I am refining this drawing as I build.
I'm not including every detail but experienced
modelers should be able to work from
the dimensions shown.
  The pictures should fill in a lot of gaps.
Walt Musciano's drawings were pretty loose
and they evolved over several production runs.
I have tried to stay as close as possible
to the kit.

  The main feature of this plane was the
decal sheet that came with the kit.
I plan to do a second drawing showing
the dimensions of the sunbursts.

If you download my drawing be sure
to get the latest update. I'm adding details
as I build.

I'm planning on a second drawing that
shows the sunburst dimensions.

Cheers! - K.

I wonder what it would fly like with a pair of fat / symmetrical airfoils...?

Everyone here knows how to build a Musciano.
This is just how I do it.
  I've told parts of this story before but it
belongs here so I'm indulging myself.

   The first time I ever saw a C/L plane
was visiting my Uncle in Meriden Connecticut
in 1962. It was a Voodoo with a Green head Torpedo.
An older boy (12) had just come home from a contest
and the Voodoo had castor oil dripping from it's
yellow silk .  I didn't touch it but I could smell it.
Coco Channel never knew such a powerful fragrance.
I was seven and I desperately wanted a
 "Gas Model Airplane".
I asked for one every Christmas and every birthday
but it never came.

  Most of us remember cutting grass, collecting bottles
and doing chores to pay for airplanes. Finally in 1967
we were visiting Clearwater Florida and I had ten dollars.
The real hobby shop in Clearwater was the House of Hobbies
on Fort Harrison but I didn't know about it.
  Today it's hard to believe that the fancy Maas Brother's
department store near the causeway carried C/L stuff
but they did. There was one Scientific Kit and one red
Cox RTF Pitts. I must have stood there for an hour weighing
the kit against the plastic Pitts.
My guardian angel might have been watching over me
and I walked out of there with this Scientific Little Stinker
and a brand new Baby Bee.

   Walt Musciano made more adolescent dreams come true
than a thousand prom dances. Most of the Scientific Kits
were easy enough to build and flew well enough that
they were worth cutting all those lawns for.

  When I opened the Little Stinker box, There, on top, was
the most beautiful and luxurious decal sheet that any
kit from anywhere ever came with. Sixteen inches of
crisp red sunburst, pinstriped numbers and little skunks.
When you're twelve, things like that are important,
as some might remember.

  I don't know how I managed to build this biplane straight.
I used Talcum and clear dope to seal the wood, then
a coat of white dope. I'm not sure how I found the skill to
apply the decals but when it was finished I would wake
up at night and hold my plane.
I couldn't believe I owned it.

  Andy was the lucky boy in our neighborhood who's
father built models.
His house backed onto an open field with tall grass.
Andy and his dad had been  trying and failing to fly his
TopFlite P47 from a tipped up sheet of plywood.
It was a hot August day and a few bored boys came
to watch me crash. They teased me about the plastic
pilot since it was someone called Betty.
   I started the baby Bee and Andy held the whining
little thing as I ran out to my red plastic Carl Goldberg
handle.

Andy let go.

   The Stinker jumped off the plywood and somehow
locked into steady flight. I was afraid to move the handle
as the laps counted up. It flew for eight full laps before
the bay Bee quit and the plane hit the tall grass.
  It was the first time any kid in our area ever saw a
"gas model airplane" actually fly.
A week later there were probably ten little airplanes
waiting their turn for the plywood.

 We all have memories of that one special plane
that carried our boyish dreams.
This one was mine and I'm building a replica.



   
   

 

Hello Doc and Jim !
The usual suspects   

  Thanks for your interest Chuck.
If you check out my 1/2A Focke-Wulf  build
you'll know why I'm not building this
Stinker as a prime stunt plane.

 https://stunthanger.com/smf/12-a-building/focke-wulf-190d-stunter-build/

Hello Doc and Jim !
The usual suspects   

  Thanks for your interest Chuck.
If you check out my 1/2A Focke-Wulf  build
you'll know why I'm not building this
Stinker as a prime stunt plane.

 https://stunthanger.com/smf/12-a-building/focke-wulf-190d-stunter-build/

I understand...!
Your  FW 190 "programme" would be hogging all of my attention if I were you....

