Shaping tip bows

[hatz672]

To me, shaping tip bows is the #1 pain in the rear when building wings. I used a block plane, surform tool, rasps, super-coarse sanding blocks and muscle to get two of them done. A couple weeks ago I was watching an episode of"How It's Made" on TV with segment shot at the WACO factory about building new biplanes. Here I saw a woodworker building wings for a YMF using a spokeshave to shape the tip bows. Looked good to me. I bought an old English-made Record spokeshave on Ebay and I'm here to post that a spokeshave is THE tool for the job.

[mtaylor]

I used my hand held belt sander with coarse paper which worked well. Just a matter of taking my time and shaping to a shape pleasing to the eye.

[danjquinn]

Any one consider using tubing for the tip bows? Other designs do and I am thinking about it but I can't find any of the past postings or back issues where it has been done. Any one have any thoughts? Would it add weight or save weight. I am thinking thin walled(.025) 4130 and maybe 5/8 dia. Do the tip bows actually add structurally to the wing? As a metalworker it looks like a lot of work to make them out of wood.
Thanks
Dan

[mtaylor]

I have heard of guys using tubing, but you just don't get the same smell when you're working with metal! I used pine from a local lumber yard. They allowed me to pick through their straight grain yellow pine for the best wood. Made my stringers outta these also.

[johnkerr]

Good article on forming tip bows in the latest EAA Vintage magazine. Covers the layup process. The artistic part includes comments about the unde-rcamber necessary for the particular project that was the subject of the reconstruction