Prop Edge 540 Scratch build

[Lee]

A friend of mine (Lars) is building his own Edge 540 from scratch. I went to his workshop today to see the progress. When i say scratch, i mean scratch. He is making all the moulds to make the fiberglass shell. This is not a small plane either. At this stage he has finished the Wings and has just started on the fuselage. With over 100 hrs in it already, he is hoping to finish sometime next month.
Heres some pics of it so far.
The canopy plug with the first layer of paint to make the mold

The Cowl and the builder himself

The mold for the Fuselage

 

[Tony]

Take the wide angle off of that camera if you can lol. And that is a pretty good sized plane, as well as the boat in the back ground hehe.

 

[Lee]

Only camera i had at the time was my GoPro. My point and shoot Kodak's battery is dead. Hard to please some people LOL

 

[Tony]

hehe.

 

[breeze400]

The boat is bigger. Lol

 

[RCD]

Why's there a boat?!?!

 

[Tony]

I think Lee said that it's a boat yard. It's where they either build the boats, or repair them.

 

[Lee]

Yep its a boat yard. Perfect place to build planes. All the resin and fiberglass you need. Plus my friend next door has a CNC machine

 

[Tony]

You is a lucky mofo lol. I would be hanging out in those shops all day long creating all kinds of ish hehe

 

[breeze400]

Yes I think hanging around all day in a shop like that would be cool myself! Ha ha!

 

[Paulster2]

That shop is the bomb-digaty no doubt about it! Definitely keep us informed on this one Lee ... looks like it will be a monster!

 

[Lee]

I just got back from there now. The canopy molds are done. He was just peeling them off the plug. He is going to subscribe to here and give us more info on he plane.

 

[Jolly-Swagman]

Looks pretty impressive Lee, great big workshop too, look forward to seeing more on this build

 

[Lee]

Ok guys i finally got some pics of the progress so far. Lars had already made a fuselage before this one, but he had problems with the paint reacting badly. So that was binned. This is the Mk2 fuselage.

 

[Whirlybird]

Only camera i had at the time was my GoPro. My point and shoot Kodak's battery is dead. Hard to please some people LOL

Only way to please Tony is with a bigger plane and noisier engine


Nice picks Lee!

Tell your buddy that I'm putting in an order for a 500 size Sikorsky S55 fuselage . . . drawings will be in the mail

 

[Jolly-Swagman]

Looking great Lee, great pics

 

[Lee]

Well the last instalment to this thread was Sept 2011 !!! The last time i saw it was just before i left the country. Since then there has been little done to it, until now. My friend Lars has just finished it, and we will have the maiden flight as soon as weather allows. For those that haven't read this thread, it has been totally built from scratch, including making the molds.
I found him today, testing the new DLE20 motor. He didn't have the wings with him.

Lars the designer and builder

 

[Tony]

Very nice. But we will find out just how much when it sees the air lol. Hope all goes well!

 

[Lee]

Yeh, he hasn't gone overboard on the paint until he knows it flies.

 

[Lee]

Well sad news. I didn't get to see the maiden flight, but it didn't go well. It took off smooth but Lars said it was underpowered for the weight. It went into a tip stall and crashed. Total right off. He was very upset as you can imagine. 2 years of work destroyed.
So after a brief mourning period, he went to the local shop and bought a ready built kit and transfered the engine and electrics to it. I saw it today but no chance to maiden as it was quite windy and there was a slight issue that he didn't have the tools with him to fix. So we are still waiting to maiden this one, and i made him swear not to do it without me, so i can film it.