  I shaped the outside of the log before
I hollowed it on the drill press.
I just did the Shoeshine sanding technique
to round the front of the fuselage.
 This works well but I still
needed to use a circular gouge to thin the
shell.
  It's important to leave some thickness
behind the firewall and back at the rudder stock
since these are the stressed areas.

 Hello Keith
                           You have done an excellent job with the Little stinker plan. I have saved your drawing in my docs.  I did the hollowing on my Scientific Little bipe Using a pair of sanding drums and a wood boring bit that I modified rounding the blade. I used the small sanding drum and went slowly since I didn`t clamp the fuse too tight then I used the bigger one doing shallow cuts until I got the wood removed to where I wanted and I finished with the rounded boring bit. I did not leave the wood at the front of the fuselage but will follow your advice on a next project. I started a little stinker years back but didn`t get far just the fuse. I really like the scientific hollow logs. Thanks for posting the plan.
                                                                                                                                                                                      Juan

I think the hardest part of this build
is shaping the turtle deck / head rest.
It took two tries before it looked like
the original drawings.
  My mistake was rounding the top of the
entire log before I glued on the head rest
block. Ooops!

  My original plane had the cockpit open
and it collected oil and dirt.
This time I'm closing it in with 1/16 sheet.
Progress!

  Hey Chuck.  I bought a squeeze bottle
of carpenters glue at Home Despot for this
project.  $6.50 !
  Lucky that I have lots of materials hoarded.

   I sanded the wings out of a nice piece of
1/4". Since both wings are the same dimensions
I made a 36" length using a long sanding board
and lots of pencil lines. #100 grit works well.
It's course enough that shaping requires fewer
strokes so there's less chance of wobbles.
Obviously I finished with finer grit paper.

  The trailing edge is 1/6" thick so I did the old
carpenter's trick of pinching a pencil and using
my finger as a guide as I pulled a line down the
T.E. 
  The Leading Edge is just more of the same.

 Wing tips are all just half circles with a 1-1/2"
radius, then sanded down to a 1/16" tip.
  The photo shows a way to use masking tape
to keep the sand paper working where you
want it and to define a straight edge where the tip
taper begins on the upper surface of the wing.

  Hey Chuck.  I bought a squeeze bottle
of carpenters glue at Home Despot for this
project.

  The trailing edge is 1/6" thick so I did the old
carpenter's trick of pinching a pencil and using
my finger as a guide as I pulled a line down the
T.E. 
 

I bought a gallon of Titebond wood glue about 30 years ago for building ALL of the cabinets in my house plus 30 years worth of model plane building and still have 1/2 that jug. 
I'm ashamed to admit how much I've spent on CA over the years while working with wood glue could have gotten the job done..and in some cases done it better.
I do the "trailing edge pinch" with a fine line marker around all edges that I want to shape down to the mark on center and it's amazing how well that works...well at least "close enough for government work"...
The last few 1/2A biplane  builds I've done.....I used 1/8" bamboo skewers for the cabane / interplane struts and used a one foot long x 1/8 inch diameter drill bit in order to drill all the way from the top wing and into the bottom wing.
This method was quick and easy since the allignments can be made completely "true" before commiting to gluing anything

Hey Chuck,
  Yes!  I discovered bamboo chop sticks
a couple of biplanes ago.  The elevators
on this Stinker are joined with a bamboo
tooth pick. Bamboo is tough stuff.

  Juan,

  You may have noticed that my M.O. is
to make as much as I can "in house".
It's mostly because I can't get exactly
what I want and I'm too impatient to
shop and wait for material.

  Those decals are amazing ! I assume
they are reproductions. (?)
  I will be rendering the sunbursts with dope.
I was looking at a Scientific ad from back
in the day. A usual "log" kit was $1.69.
The Stinker kit was $2.95. The extra expense
was probably for the decal sheet.
  It was a flashy looking little plane !   

