UH-18: Cut angles on plow planes and top

Today I cut the plow planes and the angles on the top of the hull.

I already finished the bottom before I thought of pictures.

I took a whack at freehanding the rear part here, that was wrong. Fortunately I didn't take off too much. Then I put a stick across the two plow planes and did it right.

Sanding off the bumps on top.

This is a very straight piece of aluminum like they use in flatbed trailers as anchors. I think. Since it's fairly heavy I just used its own weight as a means of making it stay put.

Here you can see an issue we had with my batch of foam. I thought it would be OK, but the foam was not of consistent thickness. Maybe it was the first bunch of the day out of the factory or something. The discontinuous line on the angle shows that the nearest piece is almost a quarter inch thicker than the one adjacent. I sanded most of this off later but not enough of it. There's a bit of a void right under the plywood there.

Me driving a hot wire. This is SO MUCH EASIER than using a sander or anything else it's not even sort of funny. It's easily worth it to make a hot wire for just the cutting on the top of the craft, let alone all the other stuff.

Here you can see a way of adjusting the heat according to your need. I was using a variac, which is the best method. Still, I found that I wanted to heat things up while I was in the middle of a cut. So I moved the wire from the spark plug on the left side (my right) closer to the other side. That heats the wire up. You can do this on the fly so long as your clip is on the wire where it can slide. But you don't want to grab the metal part of the clip.

	I already finished the bottom before I thought of pictures.



	I took a whack at freehanding the rear part here, that was wrong. Fortunately I didn't take off too much. Then I put a stick across the two plow planes and did it right.
	Sanding off the bumps on top.

	This is a very straight piece of aluminum like they use in flatbed trailers as anchors. I think. Since it's fairly heavy I just used its own weight as a means of making it stay put.
	Here you can see an issue we had with my batch of foam. I thought it would be OK, but the foam was not of consistent thickness. Maybe it was the first bunch of the day out of the factory or something. The discontinuous line on the angle shows that the nearest piece is almost a quarter inch thicker than the one adjacent. I sanded most of this off later but not enough of it. There's a bit of a void right under the plywood there.
	Me driving a hot wire. This is SO MUCH EASIER than using a sander or anything else it's not even sort of funny. It's easily worth it to make a hot wire for just the cutting on the top of the craft, let alone all the other stuff.

	Here you can see a way of adjusting the heat according to your need. I was using a variac, which is the best method. Still, I found that I wanted to heat things up while I was in the middle of a cut. So I moved the wire from the spark plug on the left side (my right) closer to the other side. That heats the wire up. You can do this on the fly so long as your clip is on the wire where it can slide. But you don't want to grab the metal part of the clip.