Scorpion - Simple trainer build

OK, here is my first ever C/L build project

It all begun about 6 months ago when I stumbled upon my old Babe Bee engine from the early '80s. Back then I did not have much success getting it to run, so it has very little run time on it. A few minutes in total maybe. Now, some 30 years later, RC planes run on batteries, but I thought I should finally get my old Babe Bee up in the air and so I figured, why not try control line in true Cox tradition. Shortly after that I found this forum, got really into Cox engines and now I am a proud owner of a bunch of them. Here is my current fleet, minus my original Babe.



The model I have selected is "Scorpion", an all-sheet design from mid '50s. I modified the plan a little, as the original is for a beam-mount engine and the Babe Bee obviously has the back plate mount. I was looking for an "easy to build, hard to break" design since I have never flown a C/L and I most likely won't have an instructor available for the first flights (I am an optimist,hence the plural on the flightS ). For the first flight(s) I will equip the Babe Bee with a muffler and a left-hand 6x2 prop to reduce the power a little.

Here's a link to the original plan and instructions:

http://www.outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=5973

Right now my garage/shop is a mess and there is no heat either so all the gluing will need to happen inside the house. Any major sanding work needs to happen outside, no problem, it's not TOO cold to do that, but fuelproofing and painting will be a challenge.

Anyway, last Saturday I finally got my rear in gear and got to work. My older son and I first "warmed up" by building new winglets and tail feathers for his "Eka" glider to replace the original cardboard ones, and also did some other minor repairs:



It felt good to actually cut and glue some balsa after many years, so on with the Scorpion. First I ironed the patterns from the plan to balsa. It was a new method to me, but it works on laser prints and photocopies. Just put the plan face down on the balsa and iron on high setting to move the print to balsa. It only works once per print. Here's the result:



After cutting out the halves I made some room for the Babe Bee, and cut the reinforcement pieces from thin plywood:



I won't bore you with the details about cutting the tail feathers or sanding the wing into shape, but here it is propped up with no glue:



I made the landing gear a bit taller and wider than what was in the original plan, maybe it is a little too tall. I am going to mount it a little higher and more forward-pointing, maybe I'll also bend it a little wider still. I hate bending the landing gear, never seem to get them the way I want, or symmetrical  I have a pair of perfect NOS Graupner aluminum hub wheels for it already, a flea market purchase for 90 cents

Weight-wise we are at 122 grams (4.3 oz), roughly half of which is the engine.



The landing gear and wheels are about 18 grams total so there won't be much trouble getting the CG were it belongs. I don't have the engine mount, bellcrank, pushrod, hinges etc yet, and of course glue and paint will add some weight too but I think we'll stay under 200 grams.

So this is where I am now Next step is to build the engine mount and glue everything together. And order the missing parts of course.