Cessna Bird Dog - Balsa Kit Build - Part 2

In this installment, James continues to assemble the balsa Cessna Bird Dog kit but runs into some challenges.

The thing about balsa build is that they often take quite a while to finish. This build has steadily been making progress towards becoming the finished airplane, but unlike our Flite Test speed build kits, you have to have buckets of patience! Here's the second part to the free-flight Cessna build log to show you what goes into making a model plane the traditional way.

Guide to Balsa Model Tissue Covering

If you want to know how to learn the techniques used in this article, check out this detailed guide for more information.

Preparing the Airframe

If you've read this guide to balsa wood airplanes, you'll know that sanding is critical.

Sanding takes some time, but all you have to do is get into it. I used fine grit sandpaper (around 300 grit). It's actually quite therapeutic. You really don't have to think about it too much during the process - although you need to make sure to sand the way of the grain. This will avoid splitting the wood and reduce the risk of causing damage to your delicate airframe.

The fuselage was quite curvy on the top and underside. For this reason, I simply held the sandpaper free in my fingers rather than wielding a sanding block.

The inside of the fuselage looks nice and symmetrical when looking through the gap in the center. This is where the powering elastic band will go when the plane is finished.

This nose block is made from sandwiching/laminating several sheet balsa pieces together. It is then sanded into the correct shape. At a later stage, this will be covered in full-thickness dope, sanded and then painted to create a solid nose.

The wheels I decided to use wasn't included in the kit. Instead of assembling the wooden ones, I managed to find some foam tired wheels that were the perfect size and fit.

With it completely smooth and ready for covering, I applied a single piece of material to the underside of the wing.

Remember, you can learn how to do this in the tissue covering guide.

To get the material to adhere to the frame, I used EZ Dope. This was only applied to the outer edges to allow the material to contract freely at a later stage of the process.

It's important to get the tissue as tight as possible here. Looks good!

The top surfaces were then covered with separate pieces and the middle section opened with a craft knife. Clear plastic and paper frames will be added to this later to replicate the upper windows of the original Bird Dog.

Although it doesn't look all that tight fitting, the material here is yet to be shrunk down. First, it will be hit with a light mist of water. Once dry, it will be doped with clear cellulose dope thinned to 50%.

The underside looks a little better. To stop wing warping, the wing was pinned to a flat board whilst the glue fully set.

Beginning to cover the fuselage, some purposely oversized patches were glued. They were then trimmed to size.

To get the right size, shapes were traced from the model. This allowed the fuselage to be covered quickly and efficiently without too much trimming.

Here one side still remains to be covered, but the top, bottom and far side skins are all complete.

Mocked up, this thing is really coming together!

At this point, I still need to finish the covering process, but the majority is all done. Extra paper, clear plastic components and struts all need to be added before the model can be declared complete - as well as the elastic motor.

Disassembled, each component will be finished separately before being put back together separately - then, it will be time for flight. Hooray! Man, balsa models. They really take some work!