Help! Master series design help thread

[Whit Armstrong]

Hi everyone!

Here is a thread where people can ask all their questions about how to design master series planes.
Hopefully we can get all the info you need to design these types of planes, and see even more master series scratch builds

Feel free to share your techniques, comments and opinions about master series design.

 

[Whit Armstrong]

I found this Fusion 360 addon called exactflat (https://www.exactflat.com/) which might help with flattening out skins.

 

[Whit Armstrong]

I found this Fusion 360 addon called exactflat (https://www.exactflat.com/) which might help with flattening out skins.

Turns out i't paid. But if you want to buy it, i'm sure it would be handy. Back to using Meshmixer then.

 

[Pieliker96]

I'm currently finishing up designing a plane that uses semimonocoque fuselage construction (skin + a couple full and partial formers) in Sketchup.
I use this plugin by alexschreyer to unwrap skins and this plugin by JoakimSoderberg to export the necessary geometry to inkscape, where I generate pdf plans and laser Gcode. The latter plugin is a tad old and only runs properly on Sketchup 2015.

I think the master series design style is a fantastic demonstration of what's possible with DTFB. Box fuselages and the standard fold-over wings are nice in their simplicity and ease of build, but the extra effort spent in adding and building in curves gives the models a much more refined and serious look. Whereas previously, the aesthetics of standard DTFB planes had been outclassed by techniques such as balsa (with formers & stringers) or hot-wire, this method of building vastly improves the looks and scale accuracy of the plane without sacrificing much of the benefits DTFB planes have over others. I'm excited to see where this leads to.

 

[Whit Armstrong]

it's not necessarily master series related, but this could be helpful:

 

[The Hangar]

I'll be following this thread - there's some great info already.

 

[Ryan O.]

Hi everyone!

Here is a thread where people can ask all their questions about how to design master series planes.
Hopefully we can get all the info you need to design these types of planes, and see even more master series scratch builds

Feel free to share your techniques, comments and opinions about master series design.

I've decided to sart work on another Sturmovik, so I'll be using your website's tips for making the plans. The website looks pretty nice

 

[Whit Armstrong]

I've decided to sart work on another Sturmovik, so I'll be using your website's tips for making the plans. The website looks pretty nice

Thanks! I'm still working on the cad tutorial. I'm trying to make it very accessible to cad beginners, so explaining a lot of minute things is taking a while.

 

[DinosEatPeople1]

I would love some more tutorials and help with making master series aircraft. I really like to make some master series planes

 

[Whit Armstrong]

I would love some more tutorials and help with making master series aircraft. I really like to make some master series planes

Yeah, I'll be finished soon, but this is my first tutorial, and they're hard to make. I didn't realize until I thought of all the things a beginner wouldn't know thow to do!

 

[Ryan O.]

Yeah, I'll be finished soon, but this is my first tutorial, and they're hard to make. I didn't realize until I thought of all the things a beginner wouldn't know thow to do!

Cool, I'm starting out by importing balsa plans, scaling them to the proper size, tracing them with the spline tool, and extruding them. One question, to export the plans to inkscape do I have to use .stp (which isn't available in the free version anymore if I remember correctly)

 

[GrizWiz]

Cool, I'm starting out by importing balsa plans, scaling them to the proper size, tracing them with the spline tool, and extruding them. One question, to export the plans to inkscape do I have to use .stp (which isn't available in the free version anymore if I remember correctly)

Inscape can open dxfs too

 

[Whit Armstrong]

Cool, I'm starting out by importing balsa plans, scaling them to the proper size, tracing them with the spline tool, and extruding them. One question, to export the plans to inkscape do I have to use .stp (which isn't available in the free version anymore if I remember correctly)

Balsa plans are great! There's an addon for Fusion called Shaper Origin, which lets you export a face as an svg.

 

[Ryan O.]

Any tips on modeling the concave wing farring in fusion, or is it just better to model it flat but slightly oversized?

 

[Whit Armstrong]

Any tips on modeling the concave wing farring in fusion, or is it just better to model it flat but slightly oversized?

I haven't modeled any wing fairings yet-- just do them in 2d, you don't even have to oversize them. I drew the entire wing in 2d because it was so much easier. I's a lot better to use a combination of 2d and 3d for design, rather than just one or the other.

 

[Ryan O.]

So I've come up with an idea to make the top wing skin. I take the length of the top of tge airfoil, and the length of the bottom and calculate the top as a percent of the bottom and then distort the plan of the bottom of the wing on one axis. It might work, I'm not sure

 

[Whit Armstrong]

So I've come up with an idea to make the top wing skin. I take the length of the top of tge airfoil, and the length of the bottom and calculate the top as a percent of the bottom and then distort the plan of the bottom of the wing on one axis. It might work, I'm not sure

I would suggest just drawing plans for the bottom of the wing, and then lengthening the root chord by ~1.5 inches, try to make it a little bigger than necessary, it doesn't matter if it's bigger but it wouldn't work if it was smaller. There's no need for complex math if you can just eyeball it! Right?? anybody? *crickets chirping*

Yeah, anyway, just lengthen the root chord, and don't do anything to the tip. It will automatically compensate for the thinning of the wing. You can import the plans into Inkscape and see how they are, and try to copy them. I generally like to reuse the spars and slots/tabs from the plans, as they're all the same across the MS builds.

 

[Ryan O.]

[QUOTE="Whit Armstrong, post: 622337, member: There's no need for complex math if you can just eyeball it! Right?? anybody? *crickets chirping*
[/QUOTE]
I mean it worked for Apollo 13

 

[otto54]

Another very effective way of making designs is based on papermodels, they are quite similar.
I am making a Piper L-4 Grasshoper model based on some templates

 

[Whit Armstrong]

Another very effective way of making designs is based on papermodels, they are quite similar.
I am making a Piper L-4 Grasshoper model based on some templates

Cool! How do you do it?