Peter Rake's White Monoplane build thread

[Up&Away]

No offense, but I'm putting the full blame on Tim Hooper for this. I've been corresponding with Tim off and on for the past 3 years on many different aspects of RC flying and building. A fellow RC-er with infinite more experience and knowledge then me. It all started one day, when I was leafing through the April 2006 edition of RC ModelWorld magazine, and saw an article (and free plan) of this little beauty.


The Hild-Marshonet. Maybe not love at first sight, but you must admit she scores high on "cutenous". Eying the plans, it didn't look too complicated (to my un-experienced eyes). A biplane without those pesky wires running everywhere, a very simple fuse, and to top it all she was designed for a simple geared speed400 motor. Then lo and behold, the article ends with comments of the test builder and pilot, none other then Mr. Tim Hooper.

If I was only interested before, now I was realy interested. Reading the article several times, with the plan in front of me, it didn't seem too daunting. I send an email to Tim. The reply from Tim was very diplomatic. Basically he didn't think this would be a good model for me. Especially after my disastrous attempts of building the Plouf Slopeglider 3 years ago. Come to think of it, that was my first contact with Tim, and he send me the plan. See, it's all Tims fault...
In continuation of blaming Tim -so as not to be too discouraging- he advised me to have a look at some of Peter Rake's designs, especially the White Monoplane. A search on the internet did not show immediately Peter's design, but I did find this:


Further research brought me to some threads on RCGroups.
As I couldn't find any White Monoplane plans on the net, I send Peter an email. The plans apparently where a freebie in the December 2002 edition of Flying Scale Models Magazine. Some money was send through cyberspace, and within a week I had the magazine (with plan) in my sweaty hands.
I could see why Tim thought this model would be more appropriate. A simple box fuse, stick and tissue tail, and a straight (all ribs are the same size) wing.

I promised myself not to make the same (many) mistakes I made when trying to build the Plouf. The mistakes I made then? Hmm. How about building two left wings? Twice. Neither wing was straight, and both where unequaly not straight. Wavy trailing edges. Ribs of unequal height (don't ask) The alumium tubes inside the wings (for the cf wingrod) were not in line, any line. The reason(s)? Inexperience. Impatience. No proper building board to pin the pieces down. No proper equipment. Basically, I had no idea what I was doing. But now I do (I think). I've come a long way since I (re-)started in this hobby almost 4 years ago.

So, as I didn't want to cut up and to put pins through the original plan, and also because it was printed on both sides on very flimsy paper, I made 2 sets of photocopies of the plan. One set to drool over, and hopefully use to build. If I've drooled too much I can use the other set. But the other set is also as a spare to give to a friend (if that's ok with Peter), who I am sure will want to build one as well, after he's seen mine...

[Up&Away]

To get 22 similar wingribs (I'd like to say "equal" but I know my capabilities to screw things up), I cut out the wingrib from the plan and spray-glued it onto a piece of light ply. Then it was a simple case of cutting, filing and sanding.

And from the other side...


As a first trial I only clamped one of the 4 1/8inch ribs to the ply rib.


And then I did 3 in one go.


The 16 1.6mm(1/16inch) ones I did in batches of 4.


And the 2 wingtip ribs.


That was two evenings of relaxed fiddling while sitting in the salon with the family, watching television... (little did I know what was in store for me)

The next evening, just for the fun of it, I placed a rib on the plan. To my great surprise and consternation, the cut ribs where shorter than the wingplan ones!
The side view plan is 8.5"


But the wingplan ones' are just over 8 3/4"!!!


And what's more, the main spar and rear spar are switched, the TE measurement states on the plan 1/2", but measures only 1/4". The explanation I got from Peter was that it was well possible that there could be some discrepancies on the plan, as they are not CAD plans. Others have noticed it as well, and just moved the TE up. Peter assured me that the loss of wing surface will not harm the flying characteristics.
So, on I went with the wing. As there is a slight problem with the plan, I decided not to follow the suggested instruction of placing the TE first, and take it from there. Instead, I pinned the two wing spars on the plan, and started from there.

[Up&Away]

But first I had to make sure all ribs have equal cut outs for the spars.


After some sanding they did.
First rib; square,


Square,


And square.


All 1.6mm ribs in place.


