Red Baron Fokker Triplane-Issues 70 & 71 cowl cheeks.

[wonwinglo]

Supplied with issues 70 & 71 are sheets of veneer,to these are stuck a self adhesive plastic sheet which also serves as a template,carefully sand the veneer and remove dust with a tack cloth ( you can make your own by dipping a lint free cloth into varnish ) now take a corner of the self adhesive pieces and fold back about half an inch,carefully lay the template onto the veneer and pull off the backing paper,make sure this does not have air bubbles by going over the lot with a printers roller.Next with a craft knife and a large hacksaw blade ( used as a straightedge ) the staggered teeth of which grip firmly the veneer,cut out the parts,for the cross grain you can easily use a pair of scissors.

Now for the crunch line,do not assemble the backing strips as per the instructions otherwise you could end up in trouble ! place the strip wood carefully into the front bulkhead slots making sure the hole is the right way,next lay the veneer against the strips and using plenty of clamps,bulldog clips or clothes pegs make sure everything is tight,with thin cyno just run a bead along the joins and it will permeat into the joints,make sure that you do not stick it to the bulkhead !! place plastic sheet in that area to stop any stray adhesive doing this,now a problem becomes obvious,the exhaust holes overlap the strip wood,but to rectify this just place a few pieces of wood at the sides and with an half round file remove the offending area,you will see that no matter how you position the veneer the holes still slightly overlaps,but this is no big deal and the strip of scrap wood does the trick.Remove the clamps and mark the sides for future reference.

I may add some curved pieces of wood between the strips to retain the curved shape of the sides at the front end of the bulkhead later on.