Sapphire Wing Construction

Last week I was given a West Wings Sapphire 32.5" wingspan rubber powered model aeroplane kit for Father's Day, however, due to a really busy week I only managed to some free time on Sunday to start it.

With most models I normally construct the wings first. This model has two large wing tips and a main wing.  It was a relatively easy build. First, I pinned the plans down to a board, wax the paper to prevent glue sticking to it.

The ribs were pre-cut, so it was a case of popping them out of the cut sheet and tidying them up. The leading edge required cutting the 3 mm x 6 mm down to 3 mm x 5 mm and sanding down the front two corners to make a leading edge profile.  The trailing edge required notches to be cut about 1.8mm deep to accommodate the end of the wing ribs.  There is some under-camber to the ribs that required the front underside of the trailing edge to be wedged up by 1.5mm before pinning it down and gluing in the ribs and then the spars.

I took an enjoyably slow paced two hours to finish the build.  I'll try to find time this week to build the wing tips and finish the wing.