You can see the LE parts of the ribs are not (yet) equal.


The tip rib was glued on with alyphatic glue, to make sure I could fiddle around a bit to get it square.


LE of the ribs cut & sanded and the LE glued in place.


TE attached.


"False rib" I think it's called.

[Up&Away]

Tadaaaah! Looks similar to the plan, doesn't it?


I now placed the wingroot close to the table's edge, and lifted the tip.


To get the 3/4" dihedral. In this position I glued the root rib at 90* to the table.


Small mistake. I should have build up the rear spar to the height of the ribs before glueing the false rib. No problem realy. Better late then never...


Another little mistake I made;
After making the ribs, I should have trimmed down the root and first ribs to accomodate the surface sheet. Obviously, I didn't. So I sanded them down, making sure the TE and LE parts were flush.



The 1/4"x1/8" strips for the struts.


To toughen up the area where the struts will be epoxied in the strips, I put some drops of thin CA around the holes.


And here we have two wings. And would you believe it? A left and a right one!

[Up&Away]

Starting with the elevator. First, I had to cut strips of balsa, then I could start framing the elevator. (I realy should invest in a balsa stripper)


I will build the whole horizontal stab in one piece, and afterwards I'll cut lose the elevator.


To prevent me glueing the elevator and stab together, I placed some greaseproof paper between the TE and LE of both.


All ribs done.


And the center triangle.

[Up&Away]

And now on to the rudder:
First order of the day; cutting 9 pieces of balsa.


Then cut the apropriate angle according to the plan.


Pin them to the plan and a drop of medium CA on each contact point.


Now, how to get the right almost circle shape? I traced the outline on some greaseproof paper, and cut it out.


And pinned it on the rudder frame.


With a felt tipped pen, I marked the parts that needed sanding of.


A closeup with the paper.

And one without.


Sanded.


And the rudderpost in place.

[jb48]

Congratulation for such a nice build thread; you`re 2 left wings made me smile because I did the same not long ago. These old aircrafts from the past easily get my preference. Keep up the good work and please post progress of the nice model you are building.

[Up&Away]

Originally Posted by jb48

...you`re 2 left wings made me smile because I did the same not long ago...

At one time or another, we all did:p . It's one of those rites of passage, like CA-ing tools to your building board.

[Bill G]

365 bucks was a lot of money back then. I'm not sure what the ad date was, but a Model A Ford with rumble seat was something like 500 bucks, in the 20's. I'm guessing that ad may be before the 20's?
Nice work too!
I have a bunch of Rake plans. Been a while since I did a built the old fashioned way, where you cut out all the parts. More pride in that method.


Bill

[Up&Away]

Originally Posted by Bill G

I'm guessing that ad may be before the 20's?

1919

[Up&Away]

Originally the White Monoplane was meant to be powered by a speed400 with a Graupner gearbox. To mount the gear there is on the plan a horizontal ply motor plate. As I am going to power mine with a brushless outrunner there is no need for this horizontal motor plate. Instead the 3mm balsa former F1 is going to double as motor mount/firewall. So I replaced the balsa with two layers of 1mm light ply.
First I cut out and spray glued the design on to a ply sheet.


Then I cut out the firewall,


and used that one to trace and cut out another one.


Here's a little trick I learned. In order to get epoxy glue more liquid, so it will be absorbed into the woodpores better I heat the bottles with a hairdryer. NOT a heatgun, or you'll melt the plastic bottles (post your pictures on RCGroups if you use a heatgun)! An added plus is that you use slightly less epoxy, and it is harder when dry (or so I'm told).


The two parts epoxied together. You can never have too many clamps...


When the epoxy had cured I traced the motor's cooling holes and bolt holes on some tracing paper, and then transfered the marks on to the firewall (the paper covered side will be on the inside...).


All the holes were drilled. I also made an extra hole as cooling air intake.
Note to self: don't forget an exit hole...


After all the drilling, (and fitting) I sprayed the firewall black. I will sand it later to get a
grey-ish colour. The air intake will be covered by some kind of gauze (not sure yet how or what, but I've been eyeing my kids fishing nets...)

[Twmaster]

Great thread! I have these plans sitting here awaiting me to do something about them.

