Almost in one piece...

Here is the present state of the Skylark, what you see in the picture weighs 22 ounces, for reference the Legacy at this stage weighed 33 ounces. Ya I know the Legacy was a bigger airplane 687 sq/in verses 614, that only makes it 12 % larger but it weighed 30% more. If I can keep the finish under 6 ounces this baby is going to come in at about 45 ounces Ready for fuel.

Everything is built up except the top block, I even built up the little filler blocks between the flaps and fuselage sides. Bottom is 1/4 sheet and I even hollowed it, seemed pretty silly hollowing a 1/4 inch thick piece of 4 pound contest balsa to save 3 grams but I did it. Still have a long way to go before the finish can start, mostly blending (sanding) all the parts so everything flows from one surface to the next. Trying to keep the fillets to a minimum which means everything must fit. The wing is Polyspan, tips are silkspan and the rudder is Oz Cover, fuselage will be covered with carbon fiber, flaps will get carbon fiber then silkspan on top. The rest will probably just get silkspan.

Have a set of carbon fiber landing gear which saves about an ounce over the kit aluminum gear. Other than spending a fortune for 4 to 6 pound contest balsa, If I had to say what I did to make the biggest difference between this and the Legacy it would have to be cleaning up excess glue. I didn't leave any glue or epoxy fillets on any piece. Any glue the squeezed out of any joint I scraped off with scraps of balsa. On the Legacy and every other airplane I have ever built I just smeared the excess glue or epoxy into a nice fillet with my finger. I believe the glue joints in this ship are just as strong but weigh 1/2 as much.

Wings covered with silkspan?

I believe he said wings are polyspan. Looks like silkspan in a photo or even when close. I have used it on my last 4 planes, and silkspan on my OTS planes. I prefeer polyspan, except on the tips.

looking great bob i cant wait to see it fly
steve

OOPS, he did say it was polyspan,(and I thought I could read) I never heard of it. Is it stronger and lighter than silkspan? Better for a wing, but not for a fues?

Do a search for "Polyspan" and you will come up with more than you probably want to know about the stuff. It is stronger than silkspan but doesn't go around curves very well and you can't sand it to feather the edges like you can silkspan, it will fuzz up and you have a real mess. This is my second try at using it, the first was almost a disaster but in the end turned out pretty good.

The one trick I learned many times on the first try was if you do sand up the fuzzes, just hit the area with thin CA and LIGHTLY sand just enough to cut the fuzz then hit it with clear dope. If you sand to aggressively you will just be back to the fuzzes and get no where. It took me several flub ups to learn to just sand enough to cut the loose fibers, I'm a slow learner.

Looks really sharp. Here in Socal, it was nice getting to fly with Ed Southwick while we had him. His wife was always with him. When I was growing up, the Skylark always seemed to have an exotic mystique to it compared to the Nobler. The plane had tremendous weight hauling capabilties for it's time. I don't feel Ed really got the credit he deserved for alot of the forward thinking incorporated into the design. Ed's last Skylark, with his Supertigre 46, seemed like the ideal motor for the ship.

Bob,
Super nice looking ship. Is it a Sterling kit? If so, double the compliment. I used Ed's plans to build mine even though I did use the canopy and the, ready, top block. I hollowed it til I could "read the news paper through it". I have flown a couple of kits and they flew well too. Have fun.
Chris...

Bob,

Looks great. So how are you going to paint it?

Thanks for the complements guys, this is my 3rd full blown stunt ship since returning to CL and they just keep getting better as my skills slowly improve. It started life as an RSM kit but copied the rudder from a Sterling kit. I really dislike carving and sanding parts to shape, the built up rudder makes less saw dust and it weighs less.

This is the 46 size Skylark and I have a real nice early ST .46 with one of Tony's plasma coated piston and liners. Waiting for a muffler/adaptor and venturi from our host and a couple of Rev-Up props from and old flying buddy to complete the package.

Planning on using the same color scheme Ed did on his except I am going to swap the red and blue. The last two ships I painted are red and white and am not ready for another red and white airplane.

Bob looking good I sprayed silver on my Buc yesterday I will post pictures