Thanks Craig!! The biggest advantage is the fact this is balsa and not maple lol!! Makse the carving and hand craft easy on the body and enjoyable. Really loving this project. Such a beautiful kit. It's a treat to watch a Carden come to life. Can't wait to watch it suffer through my Sportsman Sequence next season lol!!!

Getting there. I think I need an old ship-wright to get me through this lol! The end is near..

Originally Posted by i8dpeach

Getting there. I think I need an old ship-wright to get me through this lol! The end is near..

It is always a relief when you get all the center slats in,& to start the outer shaping 😁 Looks very nice so far !!

Originally Posted by markbogus50

It is always a relief when you get all the center slats in,& to start the outer shaping 😁 Looks very nice so far !!

Thanks Mark!! I can't wait to start shaping. The center slats have been a serious challenge but I see the light! Believe it or not I look forward to doing this again now that I have my feet wet. I see ways I could have made this faster just from process and practice. It seems once you get to the end you finally know how to do it... but your done...so there's that lol

I've started studying that awesome video you posted of covering the top cowl. Getting closer to covering time. Still a month or so out. Saving for the deep darkness of hard Maine winter.

Finally finished the slats tonight. I get to carve tomorrow!!! I am pumped to finally start shaping this cowl. Pretty much feel like a little kid on Christmas now. I feel this is the last "What if" of the project.

Originally Posted by i8dpeach

Finally finished the slats tonight. I get to carve tomorrow!!! I am pumped to finally start shaping this cowl. Pretty much feel like a little kid on Christmas now. I feel this is the last "What if" of the project.

Very cool! A lot of work but then again what else is there to do in ME until May. I am digging the Allman Bros reference too. Have fun!!!!

Originally Posted by Wharfrat4Life

Very cool! A lot of work but then again what else is there to do in ME until May. I am digging the Allman Bros reference too. Have fun!!!!

True about not much to do but build up here until the weather breaks. Work, hockey and the workshop, how I survive Maine.

Glad you caught the Allman Bros reference!!! I was a touring guitar player for most of my life and Duane was probably my biggest influence. I cut my teeth playing "Live at the Fillmore" and playing his slide style broke me out a bit. I lived in New Orleans for 10 years touring and playing all over the country and nothing ever beat playing "Jessica" live. Folks would go nuts! Maine winter is pretty much the exact opposite of New Orleans summer. Both last 7 months and make you wonder why you live there by the end of it. Lol!!!! But the crawdads are much bigger up here... hehe!!

Josh

First thing is to level out all the slats. I used a combination of block plane, small convex instrument plane and flat chisel. Then hit it with 50 grit sandpaper. This set me up for carving the front face. I found out quick that you should have a respirator and at least a vacuum going. I have two running, one low and one high while I was cutting, carving and sanding. It's a very nasty dirty job.

Carving the bottom cowl proved to be very interesting. The shape of the cowl makes for some difficult compound curves that has to come together up front on the face ring. I left some overage to carve down to but I wanted to be very careful the whole time not to take too much and make any mistakes. The second time around I will know exactly where to cut and it will speed the process. The first time down this road took a while.

I started by removing a bunch of stock (not enough) off the front face with a Japanese saw. Quite a bit of wood can come off here. Then I started shaping using an orbital palm sand with a heavy grit connected to a vacuum. This pretty much makes the balsa leave in a hurry so I had to be careful. The detail section is next that travels from the front plywood face down into the middle of the cowl half. I chose to copy the Carden cowl as closely as possible and terminated it 10 inches from the cowl bottom. I used the Carden cowl as much as possible to copy the curves and feel.

We did make a template for the curves to see how close we were as we were carving. We used it as a "General" reference.

The detail section was more difficult to create symmetrically. A couple re-cuts and eyeballing ect. If this isn't balanced it looks really bad. I gotta give it to Mark!!!! You are very, very good at carving this stuff!!!

After messing around for far too long I got to a decent looking detail. I inlaid the intake detail using a Dremel and router bit. I used an x-acto blade to score around the exterior line at around 1/4" deep. Then I routed a 1/4" deep pocket. Cleaned it up with chisels, knives and some sandpaper. Came out well!!

I spend some time cleaning up the bottom a bit sanding and cleaning up scratch marks left by the 50 grit using Nelson 150 grit then 3M 320 Film. This should work as a decent progression to get to finish of around 400.

Then I started in on the top carving, using an orbital, then hand sanding with 50 grit and on to the top detail. Lots of back and forth when coming into the front face plate. This is interestingly difficult because I need the top to appear like the mirror of a 5" spinner going into the cowl. All the numbers have to hit, it has to be centered and on the thrust line. Slow work to be careful.

Yep, I’m impressed!

Josh,your first cowl is turning out very well,it is a real learning experience when making these.It takes practice for sure,& making sure to leave enough material to shape,& always using center lines to keep it symmetrical.
You are getting close to final outer shaping,make sure to mount the cowl to the fuse for final shaping,before you smooth it out completely.
I always found the interior shaping to be the most difficult,since you must try to keep a constant thickness,It is hard to gauge sometimes,mostly going by feel,& trying not to get too thin.
Looking forward to seeing your finished cowl,you will feel like you accomplished a lot when it is finished !!

Thanks John!!!

Will do and thanks for the help Mark! Would never have even attempted this if you hadn't shared your work.

You read my mind! I will be strapping this thing to the ship next time I get to the shop for sure to get the backside fit to the fuse. I anticipate the final smoothing to take me some time. When I see the pics of your cowls before covering they look absolutely immaculate. I can only figure it takes some hours to get that to happen.

Josh

WOW !!! very good transformation so far.

Looks great! The shaping is turning out really well. Are you fairly close on the external shape?