F18 Build - Part 3

Time to get some work done on the wings. I made a small t-piece sanding bar from some 8mm wide spruce stock (just the right width for the 12K carbon tows I want to use as spars) to which I glued some 80 grit sandpaper.

Using a straight edge the sanding bar makes light work of the task and in less than 30 minutes I had some perfect grooves, top and bottom, ready to accept the carbon tows.

Before I start epoxying the spars in I wanted to join the wings so the spars can be continuous across the join. Seeing as the joing will draw it's strength from the carbon spars, glass wing skin, trailing and leading edge balsa stock the join can be done with plain old Alcolin cold glue. From previous experience I have found if you use epoxy for this join, you battle to cut through this join when routing your aileron servo wires.

While the wing join was setting some more shaping of the fuselage followed. It is getting to the point where I am almost happy with the result.

The top aft section is going to have to wait until I've made the root templates for the fins. I need to "picture" how the fins are going to blend in with the fuselage.

Adding some detail to the intakes.