Scratch Building: Transfer A Drawing To Wood

1928 Fairchild FC-2W2
1928 Fairchild FC-2W2

We’re converting a Hobby Lobby Telemaster into a 1928 Fairchild FC-2W2 for a National Parks Service program. This aircraft was the first ever owned by NASA and later the first owned by the National Parks Service. Information link at bottom.

While making a complex former, I felt the method was simple, interesting and important to share. Having arrived at the shape, I used the following method to copy it onto the material I wished to cut it from. The simple technique could help you build any aircraft from your own or purchased drawings.

Drawing of Fairchild FC - 2W2 Former
Drawing of Fairchild Former

1. First we need a drawing. If your making “one off” parts as I am in this example, simply draw the part on standard 20 lb copier paper using pencil. I make lots of changes and mistakes as I go, so it’s important to have an eraser equipped pencil.

Headless Telemaster/Fairchild

1B. Here is the front of the modified fuse where our soon to be made former will be installed.

Fairchild Imagination
Fairchild Imagination

1C. Holding up our drawing to imagine what it’s going to look like. Does it look correct?
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Albert Einstein

Former Drawing and Copy
Former Drawing and Copy

2. If your using an obtained drawing or you wish to preserve your drawing, use a copier or all in one printer to make a copy of the area containing the part you want to make. In this case, I made a copy of my pencil drawing just in case I discovered and error and wanted to alter the drawing before I finished.

Fairchild Former Heavy Pencil
Fairchild Former Heavy Pencil

3. Heavily pencil over the lines we wish to transfer to the wood. I used a standard #2 pencil.

Fairchild Formula 560
Fairchild Formula 560

3B. There are multiple uses for Formula 560.

Fairchild Former Drawing Face Down
Fairchild Former Drawing Face Down

4. Place the drawing, heavy pencil down against your material. You will notice the grain is running the wrong way in this former. However, it’s just a jig for building the nose, it’s not intended to provide any structure. The nose of this model has many facets of 1/4″ thick balsa. Although I’ll leave the former in the model, it could be removed if I wanted too. As this model has a short nose needing weight up front, I’ll be leaving it in.

Fairchild Plan Pin Down
Fairchild Plan Pin Down

5. Place two pins through the paper into the wood to prevent the drawing from moving. I choose top and bottom locations. Notice you can see the drawing through the paper. Makes me feel like Superman, you?

Fairchild Nickle Rub Down
Fairchild Nickle Rub Down

6. Find something curved and smooth like a coin, I choose a nickle to rub the pencil into the wood.

Fairchild Lift & Inspect
Fairchild Lift & Inspect

7. Because we created a way to register the drawing to the wood, we can lift the paper up and look at our results as we progress. No danger of losing our alignment.

Fairchild Former Transfer Finished
Fairchild Former Transfer Finished

8. Ahhh, thats what I’m talking about! The drawing has new been transferred to our material. It will be easy to cut it out now.

Fairchild Former On The Bandsaw
Fairchild Former On The Bandsaw

9. Doing what the band saw does best.

Fairchild Drill Hole
Fairchild Drill Hole

10. Drilling for the Scroll Saw

Fairchild Former Installing on Scroll Saw
Fairchild Former Installing on Scroll Saw

11. Installing on the Scroll Saw

Fairchild Scrolling Along
Fairchild Scrolling Along

12. Doing the inside, what the scroll saw does best.

Fairchild Former Against Print
Fairchild Former Against Print

13. How does it look against the print?

Fairchild Former Goes About Here
Fairchild Former Goes About Here

14. The former goes in about this position.

Fairchild Former Positioned
Fairchild Former Positioned

15. Former positioned and ready for addition of next nose sheeting segments. Since we are working with a model that is already built, we elected to jig the next two formers to the front of the fuse. when the 1/4″ thick balsa segments are added from the front of the fuse to this former, many facets will be formed representing the nose of this model. Using this method, we only need to make the 3 sides of each sheet accurate, they can be allowed to extend past the former. We can cut them off and sand them down against the former as we go. After all plates in position, we’ll snap out all the scrap sticks used to hold the former in place. The sanding bars are banded tightly to the fuse sides so I could measure and put the former in the center. They make a great straight edge.

I thought solving the problems of making and installing this former would be interesting to readers and hope you made it this far into a very long post.

Story of the National Parks Service first aircraft in the National Parks Traveler

Stars And Strips, a Fairchild FC 2W2 at the target=”_blank”>The Virginia Aviation Museum.

Byrd's Fairchild
Byrd’s Fairchild

Admiral Byrd used the Fairchild FC 2W2 as a Aerial Photography Platform including in the South Pole.

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Tuning Static Out of Modern Communication

 Thomas Nast's most famous drawing, "Merry Old Santa Claus",
Thomas Nast’s most famous drawing, “Merry Old Santa Claus”,
I received an email forward recently from a familiar and friendly source. It really took the cake. It claimed that Snopes (a well known site for investigating Internet rumors and chain email claims) was a left wing Democratic/Communist group funded by George Soros. While it’s true that George Soros is a left wing commie, the linkage to Snopes was just another fabrication used to trick somebody into forwarding “Information EVERYONE Must Know!”.

Please avoid participating in forwarding these chain emails. They are part of a greater hobby similar to those that write computer virus programs. It’s all about getting you to forward their viral email fiction all over the Internet so they can see how far and wide (how viral) they can spread a story they wrote. We would all do well to avoid stuffing the Internet and your friends mailboxes with items you’ve not bothered to look up and verify for yourself. Just because somebody you trust sent it to you, does not make it trustworthy. Remember, whoever they are, they once believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. They are not evil, just fallible and they have fallen prey to a “Fairy Tale” like belief that everything they see on the Internet is true.

