Building a Nieuport 11...

[Frank Giger]

Work area had become a disaster with the cabane build, as it wasn't on gear and the tail was lifted up on a saw horse:



Much better!



Baslee style work table done! 2x4 on the saw horses, 2x6's screwed together lengthwise, stood up on edge and toed into the saw horses. MDF laid on top of them and screwed down.



This is what it looks like under the MDF...



Bag o' wing hardware with my name on it.



Here's the lower wing drawn out on the MDF.

[Frank Giger]

Of course this is drawing number two. I had established a reference line for the wing (never trust the square of a board!) and used it for the rearward spar.

But there is a tube that goes around there that the ribs tag into, and dang if was too far down and ran right off of the board. Not a problem, just had to erase a few lines and move the whole thing up.



Had enough daylight to lay down the spars and the join-y up pieces.



I'll use the same jig for both wings, since they're identical. One will be upside down, of course, but that's an easy annotation to make. The rib lines are just for reference - I'll mark where they go on the assembly with a sharpie as it lays on the table and put the ribs on with them suspended.

The MDF will get flipped over and drawn on for the upper wings.

I had really stressed the seven degree sweep for a long time until I really studied the plans. There's a two inch offset between the two spars that comes out to the right angle if the measurements are kept the same from the ends.

[Frank Giger]

Got some time to work on the wing:

First issue is how to ensure that all my holes are on the same center,* in a nice even plane. Here's the low tech solution:

Scribble with a Sharpie over the area that crosses the line.



Take a square and run it back and forth, making sure not to roll the tube when making the mark. All our centers have to be the same, after all.



Now take the square and put it on the line and make a small scratch up to give a crosshair...



Pilot hole - big bits tend to wander around in my hands.



All assembled for test fit on the fuselage end...



...and the interplane strut end. Those big thingies sticking up go to the landing wires.



Of course I didn't drill the holes for the drag/anti-drag cable connections and had to take it all apart to put them in.

Time for some Alabama Engineering in mounting those cables.

They've got to be "as tight as you can make them" according to Mr. Baslee. My solution was to swag one end, cut and loop the other, put a vise grip on the tail, hook a bungee to it, and pull like hell until it stuck on an anchor screw I put down into the MDF.



The first wire worked great - it's like a lower guitar string one can strum.

The second wire, though, fought me pretty hard and somehow wound up loose. Sigh. Gonna have to cut it and re-do it; my frustration level was to where I was glad the sun started to go down.

[Frank Giger]

A few notes:

You'll note a piece of scrap aluminum sheet bent over in some of the pics. I put it between the swagging tool and the spars to keep from scratching them up.

I figured out a better way to tighten cables. I'm going to take a turnbuckle and use it on the free end with a temp clamp, securing it with a bolt throught the MDF and using it to tighten.

And please note the go-no go gauge - check every swag!

[Eric Witherspoon]

Frank,
I'm working on an Al tube & gusset biplane as well. Not a WWI replica, just a rather old-fashioned looking fun-flyer. I was curious what size tubes are used on the spars there. The design I'm working, I believe, in some ways is designed more like an ultralight made to look like a biplane - there's no drag/anti-drag cables in the wings - or compression struts! The aft "spar" is diagonal in the wing, intersecting the main spar maybe 2/3 of the way out, forming a big triangle, with only the main spar outboard of that.

Thanks,
Eric

[Eric Witherspoon]

Didn't mean to ask without saying what I'm looking at here, just didn't have the data in front of me. The spars I'm working with are 3.0" x .062w for the mains, and 1.75" x .048w for the afts.

[Frank Giger]

Front spar:



Rear spar:








Here's the improved method! Note the screwdriver warning says to never use as a pry bar or chisel. :lol:



Couldn't resist - I had to lay the ribs on top just to see it. They're not drilled and coped for the rear support yet, so they're sitting high; they'll be adjusted to go down to the line you see near the tails.



Here's the bend jig for the rear bow; I've got to make the one for the front yet. I'll make that rear bend, mark the spar for the hole to fit, put it through, and THEN bend the front to tag into the leading spar.

I also marked the spars with large TOP labels, as this will be the right lower wing. The other one will be built the same way, but with large BOTTOM labels, as I don't want to put the ribs on the same side for both!



Here's the Big Bag O' Wing Parts emptied out.



I use the bucket technique to make sure I don't lose stuff, where I put everything into one big bucket.

[Chad Jensen]

Looking great Frank...this build thread is really wetting my appetite.

[Anymouse]

Looking great Frank...this build thread is really wetting my appetite.

You don't want to know how many times I've looked at the Airdrome Aeroplanes website after reading this thread.

Frank's thread might end up costing me a bunch of money!!!

[Bill Ladd]

You don't want to know how many times I've looked at the Airdrome Aeroplanes website after reading this thread.

Frank's thread might end up costing me a bunch of money!!!

Then this won't help any...

http://vimeo.com/couchmode/chrisgerl...:date/25883864