Thanks Rick!
Evening all!
Time for today's close of play update.
My plans for today were thwarted upon inspection of the nacelle. It hadn't stuck well enough, despite the tabs. So the first job today was to adjust the tape and brush Gators grip into the joints, making sure it went all the way in between the floor and the shell. After that had dried I moved the tape and repeated the process in the areas that were now revealed. I'll leave it now until tomorrow just to be sure it's properly set.
That meant I had to find something else to do, so I started on the wings. There were 2 jobs that needed doing (apart from drilling all the holes!) and I was a little wary of the second one....
First though I marked out and removed the ailerons and tidied all those up. That also required filling the moulded aileron lines as they are too thick and in the wrong place anyway, the ailerons are smaller than the kit ones. They were removed by using a micro saw for the ends, then repeated scribing along a metal rule with a no11 blade until I could break them off. That ensured a nice straight, clean, edge
The second job?
Adding the dihedral. I was hoping that I'd be able to bend the wings and they'd hold the new shape, but was not sure about what would happen to the milliput I'd added earlier. I marked each one up and held them against a metal rule to give a good edge, then carefully applied a little pressure. It worked! The wings were all done in a short time, then each was compared both to the plans and more importantly, to each other. A slight difference from the plans won't be noticeable but if they are different from each other that will definitely show!
That will do! There was one slight crack in the milliput but nothing serious and it will be easily dealt with. That leaves pinning the ailerons, and drilling the strut/rigging holes. That should be fun!
What other jobs could be done at this stage?
Tail feathers!
Cut from .020" sheet as usual, there was just one small difference to my normal procedure. To ensure that the tail is as strong as possible and straight, I left the rudder and both fins attached. I carefully measured and marked up the fins, scribed a line, then cut a slot with a small saw blade. I had to widen it very carefully with a no. 11 blade but it now slips over the stabilizer nicely.
I simply scribed the rudder joint on and will work with that.The elevators will be separated later. It looks good and I think it will add a bit of rigidity to the assembly.
Last job for today was to cut the brass rod for the tail booms. First off I had to figure out the lengths. Normally I'd use the 1:48 plans and scale down but since these are all over the shop and the only ones I'd corrected were the 1:72 ones I had to measure even more carefully than usual! After measuring top and bottom at least 3 times I triangulated to get the true length.
For those not too sure, there are 3 simple steps. I first measured the length along the boom itself on the side view. That gave me the long side of a right angled triangle. Then on the plan view I drew a vertical line from the tail mounting towards the nose (This represents the measurement we just took from the side but is not the right length because of the slope, hence why I measured it along the boom from the side, not just the distance between the front and rear ends of the boom!). The distance between this line and the wing mounting gave me the short edge of the triangle. The diagonal is the boom length! Top one is 57mm and the bottom one 54.5mm.
I spent quite a while mulling over what size brass rod to use. I couldn't find any reference to what size they actually were so did it by eye, comparing to photos. I first went for .8mm and cut all 4 before deciding they looked too stubby, so I did it again with .6mm and I'm much happier with the look now. I think .8mm scales out to about 2.25" and .6mm to 1.75" (43mm) which is not out of the realms of possibility. The struts between top and bottom are .5mm.
So that's where we are tonight. Tomorrow will hopefully see the nacelle cleaned up and shaped correctly, and possibly even the soldering of the tail booms. We'll see how I feel when I get to it...
Stay safe, and thanks for looking in!
Ian
