Avoiding my chores.

As my vacation is over, I looked around my desk and started cleaning.   Well, pushing things around from place to place really.  But, one thing I’ve been pushing around for months is the test fixture I made for THIS thread on my pipe bomb engines.  As I’ve finished that test, I have no further use for a Testors test stand.  Get it? Testors Test stand?  Ahhh-ha-ha-ha.

But, it seemed a shame to toss out a perfectly usable item, so I got “distracted” from my cleaning to do something with this.  I needed something quick and dirty for this, so I cast about in my mind for something to do with it.  Since it is for Testors pipe bomb engines, I thought of Riley Wooten’s L’il Bomb.  That plane is pretty simple, so I decided to cut down the test fixture and graft it into the plane and call it….


Wait for it….


A L’il Pipe Bomb!!!


As usual, I started building before I thought to start taking pictures.  Here’s the plane with the basic frame.  I took a 1/8x3x36’ stick of balsa and cut it into two 18” pieces.  I butt-joined the two pieces to make a 6x18” slab.  I cut a couple of 1” end cross pieces from a scrap 1/8” balsa.  Then cut the wing to shape and cut out two pieces for the elevator to attach to.  All glued together:




Then I made a cutout for the section of engine mount made from the test fixture.  No, I didn’t cut the angle for in-thrust.  This is the bottom of the plane.  The angle is not as extreme as the crappy camera makes it look.




I then cut and glued on the fins.





Afterwards, I glued in the engine mount.  The burnt patches were from about 22 years ago when I used the ply as a fixture to solder up the cabanes on an ACE 4-120 Bipe kit.







Taping the elevator in place to mark up the pushrod, and the pushrod cut to length.





Next I glued in ply doublers for the bellcrank mount and a 1/32” doubler to cover the engine mount and secure it to the wing.




Test fitting the engine.  I decided to use the engine clamp that I used for my Pipe Bomb Special, as I was a little lazy tonight.  I might make up a better clamp that matches the bottom of the mount, but the plane currently balances about 3/8" behind the leading edge of the plane, so I don’t want to add more weight to the front.  We’ll see how it balances after I paint it.






I made up and glued in the leadout guide, but then looking at it I decided I had glued it in too far back, especially since I’m putting out-thrust in the engine.  So, I made a poor man’s adjustable leadout guide and glued another guide ahead of the first one.  Now I have four holes spaced ½” apart that I can adjust the guide in.




And here it is assembled to check final layout and rough balance before I take it apart for painting.  This is two evenings’ work.  Not fancy, but it looks functional.  I’ll wait until after I paint it to decide the exact placement of the fuel tank.  









Now to put aside the L’il Pipe Bomb until we have a non-rainy/non-humid day so I can paint it.

The Soggy Mark