AMR GiantStick - Joning fuse components and laminating parts

All the ply laser cutting is excellent, as you would expect from a modern kit. The timber is good quality overall, a few parts where a bit dodgy with the odd knot here and there, but nothing drastic.

One thing I did find ingenious, (having attempted importation of kits from overseas before) was that the guys at AMR have cut the fuse into 1/3 and 2/3 section to keep the box a reasonable size for postage. You can see in the lower part of this photo the bottom of the fuse and the finger join that has been cut into the front and rear peices. It's now a matter of joining the parts together then laying the fuse doubler (top left of frame) over the join. Very clever!


All the ply parts are cut from the same thickness material, which makes for efficient use of material I guess, which means there's lots of laminating to be done for the formers and other parts. I did read somewhere that laminated parts are stronger than the plain timber weight for weight, but I don't think that means anything for ply parts. In any case, it's no drama, just epoxy the parts together and go for it.

I like to laminate all the parts together before I start assembling the airframe so that I'm no held up in assembly waiting for parts to laminate.

The picture below shows the fuselage bottom and the firewall at the front.