Humbrol Tiger Moth

[Piecost]

Ribs cut out from reasonably light balsa. Those at the interplane strut locations, four on the top left, are from denser wood and have lighter 1/16" balsa doublers on each side. It is poor structural design since the doublers terminate just short of the trailing edge. They would look less structurally egregious if from 1/32", but the kit did not employ this wood thickness.

Since they they did not prove to be a weak spot on the original model: I have kept them.

The cabine struts are shown slotted into their ribs. I have departed from the plan and made them and the interplane struts from bass. I had a nightmare when repairing the original model in picking broken balsa struts from their rib sockets, so do not want the parts to be easily damaged. I will glue the struts sparingly with balsa cement, so they can be dismantled with thinners if repairs are needed.

I will next tidy up the spar slots and
stack all the ribs together and sand them to a consistent profile.

[Piecost]

The ribs were surrounded in frames made of "Nano Blocks". These are half sized Lego bricks. The photos show before the spar slots were routed and after with 1/16" square inserted. After this; the upper profiles were sanded to be uniform.

[OZPAF]

Your use of Nano Lego blocks for temporary jigs is interesting - nice work.

John

[Spiros]

It's an excellent idea!

Having only adult children anymore, I'm now looking forward to some grandkids to have the excuse for buying Lego again......

Thank you for this tip! Excellent!!

[Piecost]

I bought the Nanoblocks to fit between closely spaced Peanut wing ribs, where Lego won't fit. They do not feel as nicely made as Lego and are very fiddly.

I attach photos of the full chord wing ribs with pre shaped leading and trailibng edges. I had allready sanded the front of the ribs down to near the 1/8" leading edge thickness. The rear if the rib profile is over thick and a poor match to the pre shaped trailing edge. I hope that they sand down Ok.

I also show the shorter center section ribs that go over thw top of the trailing edge. Their fronts need sanding down to the leading edge.

The top wing is assenvled with ribs sandwhiched between Lego blocks to ensure that they are straight.