ORIGINAL: tevans55
Jim-
Have you had any ideas as where you are going to place your battery switch and retract filler valve? ................
Tim
I haven't got that far yet, but with an EASILY removable belly hatch: there is no excuse for having any either of them (switch, filler valve) exposed.
With 4 straight days of no work, Iwill be making some progress on mine this (Thanksgiving) weekend.
I refuse to be like so many others here, and keep posting threads (sometimes several consecutive) posts with little value. I prefer instead to use the "EDIT" button. Therefor, what I post today will probably be changed/ modified/ with pictures added by the end of this long weekend.
1st order of business in the tailcone. I asked Dan Gipe (owner of Wing Mfg.) if he would assist me in producing a B-25B tailcone which could be used for the H9 B-25 as well as his Wing Mfg B-25 (which at 84" span is slightly larger). Turns out that Wing Mfg. ALREADY makes/ sells a B-25B tailcone, so the Wing Mfg. B-25J can be convereted to the B-25B. So, I handed $8 to him (list price) and he gave one to me. If YOU are interested in buying one of these, here is a link to the Wing Mfg. B-25 parts web-page, which has the blister listed (Part #PK1001-B):
http://www.wingmfg.com/Pages/WingPL1.html
Now for the hard part: that tailcone does NOT match the contour of the H9 B-25 tail. Probably the Wing Mfg version is more true to scale. In particular, in order for the Wing Mfg. tailcone to work on mine, I will need to:
1) round the bottom of the fuselage more (only at the extreme tail end of the fuselage).
2) flatten the top of the fuselage to match the aft of the horizontal stab .
3) Make the sides parallel (again, only at the extreme tail end of the fuselage).
To accomplish all of that: the covering will need to be removed in that area. Oh well, I had already decided to recover the entire airplane with FLAT covering (CoveRite flat olive and flat dove gray).
The covering has now been removed, and I am ready to begine sanding to the correct shape. NOTE: you do NOT have to remove ALLof the covering as I did for this mod: it is only necessary to remove the fuselage covering from about the elevators aft.
The 1st 3 pics show the tail without the clear tailcone. The first 2 show after intial sanding, and a piece of 1/4" thick sheet has been added to the top of the fuselage (AFTER sanding the top slat/ removing the top sheeting there). The 3rd shows after sanding the newly installed 1/4" sheet to match the contours of the rest of the fuselage.
The last 2 pics show the clear tail cone taped on, to show how it will look. It is barely visible in pic 4, but pic 5 shows it to good effect.
There is a lot of work/ sanding involved in this mod in order to make the Wing Mfg. tailcone fit properly. Some of you may find it easier to just make your own tailcone, to match the contour of the H9 B-25. Personally tho, I was not looking forward to fabricating the tailcone, and I am glad that Wing Mfg offers one, altho it IS a lot of work making it fit right. The tailcone itself also had to be sanded quite a bit to make it fit.