I was going to ask whether this was the SP400 model or the IPS powered one but you've answered that query. I'm thinking of building the IPS powered version.



Also, great photos. You've given me some clues as to techniques for building I had never thought of.

[Up&Away]

The sides of the fuse box are wider then the balsa sheets I can buy here, so I CA'd some balsa together to get the required width.

Like I did with the rudder, to get the correct outline I traced the plan onto greaseproof paper, and marked the parts to be removed.

All gone!

I forgot to mention that I did this with the two sides pinned together. I also made the openings for the wing spars, and drilled the holes for the landing gear and wingstruts. Now I know they are all at the same spot. Not trusting the CA's ability to "hold it all together", I glued a strip of 1mm balsa on top of the seam on the inside of each side.

F1 (the motormount) I did already. Now I made F1b, F2, and the U/C plate.

The F1 goes first. I used alyphatic glue here for slow curing, so I have time to get it just right.

When F1 was done I just forged ahead. Just for some extra peace of mind, I CA'd few scrap pieces of balsa next to each F part.

I then epoxied the hardwood pieces for the forward hatch. Here I used epoxy because of the close proximity to the motormount. Motor vibrations might loosen the hatch.

I also dabbed a bit of epoxy on the inside of the U/C plate, for some extra strength.

[Up&Away]

The rest top (and bottom) of the tail was build over the plan.

The tail fill pieces. The plan states that both top and bottom should be balsa, but as the rudder post rests on the bottom piece, this seemed not a good idea. A quick e-mail to Peter confirmed my suspicion; the plan should have stated that the bottom piece should be ply.

To build the side I first pinned the top to the plan.

And made sure it was pinned square.

The bottom was pinned on as well.

And the side strips were glued in place.

The other side strips I had to glue of the plan, because my sausage fingers couldn't get them in place properly without braking something. So I simply put each in place, and let the (alyphatic) glue cure under pressure.

The finished product.

[Up&Away]

And now to connect the two...

First I pinned the front box upside down on the plan, with F1 hanging over the work surface. For added peace of mind I also put some weight on it.

Then I test fitted the tail,

making sure both parts were on the centerline of the plan.

And then another nasty surprise.

Although I scrupulously build everything on the plan, and checked and double-checked that all was straight and as per plan I find that there are gaps between the tail and front box...

These gaps are due to me building the top and bottom first

This is what Pete had to say:

Those gaps aren't a factor of the inaccuracy of your build mate, probably just the oposite - combined with the way you built your fuselage rear frame. Conventional practice is to build two SIDE frames and then join those to form the box. With this in mind, side frames are shown actual size whereas top views are normally a projection of the side view - no allowance for taper. However, whilst that would account for the gaps at the sides, presumably the front top and bottom pieces were built in to your top and bottom frames so I have no explanation for those gaps.

Although not causing any major problem on this model, you might find that building your way causes problems with a conventional rudder. Because of the slope on the bottom frame, that has to end up slightly shorter, when fitted to a box structure, thereby leaning in the tail-post and giving a poor rudder/fuselage fit.

So I should have build the sides first. Newbie mistakes.

A few strips of balsa were glued in as filler.

Now the elevator pushrod exit was glued in place.

And the filler piece for the rudder push/pull wires. I didn't make this opening yet, because I first want to be sure exactly were the servos are going to be, to prevent any wire binding.

Starting to look like a fuse...

[Up&Away]

F1a in place.

Now the deck. As this is wider then the 10cm balsa I can get, once again I CA'd two pieces of balsa together.

Once cured, I soaked it in hot water.

I wrapped some clingfilm around a bottle, then wrapped the balsa around, and covered that with a layer of clingfilm as well. Then a handfull of elastic bands, and we'll see tomorrow evening how it went...

[Up&Away]

Well, next evening I opened it up, and the wood was still moist and plyable. So... boys and girls, don't wrap it up in clingfilm! I removed all clingfilm and re-wrapped the balsa around the bottle with elastics. We'll see tomorrow...

Meanwhile, I made the papertube for the rudder post, and glued it in place with epoxy, mixed with about 75% Soda

Bicarb (a cheap replacement for micro balloons).

I decided to make the cockpit floor removable. So, I glued two dowels on the front and two rare earth magnets at the back.

