I made some good progress on the cub over the past couple of weeks, though I’ve been short on time to post. All the control surfaces were hinged last week and I did a bit of sanding and fitting to get everything aligned. Since practically everything is 1/8 inch balsa it’s too thin for my hinging tool, so I came up with this little Xacto jig to get a good central alignment in the wood.

[caption id=”attachment_396” align=”alignleft” width=”150” caption=”Hinge Jig”][/caption]

It seems to work out pretty well. Not perfect, but 90% of the hinges went where I wanted them - cleanly and evenly through the center.

The landing gears went together much better than expected. I hemmed and hawed over whether to build up the tail wheel with some sort of extra support to take the load off of the rudder. This is my first pass attempt.

[caption id=”attachment_397” align=”alignleft” width=”150” caption=”Tailwheel”][/caption]

In the end, after some testing, I decided to just go the simple route per the plans and glue it directly to the rudder. Here’s hoping the plane ends up light and sturdy enough that it’s not a problem. By the looks of the plans and the elasticity of the .032 wire gear I believe that should absorb enough shock to keep the rudder safe. Time will tell. I’ll probably add an additional cya hinge to the bottom rudder tied directly into the fuse for some added overall strength.