Kategorie: Building Rig

After finishing the wing and doing a lot (!) of boolean ops for the tabs and slots I started creating the apges to be used to lasercut the 1mm parts. This included converting everything into two layers. One layer will be used for cutting, the other layer will be used for engraving.

I also had to take care of the little tabs/bridges that keep the cut parts from falling out immediately. For cutting efficiency I tried to keep these as few as possible.

As you can see for the spars I ended up dividing them into two parts and I used an A3 sheet. Note to myself: Don’t use this type of spar for a functional model!

I started with creating the base plate (well, first of all I pushed the wing construction aside):

As you can see the base plate was allready divided into sections which can be puzzled together. Each of the parts fits onto an A4 sheet.

I realized the „tab coding“ by simply giving each foot a tab of different length on one side. To show you this, I lifted the foots a bit:

From now on every rib has its unique position. I took the idea one step further. I would like to have everything stable and the hands free for mounting the spars. „To work with reasonable control“ as Leif would put it. So I added a lateral spar, some kind of comb to keep the ribs level and perpendicular.

Have a look:

These were also „tab coded“ and the long one was split into pieces that fit onto A4:

 

Now on to creating the rig. I was fascinated by the method which UweH uses when building his RC wings. Check it out. He is including the building board in his kits and the wing is build on this board using tabs and slots. Every tab is different so that the assembly is coded in the design. Every part only fits in one place, no instruction needed. I will try that.

To do so I added little foots to the ribs which are only attached by small tabs and will be cut off later. To be able to access these areas afterwards I had to turn everything upside down: