Creating formers for hot wire construction

[SirDutchSTL]

Hey everyone!

I loved David's Vigen and the ease to which he built the airframe. The two planes I've posted above are on my radar for designing. I've practiced the technique David lined out with my own home built wire cutter, and I'm eagerly awaiting a project.

My question is, how would I go about making these cross section templates from a picture?
The X-47B will be the first of these I tackle, because the Iranian plane has a little more involvement and moving parts.

Thanks for any help on this!

 

[epic.engineering]

I'd look up baily blade buck build or just buck build how to on you tube.. should give you an idea.

 

[eagle4]

if you can model that plane in 3D (or find one already made) you should be able to take cross sections from it in most 3d programs out there.

 

[epic.engineering]

side note I have a set of hot wire tools, so I've been considering this also. We maybe able to team up and build simultaneously and bounce back ideas

 

[SirDutchSTL]

Thanks for the replies. I'll look up those videos epic.e. I don't have a 3D modeling program yet. Any user friendly recommended versions?

 

[epic.engineering]

Thanks for the replies. I'll look up those videos epic.e. I don't have a 3D modeling program yet. Any user friendly recommended versions?

what hot wire tools do you have?

 

[willsonman]

Wings 3D is a really easy program to learn. It does not have the printing features that you would really need though I learned 3D in Wings and you can export 3DS and import to Sketchup and run a plugin called slicer. That will give you section profiles that you would need to make your templates. Select your slices--> zoom extents--> export 2D PDF image. If you are just learning though I would recommend you just hunker down and learn Sketchup.

 

[earthsciteach]

I pick one of the given dimensions and scale it off with a metric ruler. Then, make marks at multiple, equivalent locations on the side and top views. Convert these to the scale you want to build and it will give a very close approximation of the full scale plane.

Its hard to explain in words...