  I will be covering the entire plane with
medium silkspan. It's lighter than
sanding sealer and adds a lot of strength.

Wow! 

Juan, that's an amazing picture
and a very nice Christmas gift.
Thank you.

   

 

Here's the Stinker "In the white".

  I like to cover my 1/2A's with medium
silkspan. It's picky work but it saves
a lot of weight and adds strength, plus
I can wet sand the surfaces and get a
really decent finish with just colored dope.

  My original Stinker had a new Baby Bee
so I have been digging through the
Big Box of Cox that was given to me at
the Brodak Fly-In. I polish the components
on a buffing wheel but finding a back plate
with the brass color intact is getting harder.

  I'm using a  #1 thin wall Tee Dee .049 cylinder
with dual booster ports on the bypass port
and a brand new regular glow head.
Much fancier than a normal Baby bee but
this plane deserves my better stuff.

Hello John,

  The silkspan seals the grain of the balsa
with much less dope, and because it adds
strength I can use lighter wood. I also don't
need any filler for fillets or dings.
   In my experience, it's not as light as carbon
veil but it's stronger and easier to work with.

  I paint two coats of thinned nitrate on the
raw wood, sand with 500 grit, then apply
medium silkspan wet. I loosely cut the paper for each
area then dip it in water and drag it across my knee
to remove excess water. I dope through the wet
paper and it adheres well.
 I let it dry then apply two coats of buytrate.
One clear then one color.

  I know everyone here knows all this stuff,
but it doesn't hurt to say the obvious.

Cheers! - K.

I'm digging this build!
Thanks for sharing.

Hey Chuck.

  Yeah. I decided to put a new roof on the house
and rebuild the chimney before I allowed myself
to build another toy plane.

  I hate being an adult sometimes. 

  A serious shortcoming of this plane is
keeping the upper wing attached.
 The picture shows how I cut the cabanes
out of 1/16" ply instead of the hard balsa
that Scientific supplied. You can also see
the tabs that I used on both ends of the
interplane struts. I'm using carpenter's
PVA glue this time because it's slightly
flexible.
It can't possibly be worse than Ambroid
at keeping the wing and struts attached.

  The landing gear I made this time isn't
to the plans.  I don't think Walt expected
kids to actually make the pants and it's
obvious he didn't resolve exactly how
to keep everything attached.
  The picture shows that I sandwiched
the gear fairings onto the wire and that
they aren't attached to the fuselage.
The L/G wire needs to bend so I'm sure
my efforts are hopeless, but it sure
looks good to me!
  I still need to find wheel collars to
hold the pants and wheels.


   Cheers! - K.

Hubba hubba hubba! That looks just like Scientific would have built to showcase the kit to little, newspaper slinging fingers sixty years ago.

I applaud your build with a standing ovation, Sir!

  A serious shortcoming of this plane is
keeping the upper wing attached.
 The picture shows how I cut the cabanes
out of 1/16" ply instead of the hard balsa
that Scientific supplied. You can also see
the tabs that I used on both ends of the
interplane struts. I'm using carpenter's
PVA glue this time because it's slightly
flexible.
It can't possibly be worse than Ambroid
at keeping the wing and struts attached.

  The landing gear I made this time isn't
to the plans.  I don't think Walt expected
kids to actually make the pants and it's
obvious he didn't resolve exactly how
to keep everything attached.
  The picture shows that I sandwiched
the gear fairings onto the wire and that
they aren't attached to the fuselage.
The L/G wire needs to bend so I'm sure
my efforts are hopeless, but it sure
looks good to me!
  I still need to find wheel collars to
hold the pants and wheels.


   Cheers! - K.

WOW...!
A masterful job of doing the layout and then masking  it without any leaks...!!
The paint job itself is just secondary to all that prep work...!!
Oh yeah..the handy dandy thrust calculator suggests that  if you can get good  output from your .049 you ought to have a 2 to 1 ratio to do the stunt pattern with.
https://spencergoesflying.net/hosted/static_thrust/