is raw fabric, and along the bottom there are two squares and a big rectangle showing first, second, and third coats of primer. Above that is two squares and a rectangle going the other way showing first, second, and third coats of color. And yes, that's a cheap picture frame covered with scrap and not tightened too very much.





[edit] The more I look at that roundel the more I think I'm going to have to move it outwards by it's own diameter. Dammit.

[Frank Giger]

Oh for the love of Pete, that roundel gets painted over on Monday - it's supposed to extend over to the aileron, which is why it looks so wrong....it's too small by a third!

[Frank Giger]

Moving on to the roundel, which was too small!

Double checking my maths, the first two circles were by compass and the outer one with some safety wire connected to a screw taped down and a pencil at the other.



Looks like the 1960's mod version of a roundel, but blue and red done.



White center in and off white underbelly trimmed around the red.



Like everything that's large one works on very close to, it is never entirely clear on the effort until one can back off of it.



Not too shabby if one stays six paces from the aircraft!

[Frank Giger]

Just got finished putting the leading edge onto the other upper wing. It went a little less smoothly than the other one - I think I got a little over confident and rushed a bit.

Anyhow, it's all taped up and after I drill the ribs and clean her up it's time once again to cover.