Both fuselage sides are pieced together, tomorrow I’ll start adding the formers.
Herr J-3 Cub w/Floats Build
- Thread starter jsknockoff
- Start date
Fuselage is going together quick. I did make a rookie mistake by trusting the alignment tabs on the formers. I had the entire fuse tacked up using the factory cut tabs and slots and when I checked it for square before glueing everything in place for good the stupid thing had about an 1/8” of twist through the entire length. Soooo...I cracked everything loose and squared it up. As it sits now I’m about as far as I can go until I decide if it’s getting a front battery hatch. The alternative is taking the wing off, I’m leaning toward magnetic hatch.
TexMechsRobot
Posted a thousand or more times
It's looking good! I know that I should always dry fit EVERYTHING and yet I still get impatient and get bit sometimes.
It definitely could have been much worse than what it was. That’s one bad side of laser cut kits, for the most part they are cut so perfect that they can make you get complacent. The laser cutting is good on this kit, but not as accurate as the MM EVA from last year’s build off. However the Herr kit is WAY more robust, and also significantly heavier. It should handle the wind better and also not be as susceptible to hanger rash.
Had to mock it up
Dang, you're almost done! 
She is going together pretty fast, it helps that my work has really slowed down for the year allowing me to hit it pretty hard.
Looking Great!!!!
It's worth mentioning here that the "rookie mistake" is not trusting the alignment tabs, it is assuming that that formers and the fuselage sides are always 90 degrees. The plans kinda trick most people into this because you build up the airplane on one side and then place the formers and then place the other fuse side on the airplane. The bulkheads or formers are almost always 90 degrees to the airplane centerline, but as the fuselage tapers the angle changes as to when they intersect.
This is why it is important to assemble the airplane dry, check square from reference points, and then glue everything. You caught it right away, but I wanted to clarify in case new people were reading this and didn't understand.
It's worth mentioning here that the "rookie mistake" is not trusting the alignment tabs, it is assuming that that formers and the fuselage sides are always 90 degrees. The plans kinda trick most people into this because you build up the airplane on one side and then place the formers and then place the other fuse side on the airplane. The bulkheads or formers are almost always 90 degrees to the airplane centerline, but as the fuselage tapers the angle changes as to when they intersect.
This is why it is important to assemble the airplane dry, check square from reference points, and then glue everything. You caught it right away, but I wanted to clarify in case new people were reading this and didn't understand.
This is very true, especially on the older designs. In this case the directions have you build the fuselage basically in hand. I absolutely do not recommend this method to anyone especially someone fairly new to building. The step by step directions have the builder glueing each former permanently as they go. Had I followed the directions as written the Cub would be a fire starter right now. Been there done that.
So this is an awesome airplane, and you're doing a fantastic job on it....but can I bitch about something for a second?
Why do all the Herr kits all have a ton of wing Dihedral? A real Piper cub is an almost 0 dihedral airplane - it's a flat wing straight across. but the Herr kit has this weird dihedral brace setup and it makes the wings almost look comical on the box.
I get that most think of the cub as a trainer, and having a lot of dihedral increases the washout and makes the plane more stable for going around the pattern and flying 3 channel, but I think it really kills both the look and character of the cub.
I don't know if you save your balsa flashing as templates (I used to do this by gluing them to cardboard so that I had a template if I crashed and needed to duplicate a wood part), but if you did (or are feeling like scratch building) you could always build a second wing with 0 dihedral and ailerons and swap it out for when the mood strikes. I think it will make the plane much more aerobatic. Years ago I had a friend who did that with his Herr Cessna 180 (which also has a silly amount of dihedral) and it was a night and day difference.
Why do all the Herr kits all have a ton of wing Dihedral? A real Piper cub is an almost 0 dihedral airplane - it's a flat wing straight across. but the Herr kit has this weird dihedral brace setup and it makes the wings almost look comical on the box.
I get that most think of the cub as a trainer, and having a lot of dihedral increases the washout and makes the plane more stable for going around the pattern and flying 3 channel, but I think it really kills both the look and character of the cub.
