More Parts and Info for the Project

The summer is over so I now have more time to work on the planes. I'm continuing to make the last of the stick built ribs while learning about the solid ribs which still need to be made. More on that next time. While travelling to a few fly-ins this summer I acquired some very cool things. At the Waco Historical fly-in I was talking with Tim Pinkerton who has a KNF and 2 WACO TEN projects. He mentioned he had a nose cowl he was sure was for a NINE and was willing to trade it.

It's been modified with various holes and a lot of dents but if repairable and otherwise matches the drawings exactly. It will be one of my winter projects to repair it. It's made from a spun aluminum part with a former in it to give it it's oval shape and stiffness. It is so cool to have another original part. Because the front of the fuselage was cut off I had nothing of the engine cowl.
This would have been the most complicated part to make for the cowl. I'd like to repair it and paint it in the original Dutch Blue. Anyone have a 1926 ValSpar paint chart with dutch blue in it. I do have some original paint on the cockpit cowl parts under the black repaint of long long ago.


The next cool thing was also at the Troy fly-in. Jim Beisner was kind enough to loan me his WACO TEN gas tank. It's the same as the NINE, 83 pounds of terneplate and solder. It has a dent on one side and a small hole from a branch on the other side. Both are easily fixed. Because there are no NINEs flying I wanted an original tank to keep the weight and balance the same until we know the rigging is right and the plane flys well. After that we'll make an aluminum tank and use the weight saving for something more important like a starter.

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The last cool thing, for which I have no pictures is the result of going to the American Waco Club fly-in at Creve Couer. Steve Curry of Radial Engines Ldt. was there. Along with his engine work he's been gathering every bit of data on WACO TENS, he has a project plane. He's been scanning all the drawings he can get his hands on and put them all on a DVD. I loaned him my copy of the drawing list for the first 4,000 drawing numbers to add to the DVD.

I bought a copy and it has already been a gold mine worth twice the price. The large drawings will need a copy from the NASM archives because of scanning limits. The smaller ones are great.

Because the TEN is an improved NINE many of the details of how parts were made and many of the parts are in the TEN drawings. They made very few NINE drawing. The planes were nearly all built before the feds required drawings. Much of the little details just are not on any of the NINE drawings. For the TEN they eventually made drawings of almost all the parts. It's just been great.

My next WACO project will be an NAZ primary glider. I have a copy of the master drawing list which includes the NAZ and they all seem to be on this DVD.

Thanks Steve, Jim and Tim!