McsGuy

My Feedback: (1)

Hi Chris,

Glad to hear you were able to get resettled. Looks like you're already making good progress again, I'm looking forward to seeing the results, good luck! (Actually it looks like it's more about skill then luck )

Joe

cgrcjet

Hi Joe
Yes. Im pretty much settled back in and this week im going full board on it. Sorry for the delays. Everything under the sun happened to me this month from our daughter getting a crazy infection on her face from a dog bite of the owner of the house we just bought dog, wife was out of town for 5 days when we had to move while i had our 2 kids, so i had to move our stuff by myself, been working my regular work until almost midnight every night. Thats just a fraction of what happened this month. I have been getting hit from the left and right. I have no jobs scheduled for this week, so im going to cut the heck out of these plugs this week. Plan on having some good progress updates this week. Thanks for your patience Joe.


chris

cgrcjet

Cut plugs out today for wheel fairings and fuse hatch. Unfortunately last night i had a bad episode with the urethane foam core and casting resin method. The part was almost finished being machined when it ejected on me and i lost it. The tabs that held the part in place were the weak point as they only had urethane foam in that area causing them to break under the stress of machining the resin. The part was turning out great until that happened. I decided to machine them out of ultralite mdf as the process was a bit simpler. Worth a try.

chris

cgrcjet

New plugs out of ultralite mdf. Even though it machines faster than regular mdf it still machines slower than foam. Always looking for a better faster way of doing this and i think i will just settle with ultralite. At least i can just seal it without fiberglassing it. Dont want to lose detail with fiberglass. I will still machine smaller control surfaces out of cast urethane.

I have edited the engine area for cutting while the other items were being machined, so i will start machining that tomorrow.

chris

cgrcjet

Editing the engine area.

cgrcjet

Cut out the main mount for the engine nacelles today and sealed them. The engine area is the hardest part to configure and cut. I cut this piece in full 3d on the cnc. Tomorrow i will work on the ailerons.

chris

Av8er Tim

Awesome work Chris! I'm in the middle of getting some other projects done and once those were off the bench, was going to order a kit. Looks like I'll wait for the new version! Any idea on price difference? Any of the older kits available?

Current project: Jepe 90mm A-10 I have the last kit he shipped. I looked at the packing slip and I've had this one for 8 years! I'm slow...

Tim

cgrcjet

Hi Tim

I guess 8 years is a bit of time. This is one reason why i am doing a new version. A simpler build can strike the motivation sometimes. This one will be much faster to build over the old. Right now i do not have any older kits available but am selling the new version kit at the old version kit price with pre order. The new version will be around couple hundred more but will be even more accurate with much better detail. I may be able to cut the ARF version down a bit as i see a faster build for me but i guess we will have to see when it all comes together.

Right now i am cutting out an aileron. I have decided to go with a simple no deceleron design to get the A-10 through testing faster. I will work on that after she gets in the air. I will post some pics a bit later.

Is the Jepe composite molded or foam etc?

thanks
chris

cgrcjet

One aileron down after about 5-6 hrs machining.

chris

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

Looking great chris! Maybe i'll actually get to come down to florida sometime soon with some time off to help ya do some work

cgrcjet

Hi Thomas

That would be a bit of releif. I need to play catch up here. Trying to bomb alot of this out before i get slammed with more work. Hoping to start on the fuse this week. Maybe my plugs will be all cut and you could help me finish them out

By the way, i was not able to open those files you sent me awhile back. I remember needing to use bitzipper to open that type file but my trial version of that is up. Hows the f-14 coming along?

chris

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

Weird.. If you download Winrar ( http://www.win-rar.com/download.html?&L=0 ) you should be able to open them. If ya need me to re-send them, just lemme know. I haven't touched the F-14 in probably 4 months. I finally got my frekote order, but I found a few corner edges in the molds that need to be repaired and just haven't gotten around to doing that. Not to mention, my thoughts on the layups to use vacuum infusion aren't going to work out, as I did the math and the core-material will end up holding 16lbs of resin by itself, I'm expecting an entire fuselage with internal bulkheads to weigh that much!

cgrcjet

Ya, my computer is not even that old, so i figured it should open it. I will try the link.

thanks
chris

Av8er Tim

Chris, the Jepe Hog is mostly composite. fiberglass fuse, nacelles, etc. Obechi sheeted foam wing and all hand laid 90mm carbon fans. Was state of the art 10 years ago... Jepe fans are still quite strong contenders.

Once again, awesome work. I am truely in awe! Deposit will be coming your way soon!