And I made two matching holes in F1a

And reinforced F1a with another piece of 1mm balsa.

Time to unpack the turtle deck. The wood was dry now, and it kept it's shape even!

Trimmed to size, and glued in place. While the alyphatic glue cures I taped the turtledeck down with maskingtape.

And weighted it down, just to be safe...

Once cured.

Needs a bit of sanding.

And the prospective pilot dropped by to check the cockpit size. He was pleased. You can see that from the gleam in his eyes...

[Kiwi]

Now folks, forgive me if I'm getting confused here, but shouldn't this be in the Scale Models forum? After all it is a scale model of a full size aircraft even if the full size is a vintage aircraft I would hardly think that the model design is vintage, heck even Peter Rake isn't that old!
Surely most countries vintage and old timer rules have a cut off point for thr MODEL being designed prior to the early 50s at the latest regardless of the age of the full size prototype.
I wouldn't exactly expect to see this thread filled up with Spowith camels and the like, Trenton Terrors, Buzzard Bombshells maybe but this? No way!!

[Up&Away]

The White Monoplane dates from 1919. The sub title of this forum states "discuss nostalgic vintage aircraft". I think that qualifies this model as vintage.

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by Up&Away

The White Monoplane dates from 1919. The sub title of this forum states "discuss nostalgic vintage aircraft". I think that qualifies this model as vintage.

No it doesn't, the sub title refers to the model design, not the aeroplane that is being modelled.As you stated the plan was published in 2002. Had the aircraft been modelled or kitted prior to about 1950 then yes, it would be a vintage aircraft. have you noticed there are NO WW 1 or between wars full size aircraft mentioned anywhere on this forum? If you look on the scale models forum you will find them all there. However I am quite happy to go along with the moderators ruling on this if he will give one.
PS I notice you are posting this under scale model aircraft on RC Groups!

[Up&Away]

The ply plate that allows access to the motor. This one is attached with 4 servo screws. I cut & sanded the ply to shape, and screwed in the screws. Then I removed the screws and put a drop of thin CA into each hole.


I'm a bit stuck now. I thought I still had several rare earth magnets for the top and bottom hatches, but I was wrong.
A quick order went out to LeeValey for 50 1/4" magnets. Untill they arrive I am limited to what I can do.

So, just to keep myself busy, I cut and shaped the tail skid. I made it out of 3mm balsa, sandwiched between two pieces of 1mm ply. And if already fiddling with pieces of ply, I also made the rudder, and elevator control horns.


And now, my "secret" weapon...


To strengthen the wood, I mixed epoxy and thinned it with alcohol till the thickness of water. This I painted on the pieces.

[jb48]

What a great thread! I read your posts and look at your pics with big interest. A very nice job! Keep posting UP&Away, you make my first post reading every morning. I just cannot wait for the next following steps.

[Up&Away]

Originally Posted by jb48

I just cannot wait for the next following steps.

I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit. I have to clean my work table (it also doubles as our diningroom table) tonight.
Building will resume after Sunday, if work pressure allows for it...

[Up&Away]

Just so you all don't think I'm slacking, or moping about waiting for the rare earth magnets to arrive, I've been busy at work (you know, the thing you do to finance your habit and family).
But last night I re-started fiddling about with the wheels again. I'd done already a fair bit before I started on the wings etc, but I wanted to post it all in proper sequence. As opposed to the bits 'n pieces I do now and then...

So, this was done some time ago. I'll let you catch up...

I'm going to attempt to make my own scale-ish wheels.
First I drew a circle on a sheet of 1.5mm ply,


and cut it out. I then sanded it into a nice round wheel shape.


3 more discs where cut out and together with the first one I fit them on a 2mm bolt, with a nut and some scrap ply on either side. Then I clamped the nut onto my electric drill, and it was simply a matter of running the drill and pressing a 80 grit sandpaper block against the discs to get equal sized wheels.



4 ply wheel discs.


I did the same with two 3mm balsa discs. So now there are 4 ply discs and two balsa ones.


Making two wheels consisting of a balsa disc sandwiched by two slightly larger ply discs.

[jb48]

Could someone explain me how come sometimes the pictures of this thread are displayed on my screen and sometimes they are replaced with a small red x in a small square? Very annoying...