Top Flite TOPA0140 - Manual (Page 37)

stab. Trim the leading edge and the sheeting on
both sides of the fin until it fits the stab. If
necessary, enlarge the opening you cut in the stab
sheeting so the leading edge of the fin will
straddle
the center rib. When the fin trailing edge contacts
your building board and is perpendicular, the fin is
ready to glue in place (see the following steps).
❏
11. Trim the fuse sheeting even with the TE of
the fin. Align the centerline you drew on the TE of
the fin (for hinging) with a square to make sure the
fin is vertical.
❏
12. Did you final-sand the fin yet? Now is the
time to do it if you haven’t already.
❏
13. Use 30-minute epoxy to glue the fin to the
stab and the fuse. Make a small fillet of epoxy and
microballoons or milled fiberglass between the fin
and the stab. Do not disturb the assembly until the
epoxy has fully cured.
❏
14. Draw a centerline on the top of the 1/4" x
1-3/4" x 24" [6.4 x 44 x 610mm] balsa turtle deck
top and test fit it to the fuse. Bevel the aft end to
match the leading edge of the fin and shape the
sides as closely as possible to match the turtle deck
(the idea is to do as much of the shaping of the
turtle deck as possible before you glue it in place).
❏
15. Glue the turtle deck top in place. Finish
shaping the turtle deck top the rest of the way to
blend with the fuse as shown in the cross sections
on the plan.
❏
16. Remove the T-pins and take the fuselage
off your building board. Fill in most of the large
spaces between the fuse sheeting and the fin and
stab with leftover 3/32" [2.4mm] balsa. It doesn’t
have to be perfect because you are going to cover
most of it up with lightweight balsa filler.
❏
17. Glue a piece of leftover 3/32" [2.4mm] balsa
to both sides of the die-cut 1/16" [1.6mm] plywood
dorsal fin. Glue the dorsal fin to the fuse and the fin.
❏
18. Blend the dorsal fin to the fuse and fin with
lightweight filler. Don’t try to apply all the filler at
one time but build up several thin layers, allowing
your filler to dry thoroughly before you sand it and
apply the next layer. You don’t have to do it all
now. You can work on the fin filler as you proceed
with the rest of the model (you can see what the
dorsal fin should end up looking like with the filler
in the photo at step 8 on page 47.)
FINISH FRAMING THE FUSELAGE
❏
1. Turn the fuselage upside down and place it
in a support stand. Reinforce glue joints you
missed or couldn’t reach while the fuse was pinned
to your building board.
❏
2. Refer to the following photo, then glue former
1BB to the back of 1AB. From now on this
assembly will be referred to as former 1B. Glue
the three firewall formers together so all the tabs
align. Make sure the front former is the one with
the punchmarks and the grain direction is
alternating on each piece. From now on this
assembly will be referred to as the
firewall.
❏
3. Drill 1/4" [6.30mm] holes through the four
punch marks in the firewall. Use a hammer to
lightly tap four 8-32 blind nuts into the holes from
the back of the firewall and secure them with a few
drops of CA.
All the parts used in this section ( Finish framing
the fuselage) are die-cut 1/8" [3.2mm] plywood
unless otherwise noted.
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