Tony Nijhuis 134" Avro Lancaster [3.403 metres]

G'day gang,
Last Monday I finally pulled the trigger and purchased the TN 134 inch wing span Avro Lancaster.
I purchased the plans, Canopy and associated plastics like cowls, spinners and turrents, CNC pack containing all the ribs and formers. Basically everything bar the sheeting.
The cost of the kit was not too bad but the freight was rather steep but I had expected that from posting things to England.
All up, what I ordered was $778.
Of this the freight was near enough to $ 360.
I am leaning towards glow power [even though the aircraft is designed for electric] and may well wind up fitting ASP FS61AR four stroke engines.
There is a weight penalty in going this way but I may well have a more reliable power source as well as longer flights.
It has been over thirty years since I last build a scale model [1/6th scale MKIX Spitfire] so I am looking forward to getting the plans and looking at where to start. The sheet for the fuselage alone is nine feet long.
While it will not be an overnight project, I am excited about getting the bird in the air one day in the future.
As with Bob's Connie build, I will keep members up to date with happenings.
While I enjoy the cease of flying my foamies, I have been threatening to get back into building. It was going to happen last year but I spent my tax return on Johnathan. This year it is my turn.
This is better than Christmas......hurry up Mr Postman!
Regards and respect
Daryl

G'day all,
The Lancaster kit arrived today and it a very big kit to say the least.
The cockpit canopy stretches from my finger tips to my elbow and my fist can fit into the tail gunners turrent.
Subtract the weight of the box and what I received comes in at five kilograms. I have to add four kilograms of engines, glue, paint, landing gear and so on.
Looking forward to getting a start on her soon.
Regards and respect
Daryl

If this lap top plays the game, I might be able to give a few up dates on the Lancaster.
I finally managed to get some glue onto some balsa and on the 26th of June 2018, some forty parts were glued and assembled.
I started with the tail plane and the centre box was the first item to be tackled.
As the parts for this were on the same fret as the motor mounts, I actually had four sets of everything.so, if a mistake was to be made, I had plenty of spares.

I then tackled the left hand elevator and made it up to the point of being able to be mounted to the stabiliser when it would be finished.
I spent four hours to get this far and most of it was spent looking at and understanding what the plans were telling me. Soon, it became easy as things started to make sense and the drawings almost came to life.
I did make a small error on the cutting of the forty five degree angle on the outer end of the elevator. This is to give the rudder room to move both left and right. The error was easily corrected and is no longer a factor.
This took four hours on the first day and blood was spilt.

July 8 and the left hand elevator is fully finished and I went looking for the hinges that I purchased some time ago. These nice Dubro flat hinges will be ideal for hinging the elevator but no matter how hard I looked for them, I could not locate them anywhere.
it is my wish to use pin hinges for the rest of the control surfaces but the make up of the elevator requires flat hinges to be used.
I also managed to get the right hand elevator made up and trimmed to a finished state. Now both elevators are at the same completion and ready to have the hinges installed.
The top of the elevators will be covered as per the full sized machine and that will be with cloth, while the rest of the elevator will be glassed to give a bit of extra strength and durability.

July 9 2018 and the trailing edge of the tail plane has been cut out and glued to the centre box section.
Right now, I am not happy with the set up for the tail plane and I am not afraid to go for more strength in this area and I am looking at adding a 6.5mm top spar to help in this section.
There are plenty of clamps all over the job at the moment and this is making the work go a bit slower then how I would like.