Evening All,
Thank you again to all of you who have dropped by and left such complimentary remarks about my work. I greatly appreciate them all and feel very honoured that you think so highly of what I have done so far. I have made some more progress in the last week so here is another update.
The next stage was to add the front wing struts opposite the booms and then the remaining wing struts. The fore-aft rigging between them was put in and then I put in the boom struts. These were individually measured with a pair of dividers and held in place with superglue. The upper wing extension supports were also measured using dividers and glued into place. Then all of the rigging on the rear of the wings was put in, followed by the rigging wires between the upper wing extension supports and the outer wing upright struts. Apart from the front bay I have not rigged the booms yet because they could be easily damaged: all the rigging done so far is currently easily accessible but equally is unlikely to be damaged with handling.
The undercarriage and front elevator are one of the more distinct features on this aeroplane and needs to be properly aligned. I had already cut and painted the main support struts but I had deliberately made them too long so I could cut them down when I was ready to put them into place. The skids/front booms are curved and have a small kink at the rear end. I made these from 60 x 40 thou Evergreen strip which I heat treated to shape it. I traced the shape of the front booms from the plans and drew these on to a block of wood. The strip was cut slightly longer than needed and held in place on the block with pins and the whole inverted and held in boiling water for 10 seconds. I then plunged it into cold water and the booms were ready to be cut to size and the rear kink bent carefully by using tweezers and the plans to get the correct shape.
(Once again my low budget techniques have come to the fore but I hope to show that I have still managed to get the desired result). Holes were drilled into the top surface where the struts will join later.
The first stage in putting on the undercarriage was to invert the current assembly and then put two vertical struts below the wing into place in pre-drilled holes. I then put blobs of glue on to the bottom of the strut ends and placed a boom on to the struts. This was held for 30 seconds to allow the glue to set a little and then two side struts were measured and glued into place - I did this by measuring with dividers and then cutting the struts and holding them in place to check the length before I applied any glue. There was a little fiddling needed to get the booms to align correctly fore - aft and vertically from the side and front elevations - this needed fairly quick work and I only attempted the starboard side: after this had dried out properly I fitted the port side. I also supported the booms while they dried using small pieces of plastic and a couple of files.
I cut and fitted the long support struts from the top and bottom wings to the boom first. By measuring the lengths from the model with a pair of dividers they fitted well with only a very small trim.
Then I added the shorter cross supports, making sure that the ends were at the correct angle to make a good joint with the main supports. I glued everything with plastic cement and then re-enforced with liquid cement.
The boom assemblies can now be painted and the axles and wheels fixed, followed by the remainder of the rigging, tail skids, elevator, propellor, etc.
Thanks for looking.
