This is a build thread that starts in Pennsylvania, stops in Dallas, and ends in Asia.
As a lifelong plastic model builder, I love semi-scale stunt planes. The Don Still Stuka Stunt is no exception. I've wanted to learn and fly Old Time for years, and finally decided to do something about it. It starts with a friend in Singapore crashing his Brodak Oriental ARF. The wing was largely fine, but the rest of the plane was toast. So I asked him if I could have the wing and he kindly obliged. The reason I wanted the wing: The Oriental and Stuka Stunt airfoils are the same. Cut a few inches off the tips, reshape the flaps, and it's 98% a Stuka Stunt wing. Good enough for me, especially as it'll never fly in a contest!




Then came another stroke of luck. At this year's Brodak contest, Scott Richlen sold me, for the princely sum of $10, a started Stuka Stunt project: another wing, a fuselage, and stab and elevators. They were quite unfinished (just assembled, not sanded), but the work was good and the wood was light as a feather. An added bonus as the ARF wing was far from light! And better yet, since I was at Brodak's, I could go down to the hobby shop and buy things to finish the project with (the canopy and an elevator horn)

From there I hatched a plan: I'd leave the wing behind in my dad's garage since I already had a wing in Singapore (If anybody in Dallas wants a started Stuka Stunt wing, it's yours for $11). But everything else, including the fuselage, was small enough to fit in a box for my checked luggage back to Singapore.

Before going back home, I got a few things done. The engine bearers were too far apart (and already drilled out with threaded inserts) for my engine of choice, an OS .25 FP. So I cut the exposed part of the engine bearers (and the inserts) lengthwise, leaving about 3/8" of them left. I then took pieces of roughly 5/16" maple and epoxied them to the cutout in the existing bearers, then sandwiched them between pieces of 1/8" and 1/16" ply. Not ideal, but I think it should work for such a small plane and engine.






I also did a whole lot of sanding to make the fuselage symmetrical and airfoil the 1/2" stab and elevators. To make the top block, I laminated two pieces of 1/4", 5.5-lb balsa and sanded and hollowed it out. I made the rudder from bits of leftover leading and trailing edge stock. Here are a couple photos of it all mocked up with the wing I was leaving behind. After these photos I managed the dope and cover the tail surfaces. Other tasks included carving the nose block (big thanks to my dad for letting me have one of his last lser cut 1.75" nose blocks) and sorting the landing gear. The fuselage I bought had no front formers, so I cut a slot in the bottom of the fuselage just ahead of the wing. Then I made a former from 1/8" balsa sandwiched between two pieces of 1/16" ply. The balsa plate had a groove cut in it to accept wire landing gear I had from an Ultra Hobby Gieseke Nobler kit (thanks again, dad).






All the Stuka Stunt goodies packed away for the 24-hour trip back home.




They made it! Here's all the stunt goodies I managed to pack in my luggage. Aside from a couple cracks in the fuselage that were easily fixed, no major damage to report.




The next task was the cut the wing down. The Oriental wing needed a total of 9 inches cut from it. I reused the tips, so I cut a couple bays out, sawed off the tips, then glued them to the shorter wing.








The one bit of damage from the wing was when the APC prop shot through the sheeting when the plane crashed. I cut out the damaged sheeting, reused two ribs from the sections I cut out in the previous photos, and got it back together.




Next came doping and covering. We can't get real dope in Singapore, so I use EZ Dope from Deluxe Materials. It's not quite as good, but it works well enough. It takes a whole lot longer to dry/offgas than real dope, but with the equatorial sun and 90-degree temps everyday, it worked out.




While the sun and heat are good for drying dope, it's not so great for the builder! I do most of my sanding at night when it's only 78 degrees and 85% humidity.




Our apartment complex has an "event space" for hosting dinner parties and it has a massive, perfectly flat granite island. So I decided to do my assembly there. As you can see, I already covered the fuselage. Since it's so small and the flaps (reused from the Oriental) are glued into the horn, I thought it'd be easier to dope/cover/sand before assembly.




Fuselage in place with jigs I made from hard 6mm balsa.




Wing in place. Due to some asymmetry, I had to cut more of the fuse out to get the wing to fit than I hoped.




The wing joint. I made a filet using 15-minute epoxy. Out of focus is a former to support the top block that still allows the flap horn to clear.




Stab and elevators in place. They must've been made with really old wood because they weighed nothing.






The building table after 4 hours.




We have an airframe!






Updates to come soon. Thanks for looking.

Way to go Jake.  I like it a lot.

Lookin’ good, my good man! It’s going to be a beauty.

Dave Mo…

Great build series, Jake.  I appreciate all the detailed photos.

Thanks for the nice comments, everyone!

A detail I forgot—the little fillet(?) piece that goes between the flap and the fuselage. The piece in the middle is a hollowed piece of 3/16" balsa. The flaps are 1/4". This piece is cut short to allow the horn to clear. Then it is sandwiched between pieces of 1/32 balsa. Afterwards I sanded it to match the bevel of the flaps. I doped and covered these pieces before glueing them to the fuselage.








The $17 Brodak charges for the Stuka Stunt canopy is money well spent. That saved a whole lot of work. To mask, I covered each pane with Tamiya 6mm masking tape, then cut along the framing with a new Xacto blade. With a sharp blade, it takes very little pressure to cut through Tamiya tape—significantly less than it takes to cut through the plastic. I use this technique for plastic model canopies as well. To get the effect of rivets on the interior of the canopy, I drew a bunch of dots using a Sharpie. This was a technique learned from a Windy video. When I start painting, the very first coat I'll do, even before primer, is interior green (or whatever Stukas had) over the canopy. Therefore it'll show when looking through the canopy.




I didn't have a lot of choice for glueing the canopy on. Since it just sits on the block instead of in a groove or nestled around a turtle deck, I wanted something faster than wood or white glue. But of course, CA won't work. And I couldn't find a good bottle of canopy glue either (it goes bad above 80 degrees, which it always is here). So I found some E6000 glue. The package said it sets fast and handles vibration. I discovered pretty quick that you get one chance with it. It congeals almost immediately, so you can't go back and smooth it out like you would epoxy or any other filet material. One side I messed up because I kept trying to touch it up. The other side came out very nice. The pictures I'll show you are of the good side. After I get some paint on, I might put a little putty on the crummy side if it's obvious.






The last thing I've done is make and install landing gear spats. They are made of 1mm balsa, with a 3mm core to guide the wire gear through. I made wheel pants, but I fly off of grass so I left them off. I also think I'm getting pretty tight on weight.




Here's how the plane sits now. It's all ready for paint. I think it'll be heavier than I like, but not horrible I hope. I'd love to hear what weights people have ended up when building these. All I have to go off of at the moment is from the 50's when they were 28-31 oz. using 50's wood and an unmuffled Fox .25/.29. At the moment, the airframe, including cowl, is 21.6 oz. I think the heavier weight is down to two things: a heavy wing (10.9 oz) and not letting the dope offgas enough between coats. My hardware currently weighs 10.05 oz (6.45—engine; 1.15—tank; 0.7—wheels; 0.4—prop; 0.8—spinner; 0.55—muffler). That puts everything at 31.65 oz. I'm really hoping I can end up at 40 oz. or under. I think it'll be close.




The next update should come somewhere in mid-January. I'm back in the US visiting folks and will get to painting after I return in the New Year.

Thanks for looking,
Jake

Jake, you are a true artist with different materials.   I would guess Pop uses kevlar threat to hold his buttons on.   Keep up the great work.   HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR.

Very creative Jake!  Nice work!

Don

Looks awesome Jake!

Dad