I picked up a pair of the new Gentle Lady kits a few weeks ago, being an old glider junky, and I’m finally getting around to putting one together. It will be built as packaged with no modifications for the first time around. I opened it up tonight and skimmed over all the parts to get an idea what I’m working with. I’ll be starting with the fuselage first. I’ll do my best to get some step by step pics, and give a brief description of the process.
Willy Nillies Gentle Lady
- Thread starter jsknockoff
- Start date
Sounds like a lot of fun - I'll be following the build!
Willy Nillies
Elite member
Please let us know if you have any questions. Attached is the wing build instructions. Fuselage instructions are in the works but not quite ready. It's really a pretty simple build.
Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com
I started building the Gentle Lady over the weekend. I punched out the stabilizer and vertical fin parts and sanded the edges to remove the laser burn. They were then pinned out on the board to glue on the perpendicular grain caps.
I made a little progress on the fuselage over the last couple evenings. My first thoughts when punching out the pieces and cleaning them up were about weight. The internal structure is made out of lite ply, so this thing is going to take a pretty serious beating. After test fitting some parts I decided to square up the top half of former 2 and glue it in place before doing anything with the sides.
After allowing that to dry, I locked it into one of the balsa fuse sides and glued in the other half of former two, and also glued in former 3. By eyeballing the lite ply center tray, it seemed to make sense to join the other side at this time. By putting together the sides with just formers 2 and 3 in place the sides self jigged and after checking for square looked to be about perfect.
After allowing that to dry, I locked it into one of the balsa fuse sides and glued in the other half of former two, and also glued in former 3. By eyeballing the lite ply center tray, it seemed to make sense to join the other side at this time. By putting together the sides with just formers 2 and 3 in place the sides self jigged and after checking for square looked to be about perfect.
Like I said in my first post, I will be building this without making any unnecessary modifications. With that said, the airframe is already starting to feel heavy. I bought a pair of these knowing that they are beta kits, and I hope that any of my criticisms aren’t taken the wrong way. I absolutely love these classic gliders and I hope that Willy Nillies will expand the line and produce many more varieties of the classic sailplanes. (I have plenty of ideas!)
With the expected specs for wing loading (below) a tiny bit of weight could help it track in the breeze - I don't think it's going to be a windy day plane
Flying Weight Brushless or Glow: 4.5 to 6 ounces.
Wing loading 2.82 to 3.76 oz/sq.ft.
Wing Cube loading : 2.2 to 3
Flying Weight Brushless or Glow: 4.5 to 6 ounces.
Wing loading 2.82 to 3.76 oz/sq.ft.
Wing Cube loading : 2.2 to 3
The fuselage is coming along, I pulled the front sides together and glued in former 1.
After that dried, I placed formers 4 and five. The kit included some small sticks to act as reinforcements for the top and bottom sheeting. I did a twist test and determined after putting the first one in that the rest weren’t necessary for an unpowered version of this plane. The fuse sides thick enough balsa that contact area for glue won’t be an issue for sheeting.
After that dried, I placed formers 4 and five. The kit included some small sticks to act as reinforcements for the top and bottom sheeting. I did a twist test and determined after putting the first one in that the rest weren’t necessary for an unpowered version of this plane. The fuse sides thick enough balsa that contact area for glue won’t be an issue for sheeting.
These little guys were a mystery for a while. After a beer and some brainstorming, I figured out that they were reinforcements for the tow hook mount. They get glued in between the tow hook plate and the lite ply tray in the fuse.
The fit for my bottom sheeting was a bit narrow and also I didn’t want the round cut outs to fall on a former in the event that I covered the back half in transparent covering. So I shifted the bottom sheeting back to where it fit best and used a piece of scrap sheeting to fill in the gap.
Do you mind if I share my build in this thread too? I just started mine last night by laying out the wings first.
Center section - no glue yet - the left side is going to be the center of the wings - note the two shorter / smaller ribs on that end where the sheeting will go.
Next the outer wing panels - these ribs are numbered to narrow down towards the tip.
And here's why it's good to lay things out and think about it before adding glue - I incorrectly had the wings sweeping forward not back! Probably not a big deal deal from a performance perspective, but definitely not how the original is configured.
And since I needed to pull everything apart anyway, I took the opportunity to line up the ribs and add another small hole through all of them while stacked together. It will help with wiring up the wing lighting to have both wires behind the sheer webbing.
Center section - no glue yet - the left side is going to be the center of the wings - note the two shorter / smaller ribs on that end where the sheeting will go.
