Repairing a broken stringer

The stringers are those small balsa strips that your form the body of the airplane and wings with. The problem with stringers is that they are easy to break. I get lots of experience with this as I have 2 1/2 year old twins. Fortunately, they (the stringers that is, the twins aren't broken) are easy to fix too. See picture...

To fix a broken stringer, finish breaking the stringer and remove only the section of the broken stringer between the two adjecent former pieces (the former pieces are the cross section pieces that hold the stringers in the right places).

Next, carefully carve out the bits stringer glued to the former to half the width of the former. This leaves the rest of the stringer attached to the former while giving you a little notch to glue the new piece to. To do this, I insert the xacto knive parallel to the former and perpendicular to the stringer and push out a little wood. It takes about 1 minute of repeatind the process to get rid of all the wood.

Cut a new piece by taking a piece of stringer stock and laying it in the place it will go and cutting it to fit. Of course, make it a little too big. You can always trim it later but you can't make it 1/128th of an inch longer.

Finaly glue it in place et voila you have repaired a broken stringer.