Suggestions to Preston Briggs
This site was last updated on February 15, 2008.
Under construction
We start with a sheet of foam 4' x 8' by 2" thick.
We begin by slicing the big sheet into 2' x 4' chunks. We clamp a pair of uprights to the workbench to guide the hotwire. They're cut from formica, sanded smooth on one edge.
Each chunk is further reduced to a pair of wing blanks that we'll use to hotwire the actual wing. All the edges are trimmed to the correct angle. Notice the stop (to Howard's left) clamped to the guide rail enabling quick and repeatable cuts.
You should also notice that this is all set up to run as a 1-man operation. While it's fun to build with friends, Howard can manage all this on his own while I take pictures and ask questions.
We end up with a pile of wing blanks, labeled L and R, since the wing halves are not identical.
We cut a tapered hole in each half wing to contain corresponding half spar using a hot wire. To seat the tapered half spar at the correct depth, we sand the hole to fit, using the tool shown above.
