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Does anyone have an alignment Solution


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Hi everyone,

    I've come to the edge of just about ruining my first WnW kit. 

After hours of trying to get a nice finish I went to put it all together and ended up with a broken cabane and a scratched decal.  Luckily I have no aspirations for entering it into a competition.

 

When I first dry-fitted the wings, I noticed a marked anhedral.  I've exaggerated it a bit in the following illustration (Fig A), but it was quite noticeable to my naked eyes.

ZiqXX7.jpg

 

After a bit of shaving and some undesired chipping caused by the shaving I thought I was looking at something that looked like (Fig B) below:

MHksFU.png

After trying to force it into place and breaking the cabane, I took a step back and had a thought and finally a second look from a greater distance.  I realized what I was seeing was like (Fig C) below:

5Fgy5N.png

 

I've removed, shaved, and reattached the lower wing without actually gluing the the joint with the fuselage and it looks a bit better, but I'm not pleased that it happened at all.

 

What do you guys do to get perfect alignment?

 

Thanks for your thoughts,

 

Gaz

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I honestly have not had an alignment issue like that before, wingnuts generally and right on. Only thing I can think of is that some alignment issue cause a spreading, which led to your problem. Or possibly the wing was warped before? you can fix some issues by using a strong line for rigging (not ez-line). I found .010 piano wire that I tried on the undercarriage of the Snipe I built.

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I don't know if this will help or not, but, in a case like that, when building a biplane, I decide whether to build it as a "parasol" (upper wing only) or monoplane (lower wing only) airplane first, getting it all stabilized, aligned, etc.

 

Since the upper wing is a single piece, and the lower wings not, and also being a sesquiplane ("V"-strutter), I would have gone for the "Parasol" option.

 

In your case, you might have to make a new cabane strut to replace the broken one, from a sprue, etc.

 

Next I install the upper wing, carefully checking the alignment with the struts, etc., allowing it the wing/fuselage/strut assembly to set, reinforcing/rigging as needed.

 

Then, I add the lower wings, usually with the model bottom-side-up, basically using the interplane struts as spacers more then supports, until the glue sets.

Edited by Gigant
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I wonder whether you could use a brass tube. Set a long length of the tube securely into the fuselage at the correct angle.

 

Once it's at the right angle glue it in situ and then trim from the unfixed end 80% of it. Fit the corresponding wing over this rather than what the kit dictates for you. It might mean filling wing/fuselage gaps.

 

Laborious but it might be fun.

 

Cheers Matty

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I had the same issue with my WNW Albatros. I contacted WNW about it, and was told by them not to worry about it, the kit was designed that way, and when you attach the cabanes and interplane struts it will pull the lower wings into the correct slight dihedral alignment. So, I followed their instructions and it worked. Although there is a very slight curve in the bottom wing (between the struts), when it should be straight. Since you broke the cabane, I'm not sure you will get the lower wing to pull into the correct dihedral. I'd probably use a good jig, like the one Mike recommends. 

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I had the same issue with my WNW Albatros. I contacted WNW about it, and was told by them not to worry about it, the kit was designed that way, and when you attach the cabanes and interplane struts it will pull the lower wings into the correct slight dihedral alignment. So, I followed their instructions and it worked. Although there is a very slight curve in the bottom wing (between the struts), when it should be straight. Since you broke the cabane, I'm not sure you will get the lower wing to pull into the correct dihedral. I'd probably use a good jig, like the one Mike recommends.

 

Bob,

Thanks for your reply. I actually have that exact jig, but hadn't thought that I could use it for alignment.

In the end, I did a lot more trimming to the wing tab, and to the portion of the wing that sinks inside of the fuselage surface, as well as the square hole that the wing tab goes into.

This got rid of the anhedral, allowing the proper angle. Once I glued the strut to the bottom wing, everything came up roses.

 

Gaz

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  • 3 weeks later...

I had the same issue with both my builds. The first one I kept cracking the lower fuse half joint but I eventually managed to get it together. The second one I trimmed the lower wing joint until the wings fit perfectly at the right angle.

 

It make absolutely no sense why the kit would be designed to put soooo much stress on the struts and lower fuse joint to achieve proper dihedral.

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13 hours ago, Clunkmeister said:

Hey guys.

I’ve built several of the Albatros kit and the one thing I found is that where the lower wing stub spars slide into the fuselage, if the spar AND the fuselage former area where the spar boxes into are not perfectly free from paint and residue, you’ll experience this issue.

Add to that the fact that we like to use oil texturing over model paint for the wood effect, possibly with even a Future coat, you end up with either a thick paint coat, or thick remnants in the nooks and crannies.

Clean the spar attach areas on the fuselage formers religiously before closing the fuselage, and do the same with the spars. That’ll fix this issue 100% every time. (Ask me how I know). :(

My areas were paint free.  I had covered them with liquid mask or scraped.  But  I had read about the 'banana' effect on the lower wing and thought I had removed enough to avoid it.

 

In another forum I had asked and learned that there are two tiny little tabs on one of a fuselage frame that that wes supposed to help align the 'spars'.  That area did have paint on it, so might have contributed to my problem.

 

Eventually, I scraped off enough plastic from the 'spar', recess, and inner wing stub to get it all to fit properly.

 

Still, I would like to find a way to get the dihedral correct  perfect(!) on all of my builds.   How do I do that?

 

Gaz

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