RodneyFord

Working on tips and aileron facings. Love my razor plane.

brustyrc

Hi Rob, Great to see you back on the job. Thanks for all the news and pictures of the trip, wonderful, brought back a lot of good memories. Have my old Extra pattern ship back in the air with some new Armedeus/Galloway type wings and a DLE 35RA, goes great. Now just finishing a new Matrix with Mike Shears for him and his grandson Jayden. Almost ready to paint and film The wing panels are 295 grams and tail 59 grams to date. The fuel tank 64 grams 500 mil. Following your post with great interest as usual. Regards, Barrie.

RodneyFord

Nice to hear from you Barrie. You've been busy. Hope to catch up soon.
Made LE templates. These take all the guess work out of the equation. Profili Pro makes generating these easy.

RodneyFord

S9650 mounts in the stab. These will just hang out in the breeze like the ailerons. I might put a bit of light glass around the servo holes.

RodneyFord

Got the surfaces lined and hinged. Just need to bevel them and a few other details and we're done. Starting to think about schemes now.
Rudder servo mount made from rigid foam carbon laminate. I make this myself and keep it as stock. Shot glass on 0.1gm scale for making 5 gms of glue at a time. I only used 1 or 2 here. Needed to do some work on one of my 3D printers and it is going better than ever. Playing around with the ducted spinner design featured elsewhere on this list. I'm going to have a go at printing spats as well.

RodneyFord

Spinner drawing in progress. Ideally I would figure out a one piece concept.

RodneyFord

Carbon on the wing donuts.

RodneyFord

Control horn hard points from pine dowel. Drilled with home made brass tube cutter.

RodneyFord

The fuselage is so big I enlarged the spinner to make it look right. It is 95mm diameter. I mold my own carbon spinners for the IMAC models and IC F3A but I want to print this one. Here is a first prototype. Lost some steps in the Y axis near the tip. I have a Smoothie board for this printer so I had better get it in. This print is PLA but will probably use carbon filled nylon for the final one. Actually this one feels pretty strong . However I am going to alter the design. More to come.

drac1

My Feedback: (4)

Hi Rodney,

What diameter and weight are the F3A IC carbon spinners you make?

Scott

RodneyFord

Hi Scott Just pulled these pics off the original build thread for the Miro F3A. I've still got it. Weight is 10 gms for the cone and 43gms for the back plate which could lose a good deal more. Diameter is 83mm. Probably a different design concept would be better.

drac1

My Feedback: (4)

Doesn't look too bad, but yes, could do with a little lightening.

RodneyFord

Glued 1/4x20 aluminium studs into the wing roots. I will print some retaining nuts for them. I chose 1/4 x20 because they only had 1/4" rod at the ali supplier. Mind you I like the coarse thread.

RodneyFord

Printed spinner type 2. It took 2.5 hours to print, not a big deal. This is a good print and weighs 34 gm. It is all about refining the design to work on the printer. Am also optimising the print in the slicer. I am using Simplify 3D and am still learning to use it. It seems to be be a lot better the Repetier.

RodneyFord

Using templates to shape the LE. Nearly ready to start covering and painting. I haven't decided on a scheme yet. I have a vinyl cutter so will make plenty of use of that.

RodneyFord

Formed the hinge bevels. Did both sides. I cut pockets for the hinge barrels

RodneyFord

Got the fuselage onto the paint stand. There is no gel coat on the fuselage. My finishing system is as follows.
Fill the really obvious voids etc. with epoxy and micro-balloons.

Spray lacquer undercoat thinned a lot ie 300%. As you can see from the photo very little actual paint is applied.

Mix light weight Spackle with water to a creamy consistency and wipe on all over with a sponge. This fills most of the pin holes. Fill more voids with Spackle.

Sand dry. This is very easy due to the small amounts of light material actually on there.

Repeat the process till happy usually 3 cycles. Then one more light undercoat to seal everything.

Start on top coats.

RodneyFord

Got the filling done. Gave it a detail sand ready for the last thin undercoat. The surface turned out better than I expected Still working on the colour scheme. The wing will look something like this though.

RodneyFord

Got some white on. It is a bit thin especially on the canopy. I will give it a sand then some more paint.

RodneyFord

Got a bit more white on the canopy. Time to get this done. Been working on a colour scheme. It's going to be something like this.

RodneyFord

Got the canopy done. Not sure how I will do the rest. I might use vinyl as I have the vinyl cutter and the CAD files.

brustyrc

Congrats, that's looking great Rob, how is the weight guestimate shaping up
? Best Regards, Barrie.

RodneyFord

Hi Barrie No Idea on weight, wings not especially light Fuselage and canopy pretty good though. I should know by the end of next week. This is my first electric so don't have a feel for it. Got a bit more paint on yesterday, got some paint too match the vinyl I will use on the wings. Spent more time finalising the scheme. Still need to design and print some air exhaust ducts.

brustyrc

Would be awesome with a DLE 35 RA on pipe, no more charging batteries, just fill 'er up and go fly. We're just doing the final assembly of Jayden's Matrix, finger's crossed will hopefully be well under the 5 Kg. B.

RodneyFord

I've been looking at a revised chin cowl for the YS200. Bit hard to see the shape due to the multicoloured clay. I can see the beauty of the DLE35 and pipe though and I am liking the concept.