Fokker F. XXXVI - 1/100 (2)

 

 
Time for wings. 

I glued a strip of sturdy paper on the wing skeleton over the place where the two wing parts will meet. This way they'll have more grip and glue surface. Careful not to press too hard, you don’t want to show the frame through the wing.  The wings actually were really thick on this big Fokker. In fact, it had one of the biggest wing surfaces of its time. While folding the wing over the leading edge, some wrinkles appeared in the (just a little) too sturdy paper. Drat! Expletive!

But Chris told in his thread on Papermodelers he used a little water to bend the paper at the leading edge. Water? Yes. Well, I had to give that a try. Never tried it before so what did I have to lose?
I poured some water in a little cup and dipped a Q-tip in it to apply it to the inside of surface I needed to fold over without a crease. Just a little, one quick streak over the complete run of the inside of the leading edge. And it worked a charm. Just calmly curve the paper and lay it, curved, to rest with a little weight on the trailing edge. It will dry in the new shape and from there is is easy to bend around the wing frame. Great technique! No wrinkles, and even nicer, it is actually just like plywood is bent, of which the Fokker wings originally were made.
Then I glued the wing’s trailing edge carefully, just the outmost edge of it, and shoved the wing structure slowly inside. Empennage is done later on with the same principle. 
With my first build I found the placement of the wing into the fuselage a little tricky. It is shoved between two bulkheads and the skin has a little of the curvature of the wing in it, so you know where the wing should go. (orange side down!) I reinforced the inside of the upper part of the skin a little to help carry the wing and not bending when it is pushed into place. That went all right. The second version had a better fit, too and didn't need any encouragement to go into place.

Still glad I redid the print. Look at the difference. Left the new one.

Fitting the first hull segment, glue strips attached inside. Here the wing will rest upon.

The fuselage is very nice and easy to build. Good fit. Also the second time around. Chris provides glue strips and they actually go over the spars and bulkheads of the skeleton. That is one of the reasons you have to sand them down a bit. What I did was starting with the middle half-section where the wing would rest. Strips on the inside on both sides. Then I worked my way towards the front and rear end. One segment at the time. Where the cockpit eventually will come, you’ll have this indent in the hull. Every part needs some test fitting and the skeleton may need some sanding. The last part, the end cap of the nose was curved using an embossing tool and then it is edge glued onto the rest of the parts. The cockpit part is a little gem. The shape is so well-designed, it really looks like the real thing. I mainly edge glued the window section and the completed part too was edge glued to the fuselage.

The top of the wing is covered by two parts that stretch over the wing surface from the front end of the fuselage and from the rear end.  Then the chines go on. They are best first glued from the back, where the shape matches that of the curvy pointy part of the wing, which goes alongside the fuselage sides. The chine needs to be warped to make a smooth transition from wing to fuselage. The front part curls up over the leading edge and connects to the top wing cover.

Chines not yet added but the wing is in place and the fuselage parts over the wing too.

After that, it’s the whole of the empennage following the same water-bending, skeleton-inserting procedure.

So there. Not yet chined on the photos but the thing starts to look like an airplane. Nice shape, great print detail. Up next, the nose section. And a little disaster. (yeah, a cliffhanger!) Stay around for the next one.

See you and keep on being healthy!

--PK