DH 89 Dragon Rapide by Schreiber Bogen

[Erik Zwaan]

Very neat work Boris. I noticed that the tail wheel has a cardboard core only. Over time this may well start to sag under the weight of the model. I'm not sure about the main landing gear design but let me suggest you to use a metal core (from a paper clip for instance) to reinforce the gear. A core that also includes the wheels. In fact it's common practice in many airplane models. In any case, keep up the good work!

Erik

[Boris]

Thanks Erik.
I don't think that rear wheel is going to sag. The wheel and its leg is a full, complete 3 mm of cardboard, glued with superglue, attached directly to the rearest former with supergllue. It is really strong.
I am worried that the lower wing will sag, though. The wing's inner structure is not really hard. Maybe I will reinforce it with bamboo coffee stirrers.

[Isaac]

Boris


Always re enforce the wings structure. Regardless of any design, it is always a good idea to do so.


Isaac

[Boris]

Hello all
Isaac, I totally agree.

A small update.
I began with the lower wing's internal structure. There are two longitude spars, three formers on each side. Nothing special, BUT...
The upper side of the wing is convex as usual.
The lower part is double curvature, concave in the middle and convex on the front. The problem is that the rear part of the former is very small. Remembering that this is a 1.5 mm cardboard, in order not to damage the rear of the former, I cut out the former roughly, cover the cardboard with superglue and sand the formers down to the needed outline. This takes a lot of time... So advance is slow but it exists....
The frame is made using the superglue. So it is quite rigid. I will reinforce the spars with bamboo coffee stirrers, just in case

[Boris]

Hello all.
Advancing to lower wing.
The designer proposed here to use two parts, n4 42 and 47, to be mounted on the lower concave part of the formers this creating a base to which the bottom part of the wing will be attached. All the "ribs" protrusions will be seen on the base, potentially not appearing on the wing wrapping. Top wrapping of the wing will be mounted with UHU glue giving no protrusion of the formers or the spars.

It appeared that I glued these parts to cardboard by mistake. Do not glue the parts 42 and 47 to cardboard! I remade these parts from 170 gsm paper.

After some fitting attempts, the formers' ends began to snap off. That's no wonder since openings allowing insertion of the former in spars, left very small cardboard parts. So I had to reassemble the flame reinforcing the connection points as much as possible. Also, the wing bases were reinforced with superglue. Later I will also reinforce the connection of root former to the fuselage. So that stage too much time, but I hope it will be worth it. W lot of invisible work was done, to little visible work is done. But, hey, step by step..

[Boris]

Hello all
I had a little wound on my left hand finger. So the advance is slow.
Finished with both lower parts of engine bay skeletons
I begin to get used to this skeleton frame. Still, hate it, but getting used to

[Don Boose]

Good clean precise work, Boris!

By coincidence, last night I watched the final episode of Foye's War, which features Dragon Rapide G-AKIF and an Auster J1/N pretending to be a special operations Lysander.

I've really been enjoying your build of this classic regional airliner.

Don

[Boris]

Thanks!
Oh yeah, she's a beauty

[Boris]

Hello all
I am back.
Got the rear engine compartment parts wrapped. Mounted on the wing with no issue.
Next are the propellers and the forward engine compartment parts. Interesting design here. The is paper axle inserted through base an glued to the prop formers. I inserted pieces of paper between prop base and the front engine compartment part to prevent gluing of the prop to base. Later I removed them.
I tried to install the prop blades in angle, unsuccessfully.
So it will be.

[Isaac]

Boris

A suggestion:
You may want to consider a more corrected looking prop spinners than the kit provided version.





I usually make the spinners mold out of wood ( you can use any rotary tool to round them ) and then vacuform them and cut out the prop slots.
Here are the props and spinners for my Tupolev R6 plane I did years ago. It is in a museum now.



Isaac