I don't know if you save your balsa flashing as templates (I used to do this by gluing them to cardboard so that I had a template if I crashed and needed to duplicate a wood part), but if you did (or are feeling like scratch building) you could always build a second wing with 0 dihedral and ailerons and swap it out for when the mood strikes. I think it will make the plane much more aerobatic. Years ago I had a friend who did that with his Herr Cessna 180 (which also has a silly amount of dihedral) and it was a night and day difference.
TexMechsRobot
Posted a thousand or more times
I think you answered your own question lol. Herr has apparently made the decision to sacrifice on some aesthetics in order to increase the enjoyment for new pilots and builders (ailerons being more complicated to build than a non-aileron dihedral as well as being harder to fly). I bet an experienced builder could easily remove the dihedral and build a straight wing with ailerons.
I know why they do it, it's just they tend to have the most of all the kits and even some other foam trainers. I mean it's like a free flight amount of dihedral.
Thanks for the compliment. My insight on your beef would be that the Herr kits seem to be designed as sport scale based loosely on the full scale to give the builder the greatest chance of success. In my opinion they have targeted 2 types of builder. 1. Beginners (who care more if their plane they spent hours building flies than how close it is to scale) 2. Experienced builders looking for a plane to mess around with in their front lawn or park. I fall into the latter category and I chose it over the more scale alternatives like the Mountain Models J-3 because I wanted something simple to fly and easy to shoot touch and goes with off of our pond. I don’t disagree that the plane looks a little goofy when compared to a real full scale, but on the other hand I think there are enough scale looking alternatives out there that modifying a Herr Cub to appear more scale is not really with the effort.
You aren’t wrong but some (like myself) buy the kit for just that reason. This plane should practically fly itself and that’s why I wanted it. Funny thing is that I had this conversation when I bought the kit with Joker and Turbojoe, lol. They were trying to encourage me to build the MM J-3 because it had more scale lines.
yeah, I don't want to take anything away from your build or choices in the slightest. I just thought it would be an interesting conversation.
I certainly understand the value of a "plane that flies itself". Until I crashed it this year, my sig rascal was that. Nice stable 3 channel that I could put into the air any time and just putt around the pattern. It was never the plane I looked forward to flying but it was the one I flew the most and was my safety net.
I love that Sig bought Herr because the quality seems to have improved, although I am sad that a lot of their other models were discontinued. From your experience, do you think of this kit as an approachable novice kit? or is it more complex?
Anyway, carry on.
I certainly understand the value of a "plane that flies itself". Until I crashed it this year, my sig rascal was that. Nice stable 3 channel that I could put into the air any time and just putt around the pattern. It was never the plane I looked forward to flying but it was the one I flew the most and was my safety net.
I love that Sig bought Herr because the quality seems to have improved, although I am sad that a lot of their other models were discontinued. From your experience, do you think of this kit as an approachable novice kit? or is it more complex?
Anyway, carry on.
Absolutely a novice build, certainly not a challenge in the slightest for an experienced builder. I totally agree with you that it won’t be the most interesting to fly. For me, without the challenge of the floats or the obstacles in my lawn, it wouldn’t be something I would choose to fly. It’s just something to screw around with.
Progress has slowed significantly on the Cub. I’ve hit the point where I have to start modifying things for the electric swap. Unfortunately there isn’t a good spot on this plane to put a hatch for easier battery changes due to where the battery has to sit to get a good balance point without adding ballast. For the time being I’m going to do the finish sanding on the wing and get that ready to cover, then set the fuselage aside till I get the floats built and temporarily mounted for a final balance. I’m really pushing to get this finished so I can fly it before the reservoir freezes over. Our pond is spring fed and doesn’t freeze but I’d like to test fly in a larger body of water.
That's the biggest headache I've had when changing an old design over to electric, creating easy access for the battery. A couple recent builds force me to remove the entire wing to get at the battery, but the other choice was major surgery.
nhk750
Aviation Enthusiast
Looking at your fuse and plans, it looks like you have room on the bottom to cut a hatch for battery access. It reminds me of my T-Craft build where I used magnets for the hatch. I have a very detailed build thread on here for this. Depending on where the floats mount It looks like there is room. Maybe some pics of the bottom of fuse with the float mounts and we could come up with some ideas?
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