What program do you use for your milling. If you look closly at the table My A-10 is on, you'll notice a 3 axis CNC machine. I built it several years ago to cut my depron kits. I've only done 2D milling with it so far. I'd love to delve into the world of 3D milling! I just haven't put my mind to it yet. I'm watching your build with keen interest.

Cheers,

Tim

cgrcjet

Hi Tim
My machine is 3 axis as well. I purchased this one after my move to florida. My old one used a roto zip and was not very robust. My new one has water cooled spindle and i can machine aluminum with it. Very rigid machine. It weighs somewhere between 500-700 pounds. Between the moves i had to make , most of the time i had to move it myself which was not fun. Im glad i have a permanent space now. New machine is capable of about 800 inches per minute as where my old one was only about 120 ipm. Its also rack and pinion. Cuts stuff quickly and accurately

3d cutting is definately a step up from 2d. With a few extra days of patience it will all come to you. Its just a matter of setting the perimeters correctly dependent on the cad/cam software you use. I have quite a few softwares that i use. I use bobcad cad/cam, turbo cad proffesional, rhino cad and cut 3d. Quite a bit invested in software. I use mach 3 mill to run the machine. I mostly deal with mesh models which rhino is very good at editing. I also use bobcad here and there, but it does not handle mesh models very well. What softwares are you running?

thanks
chris

cgrcjet

I am getting the stock ready to cut part of the fuse hopefully today. I will be machining it in left and right front and back. I added a keyway to lock them together so i can attach all the pieces more precisely. If you notice, i have separated the tail hatch as im planning on making this part removable.

chris

Av8er Tim

Hey Chris,

I mostly use TurboCad Pro for Cad work, Xara X pro for vector files and art work. Mach2 and Mach3 for milling. Although, I need to set up the machine again as I fried the last PC that was running it. I also have a vinyl cutter I need to get set back up. I'll probably cut the paint masks for the jepe A-10 from vinyl. I may spring for dry transfers, but we'll see.

Cheers...

cgrcjet

Ya, im not much for the dry transfers. I guess because i ordered $400 worth from aeroloft and they sent the totally wrong scale. I ended up reselling them and decided to do everything on my own. I spent many many hours making sure every decal i made was the right scale and i dont have to worry about not having every little decal. I use vinyl as well.

chris

cgrcjet

The first quarter of the fuse is on its last pass. Im machining it out of ultralite and am doing it in 2 layers. My first fuse plug was machined out of 2lb density foam and was able to do it in one pass as i was able to use a longer tool because foam was less dense. With the ultralite i will be able to keep detail and wont have to sand glass and tons of primer in the end.

chris

cgrcjet

Finished machining other front half of fuse today. Two more days worth and i should have the fuse complete.

Here is a pic of the pave penny pylon with raised panels, panel lines and rivets. Amazing what rivets can do to make it come alive.

chris

cgrcjet

All fuselodge is cut out with exception of the removable tailcone. I pretty much have the rest of the 3d model edited for cutting. Time to cut cut cut.

chris

cgrcjet

Ofcourse i will be redoing the main wing that was constructed in the beginning, so all the pieces fit together like they should with the 3d model. Unfortunately i have wasted alot of time and material but will be an accurate model. Looking at the 3d model, the underchanfered wing angles up much higher than i expected and i was worried about that in the 3d model. Turns out that it is accurate to the real A-10. Job was superbly done on the 3d model. Even the most accurate A-10 1/48 scale model did not show the bottom main wing airfoil at this high of an angle on the 3d scans. Here are a few reference pics. You can see how far up the angle of the wheel fairing goes in last pic in relation to the fuselodge.

chris

cgrcjet

Part of the wheel fairing will be molded into the center section of the main wing.

cgrcjet

The flap wells will be fully molded in for exact placement of the guide rails that they will run on. On my old kit i would have to use a jig when closing the wings out to make sure there was enough room on the exposed rib to put the drop hinge. This will make it a no brainer. The front part of these wells will need to be cut out after molding so the flaps can fit the rest of the way into the wing. On the real A-10 there is more flap exposed on the bottom than the top, so i will be molding a hood to fit over the top part of the flap. This will also allow easier access for flap linkage.


chris

cgrcjet

Bottom gear wells mounting. Gear well bottom is angled approx. same angle as bottom aft portion of fuse. This will allow me to mount the gear 90 degrees down from the mounting position and at the right angle of the real A-10. This also puts the front portion of the gear well very high into the wing. This will allow me to have hidden fasteners that fasten the outer wing to the inner. Thats the plan anyway. There will also be 1 or 2 wing tubes in this area.

chris