#Which is why I got regular fabric glue for the more delicate places like faces

[albatrosassembly]

Final Assembly

This comprises:

Attaching lower wings

Attaching radiator

Attaching upper wing

Connecting radiator to engine

Rigging the wings

Cabling the ailerons

Lower Wing

First I attached the outer wing strut flanges (the v-shaped casting in the photo) to the lower wings. While I was at it I checked the aileron pulleys in the wings and found that they didn’t line up with the slots for the aileron cables. I didn’t notice this when I built the wings. There was nothing for it but to use acetone to dissolve the CA, remove the pulleys, trim them and then reattach them so that they lined up. Attaching the flanges involved more reaming of the kit’s “false nuts” castings. I hope Model Expo changes to regular nuts and bolts. These are very soft and a real pain to prepare. They add no structural strength and are just an alignment aid. Eventually all was attached. The loose strings are the aileron cables.

Attaching the wings was relatively straightforward.

I arranged three cork tiles as a base and drew lines on them as an aid to aligning everything. Then I tied down the fuselage with rubber bands. I made up simple jigs to set the dihedral angle and mixed some 5 minute epoxy. I smeared the epoxy onto the root ribs - carefully avoiding the aileron cables - slipped in the dihedral jigs, clamped everything and left the epoxy to cure. Again, I'd have been better off using thick CA rather than following the kit instructions and using epoxy.

The next day I flooded any gaps in the joints with thick CA.

Upper Wing

First I attached the radiator.

Top view

Bottom view

The lever allowed the pilot to adjust the radiator shutters

Then it got REALLY tricky. 

The upper wing is held in place by two “N-shaped struts” that attach it to the fuselage and two “V-shaped struts” that join it to the lower wing. The latter are actually FOUR struts that have to be arranged into 2 V-shapes. They attach individually to the upper wing and come together at the “V strut flanges” in the lower wing. They are cast with squared off ends that have to be tapered and filed flat to mate with the flanges. I have no idea why they aren’t cast in their final shape. 

This is the flange in the instruction manual.

And this is what its meant to look like after attaching the “V struts”

There are 2 parts A019, which are the lower ends of the “V-struts”. Note the tapered ends in the drawing. They are supplied with square ends and rounded surface. Much fettling needed!

The instructions now call for turning the upper wing upside down to attach the struts. The struts attach to metal fittings in the upper wing by ... more false bolts and nuts! This photo shows a typical fitting in the upper wing.

The metal in these fittings is very soft and the holes have to be reamed out to take the false bolts and nuts, leaving very little “meat” in the fitting. Attaching the struts in these fittings was VERY delicate work. Then I had to turn the wing over. This left the 4 “V struts” and 2 “N struts” hanging from their bolts. They cannot be glued at this stage as they have to be lined up with their lower positions on the fuselage and lower wing. The lower end of the “N strut” is very ambiguous in its cast shape. It is not clear what it is supposed to look like as there are no drawings of it! The instruction manual shows squared off ends, which actually isn't so.

It is not entirely clear from either the manual or the full size plan how and where exactly these fit and the diagrams seem to differ. While moving things around and adjusting the alignment of the struts the inevitable happened and a false bolt sheared off and other bolts tore through some of the fragile upper wing fittings. All I could do was line up all the struts as accurately as possible, clamp them in place, and build up the broken fittings with gap-filling CA glue. By now I had completely abandoned epoxy. My solution is a bit messy, but it’s invisible under the upper wing and camouflaged with paint. I moved on to the ‘V struts” and found that they didn’t line up as per diagram 12.6 above. Following the “N strut” alignment in diagram 12.5 actually builds in a few extra degrees of angle of attack in the upper wing. By this stage it was impossible to redo the “N struts” which were now (very) firmly attached with CA glue, so I live with the result. Anyway, who knows except me? I glued the “V struts” into place, including building up the damaged upper wing fittings. When all was in place and the glue had cured, I had a very solid structure and a very great need for a very large Bourbon.

Connecting The Radiator

The radiator is connected to the engine by two pipes:

One goes to the front water jacket connection in cylinder #1

One goes to the water pump below the rear of the sump

The instructions call for these to be made from a length of 2.5 mm cast metal bar with cast metal nuts as joiners. I had a couple of problems with this approach:

Lengths of cast metal bar have imperfections 

It is impossible to get them completely straight

They aren’t realistic

The nut joiners are not accurate to full scale practise 

My solution was to make the pipes from 2.5mm aluminium tube. I fabricated joiners from aluminium tube with an internal diameter of 2.5mm so they could  slip over the main pipes. I painted them black to look like rubber and simulated hose clips with adhesive foil.  The bent fitting in the photo is cast metal bar and the nut is the union to connect the pipe to the radiator.

The top pipe, being out in the open, was very easy to fit. The only concern was to ensure that it wasn't in front of the gun muzzle. The rear pipe was a different story. It is very difficult to measure its length between the fuel tank and the engine. Once made, it was very difficult to feed it in and connect it to the radiator and the water pump. Doing this I dislodged  a copper tube and a magneto cable - more cursing! Once in place I was pleased with the result - well worth the extra effort.

Rigging The Wings

The instructions call for rigging with thread. I didn’t think that would look right and I remembered this in my bits stash - a very ancient control line aeroplane handle and wire! No idea why I kept it.

I painted the turnbuckles in brass metallic and rigged the wings with the control line wire. I attached the wire to the turnbuckles first and then followed the manual which says “seize to a fitting” - nothing more explicit than that. 

I passed the wire through a short piece of 1.5mm aluminium tubing, then through the attachment, and back through the tubing, which I crimped to simulate full size practice. It looks pretty good. 2 of the turnbuckles were thin-walled and the wire tore through them. The strings are the yet to be connected aileron cables.

Starboard side complete.

I attached the airspeed indicator to the outer strut on the starboard side. This odd device is actually an anemometer that measures wind speed. The pilot had to look out over the wing to check his air speed! In truth, it probably wasn’t very important other than when taking off and landing. It comes in two parts and I made up an instrument face as I did with the instruments inside the cockpit. The instruction manual says “install on the right wing strut as shown on plan D001″. Nothing about how to install it. I held it up against the strut and noticed that the rotor would hit the strut (if it rotated), so I made a standoff from aluminium tubing to give the proper clearance. Then I drilled a hole through the strut and used the last of the damn false bolts I’m ever going to look at to fix it in place.

Having gone to all that trouble, it occurred to me that I could have made the rotor spin. Oh, well..

The  port side rigging went together without any problems, leaving only the aileron cables to do. I clamped the ailerons and control column in the neutral position and attached the cables to the aileron turnbuckles. When I unclipped everything and wiggled the control column, the ailerons moved. Not as much as I’d hoped, but movement none the less. I think the problem is that passing thread around imitation (non-turning) pulleys adds friction and the thread tends to stretch slightly rather than moving smoothly. I’m already planning the next build (of the Fokker DR1) and the instruction manual in that kit recommends pre-stretching the cables. Nice to know , but too late now.

This photo shows the thread running through the wing, around the pulleys and up to the turnbuckles on the port aileron.

Anyway, this was a minor irritation as the Albatros was now finished and looks magnificent. This is without doubt one of the best models I have ever made.

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