For this years One Board Challenge I decided that I would make a model plane

There are lots of beautiful planes out there but one of my favourites is the P51D Mustang

Supplies

Materials - A piece of 4x2 rescued from the skip at work

Tools - Bandsaw, drill, bench sander, table saw, dremel, elbow grease, paints and brushes

Step 1: Roughing Out the Shape

I started with my 4x2 which way way too wide so I ran it through the table saw and cut 2 10mm strips off.

one of these will become the wing and tail plane and the wider piece will be the plane body

Step 2: The Wing

I had downloaded an engineering drawing of a P51 from google and printed it on some A3, I cut out the wing shape and attached it to one of the narrower boards and trace around it.

I then cut the shape out on the bandsaw and sanded it to give the correct wing profile (very much by eye!)

Step 3: Tailplane

Similar to above I made the tailplane

Step 4: The Body/Fuselage

In a similar fashion I roughed out the fuselage from the thicker piece of wood, after cutting it out I found it was too "chunky" and needed thinning so I ran it through the bandsaw to just over finished size

It was then sanded and smoothed on the bench sander

I also tapered the rear and front down to the approximate correct dimensions of the real plane, again done by eye on the sander

Step 5: Attaching the Wing

I found that in order to attach the wing I was going to have to cut off the belly air scoop as making the space for the wing root would be near impossible otherwise, so off it came!

I then cut out the recess for the wing on the bandsaw and fitted the wing (after much adjusting with a dremel and sander

The wing was the glued into place and dowelled and the air scoop replaced (also dowelled)

Step 6: Adding the Tailplane

I cut out a slot in the tail (again with a dremel) and then filed it out so that the tailplane would fit

All gaps were filled with a mixture of sawdust and wood glue and the sanded

Step 7: Propeller

I drew out a propeller shape on the thin offcut and then sanded the blades to give a prop profile, I then cut off the nose of the plane and attached the propeller and nose back on with a piece of dowel

I also cut a couple of exhaust manifolds from the thin piece and sanded them even thinner