Next the outer wing panels - these ribs are numbered to narrow down towards the tip.
And here's why it's good to lay things out and think about it before adding glue - I incorrectly had the wings sweeping forward not back! Probably not a big deal deal from a performance perspective, but definitely not how the original is configured.
And since I needed to pull everything apart anyway, I took the opportunity to line up the ribs and add another small hole through all of them while stacked together. It will help with wiring up the wing lighting to have both wires behind the sheer webbing.
Last edited:
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
Me likey that pin drill. I usually just twist the drill bit between my fingers when needing something that small hehe.
Yeah, every once in a while one of those el-cheap-o tools actually works! I think this is the particular one I got.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BRGYNTR/?tag=lstir-20
I'd estimate about half a gerbil's worth of power - works fine for wood and soft plastics (like control horns) but won't get through anything harder.
Wing assembled and glued with the swept back tips this time - it will make the plywood angled spar that holds the sections together fit a little funny, but I like the look of it this way.
Also shown are the led's and resistors generally put in their spots. I'm using the existing guide hole as the place for the resistors to go - they glue in there with a little Super Phatic just fine. The extra balsa sticks are just holding the resistors straight until the glue dries.
Also took advantage of having a plastic sheet over the workbench to lay out the wiring diagram with a marker. The reason I'm doing them in little pairs has do to with the voltage drop from the leds, and wanting to run this plane on a 2s battery. Basically, each led is causes somewhere between 2 and 3 volts of drop when in series (depending on color) so by wiring them into little paired cells they will still have all the volts they need even when the 2s lipo is empty and ready to land. This is also why you can easily find led power supplies with 24 or 48 volts - they can run a longer series of lights on fewer resistors and less complexity. As for the odd location of the resistors, they don't specifically need to be in front of or behind or between the led's to work properly - it just works out nicely for wiring across the ribs to have them in between.
Also shown are the led's and resistors generally put in their spots. I'm using the existing guide hole as the place for the resistors to go - they glue in there with a little Super Phatic just fine. The extra balsa sticks are just holding the resistors straight until the glue dries.
Also took advantage of having a plastic sheet over the workbench to lay out the wiring diagram with a marker. The reason I'm doing them in little pairs has do to with the voltage drop from the leds, and wanting to run this plane on a 2s battery. Basically, each led is causes somewhere between 2 and 3 volts of drop when in series (depending on color) so by wiring them into little paired cells they will still have all the volts they need even when the 2s lipo is empty and ready to land. This is also why you can easily find led power supplies with 24 or 48 volts - they can run a longer series of lights on fewer resistors and less complexity. As for the odd location of the resistors, they don't specifically need to be in front of or behind or between the led's to work properly - it just works out nicely for wiring across the ribs to have them in between.
Welcome aboard!!
Willy Nillies
Elite member
The pods look great! Excited to get my hands on a couple of those
Made some more progress this afternoon on the wing - first connected the outer and inner sections.
Then stringing the 24 gauge bare copper wires for power and ground the full length of the wing.
Working one section at a time and testing each pair...
I don't have enough of any one color of led so it's going to be a multi-color scheme
And here's a close up of the exposed style wiring. I haven't had a chance to use this in a project before so I'm still figuring out what works easily and what doesn't. One thing is make sure there is enough vertical distance between the hot and ground leads with the resistor right in the middle (height wise) - will help with keeping a good safe distance between the led wires that need to cross over without connecting.
On the other panel I'm going to try a slight adjustment that should work better, and still look very similar.
Made some more progress this afternoon on the wing - first connected the outer and inner sections.
Then stringing the 24 gauge bare copper wires for power and ground the full length of the wing.
Working one section at a time and testing each pair...
I don't have enough of any one color of led so it's going to be a multi-color scheme
And here's a close up of the exposed style wiring. I haven't had a chance to use this in a project before so I'm still figuring out what works easily and what doesn't. One thing is make sure there is enough vertical distance between the hot and ground leads with the resistor right in the middle (height wise) - will help with keeping a good safe distance between the led wires that need to cross over without connecting.
On the other panel I'm going to try a slight adjustment that should work better, and still look very similar.
Good progress is being made on the power pods. They are turning out pretty darn nice!
Sincerely,
Doug and Becky
WillyNillies.com
I was just thinking about a power pod the other night while doing some sanding on my wing. I’d like to put one together out of balsa and ply to mount a PeeWee .020. I just wasn’t sure what thrust angles I would need to use. I have one from Sig that I bought when I built a 2M Riser that I was thinking of copying.
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