The letter I sent follows:

Every viral chain email that mentions Snopes as a form a credibility or non-credibility is at least 95% certain to be non-credible.

Here is the About-Snopes page:

About Snopes Info Page

The purpose of these outlandish emails is to try to get viral status and see them come back to you from all over the world. It’s part of the virus hobby. They write these to get you to forward them. They are almost all 100% hogwash. It’s not unlike an important part of the HAM Radio hobby, who’s purpose is often to make as many contacts all over the world as possible. Viral Email’ers are creative writers of fiction for sure, yet they contribute only static. It’s not much different from unwanted telephone sales calls.

When I check these forwarded emails, I find only one or two per year that are true. They tug at your heart strings on one level or another so you feel compelled to forward them. If it urges you to forward to all your friends, you won’t hardly ever be wrong if you just assume it’s a fabrication and delete it.

Dave

Do your own research at: Snopes
Another great site is: Urban Legends

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Wire Caculator AWG to Curcular Mils

A calculator published by the Mogami company. It is helpful to understand wire size a little better. For example, a solid core 22 gauge wire has a different overall diameter if it’s 16 strand or 32 strand or 198 strand. Don’t get fooled into thinking AWG is the diameter of your wire regardless of strand count. Actually as the strand count of multi strand wire gets higher and higher, the overall diameter of the cable gets smaller. Think of it this way, the smaller the wire, the smaller the air pockets or gaps in the bundles of copper become. In other words the wire bundle becomes more and more dense. I run into people from time to time that think it’s as simple as measuring OD of the bundle, some get quite insistent defending their theory. We’ll perhaps they are just wishful souls dreaming about how great the world would be if it was as simple as they wish it was? Below is a handy site to help you figure out what size your wire (or any wire we sell) really is. It’s not super simple but you can work it out and learn something.

Wire Gauge Calculations

If you run across any interesting calculators please forward them to me.

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The Hobby Shop

Race at The Hobby Shop
Address: 153 N. Springboro Pike, Dayton, OH 45449
GPS Geeks: Latitude+39° 47′ 10.62″, Longitude-84° 6′ 51.61″ (39.786282, -84.114335) ‎
Phone: (937) 436-6161
Website: www.thehobbyshoponline.com
Email: The Hobby Shop Email (randythehobbyshop@yahoo.com)
Email Service: The Hobby Shop Service (teeg111@aol.com)

ModelRama Vendor?: YES

Location:
Located in the “Corners At The Mall” Shopping center just north west of the Dayton Mall. South side of Dayton. Location is 15.9 miles, 23 minutes from the US Airforce Museum.

What you’ll find:
This shop have a full line of RC car and truck parts along with an indoor slot and HO tracks. Shop also has a model airplane department and outdoor racing tracks. Website categories are Cars, Stadium Trucks, Monster Trucks, Airplanes, Helicopters, Trains, Boats, Slot Cars, Rockets, Models, General Merchandise & Tools. The Hobby Shop puts on a number of indoor flying sessions throughout the winter months. Contact them for more information.

Visual of Location:

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Map & driving directions from US Airforce Museum to The Hobby Shop.

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Radical RC

Radical RC is located at:  5339 Huberville Ave, Dayton Ohio  45431-1250.  937-256-7727

GPS Geeks: Latitude N+39° 47′ 10.62″, Longitude W-84° 6′ 51.61″

Website: Radical RC (http://www.radicalrc.com)

Hours: Mon-Tue-Wed 9-5pm,  Thur & Fri 9-7pm, Saturday 10-2pm,  Closed Sunday
Booth at ModelRama?: YES

Our shop is directly across from the Airfroce Museum.  Almost driectly across from the flag pole.  When you exit Woodman Dr (also called Wright Brothers Parkway) onto Springfield Street, the Air Force Museum grounds are on your right.  On your left on a parallel road (Huberville Ave) there is a small neigborhood.  There are several commercial buildings on this road.  Radical RC is one of these buildings.  It is a single story 3 unit 3600 square foot block building.  There is usually a large white trailer parked in front of or beside the building.  There is no sign visible from the street.   Just find 5339 Huberville and your there.

What you’ll find:  One of the country’s most unique suppliers.  You won’t see much of anything from the big two (Horizon or Hobbico).  You’ll find all the supplies you need to really build a model airplane and of course all the model electronics we are world famous for.  This is a “Flying Machines” shop.

Visual of the Area:

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Maps and Driving Directions:

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Street View:

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Visiting Dayton? Airplane Activities

Be sure to check out the sub-categories open under “Visiting Dayton Aviation”.  You’ll find information about the Airforce Museum, local hobby shops, model airports, important local events and aviation attractions you can visit both nearby and a short drive outside the area.   Regardless if your in town for a visit or on business, if you’ve got some extra time to look around Dayton, there is plenty to do.  

This area of Ohio has some of the country’s best flying fields and several clubs over 100 members.  Aviation both full scale and model is strong here.  If you “Speak Model Airplane”, you’ll agree, Dayton is heaven.

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Just wanted to drop you a line and tell you that I received my order (31114) including the correction from my last order. I’m out here in western Oregon and received it today Saturday Feb 25. That is more than fantastic service.

I’ve been doing a little business with you over the last couple of years. Our local hobby shop burned down last fall and they have decided not to reopen. The next nearest one is 75 miles away, so I am looking to do more on line ordering. Radical RC will be a large part of that.

Also, I wanted to comment on the Stick 400 kit that I bought. This has to be the best design and execution of a kit I have ever seen. If it flys half as well as it builds it’s going to be a blast.

Thanks again!
Terry Thomas

Feb 2012

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