Melchizedek

Agreed, Leroy

My first plan was to mount Miss Betty to the cockpit floor in the above post. But as I was pondering things, Betty was going to be in the way of the fuse bolts behind her seat.
Even with the cockpit hood off she would have to come out too. Also for any maintenance to the fuel tanks witch will be in front of her behind the kick plate.

Soooo. Plan B. Decided to make a cockpit module that would be part of the removable hood. This way everything comes out in one swoop.


To keep weight down I use 1/32 aircraft ply for the sides and bolstered them with some 1/32 strips. The bottom plate is 1/16 ply and the back plate (behind seat) is 1/8 light ply.
Made a corner molding at the arm rest to cover ply edge and look like the wood strip in Hazels SW. I then made inside corner moldings for the floor to tie the box together real good and it looks nice too. After finishing, the inside walls were skinned with white styrene sheeting.

Some alterations was made to the engine servo deck (it had to be cut back). The engine servo's will still be there but pushed forward. If you go back a few posts you will see what was.






This will make it easy to set up Betty permanently and never have to mess with her. It will be easy to set up the ruder pedals and control stick cause the front of the module is open.

It is not easy to tell, but the module is tapered on all sides just slightly. This allows for easy slip in and gets tight at the end for good fit.
Video is the only way to display it so. For your viewing pleasure there are 2 short vids.


http://youtu.be/zYlOZQNe7Kg http://youtu.be/IHtCUPSASRI

Next up rear cockpit wall treatment and Betty's seat.

Kevin

Leroy Gardner

Pretty slick Kevin, should work well. Are you going to put a hatch in the chin to help access fuel fittings and possible battery, it does have other options also. Just some thoughts from my end. I did that to mine which is quite a bit smaller in area, made it possible to put the fuel over flow tube in there and a fair battery if need be for ballance. As you are finding out and showing us there is a number of ways to do alot of these things.

Nice work I might add.

Leroy

Melchizedek

Thanks Leroy,

As for the front end, this is my plan so far. Suggestions most welcome also.


The front cockpit wall is removable once the cockpit module is removed. Two screws hold the front cockpit wall in place.
Behind that is a slide out tray (slides out the cockpit) that will hold two 12 oz fuel tanks. I am going with dual fuel tanks to increase the leg room for Miss Betty.
Talking with Robert who has a DLE 55, he said around a 24 oz tank for 15 min flight and some back up. A 24 oz and some smaller ones are to long and eat into the cockpit space.

Up top will go a life battery that the cockpit module will lock in. The leads will plug into an interface that goes to receiver and ignition. That interface will be below where the wires hang out in the pic below. Removing the battery to charge will be as simple as lifting the cockpit module unplug and slide out.

Underneath the fuel tank tray,I plan on putting the ignition on a permanent shelf with access via a door under the fuse chin just behind the cowl.




Worked on Miss Betty's seat today. Spent a lot of time looking at civil aviation seats. Could find no photos of the SW looking at the back of the cockpit. So I took license.
First went to the fabric store to get some foam and imitation pleather. Then went to work.





Not sure what to do with the back cockpit wall, maybe same paint as fuse ???



Lots to do on module yet. Arm and clothes for Miss Betty and a seat belt and thongs. Throttle ( if anyone has a good pic of that please post.). Rudder pedals and cables.
Control stick and dash board.


Kevin

Leroy Gardner

Nice work on the seat, should give her a good ride, ha ha.

Twin fuel tanks huh, what king of system do you have up your sleeve to prevent one from going dry before the other killing the engine. I would be intrested in that.

There is a web site that has seat belts and harnesses, darned if I can remember who they are. Google scale RC cockpits and accessories, might come up with a few things useful. Alot of the parts can be hand made, with your tallent you shouldn't have a problem.

Leroy

Leroy Gardner

Kevin I just had another thought, where your cockpit walls and floor are concerned, styrene pannels tubes and angles will work wonders, a few glue rivets look good too. Hobby town and model RR shops have some of the neatest stuff for doing that.

Leroy

Melchizedek

Leroy,

My first thought was to figure out a way to fuse two tanks into one. Not having a phd in plastics gave me pause. Then over on rc groups I found a discussion on dual tank set up.

It makes perfect sense. As long as there are no leaks the two tanks function as one, just with a skinny section. The doaner tank gets emptied first then the tank that supplies the carb acts like a single tank.

The image below is for a glow setup. With gas the carb will siphon through the carb tank and still empty the doaner tank first then act as a single tank.
That's what I am thinking anyway. Maybe I should equip Miss Betty's cockpit module with an estee's rocket motor and chute for ejection purposes if things don't go well


Kevin

Leroy Gardner

Well that might just work, with one tank creating a vacume it would siphon fuel from the other, might try that out sometime. Looks like the carb side would be the fill and empty side and the second tanks vent would still be the over flow. I have never see that before proving there is always more to learn.

I figured you must of had something that would work, one still sounds safer. I have read where bladders are used also, I'll stay away from that one.

Better keep Betty in the plane, besides it's easier, ha ha.

Leroy

Tony Hallo

The hopper tank arrangement works well with gas engines and jets. Most jet flyers use a hopper tank during warm up and taxi.

Melchizedek

Thanks Tony H. for that

If the Jet Jockeys trust there ultra expensive stuff with this system then I won't sweat it.

Kevin

Melchizedek

Started on some knobs for the throttle. I have a wood lathe but it is tucked away and didn't feel like dragging it out.
So I used the drill press. I also didn't use wood except for a support dowel. I used bondo. Why. cause unlike wood it has no grain
to gouge or fill. Not having an adequate tool support for using a drill press as a lathe. The bondo cuts easy with a file and sand paper.

First made a blank.



It was not quit tall enough so ground the top of the cone down and slide anther mixing cup up the side and poured some more.



At this point the shape is ok but when I went to check Bettys hand it was way to big. So I turned it down farther to fit her hand. Then turned the red knob to proportion to black knob in picture. They have been painted and are drying.


So back to Betty. We took a trip to Walmart and picked up some slippers and on the way back got her a pedicure.



She loved the new look so much, couldn't stop gazing at her new dogs.


Next was time to fit her to the rudder pedals. They were made from brass tube soldered together and some bicycle shifter cable I had lying around.



Throttle and new left arm up next.

Kevin

Melchizedek

Throttle complete

I am not happy with the scale of the throttle. It ended up to large, but not going to redo it. Not having nothing but a picture from an angle was hard for me to get the scale correct. The finished throttle was trimmed down a couple of times during fabrication. Turns out my natural inclination is to guess big. Really big in the first going. Oh well. In the end Betty will have a nice big leaver to rest her hand on. (going to have to get that hand right).



Kevin

acerc

Looks good to me. Good enough you could finish my Pitts if you would like.

Leroy Gardner

Yep it's looking pretty good, I think the rudder peddles could be higher, they are pushed with the ball of the foot, and a couple of brake peddles right under them to push with the heal, usually in the floor kinda like alot of small planes.Cable arm link for rudder should point down, it pullsl when peddel is pushed. Heck the average guy wouldn't know any difference. Most of the control cables are under the floor in small craft. I like your throttle as an example, I haven't made mine yet.

Leroy

Melchizedek

Thanks for the offer Robert, but this stuff is time consuming. I am enjoying it though.

Leroy, I looked online for better rudder pedal examples for the SW. The best I could find was the photo in post 235. I knew there were brakes with the pedals and you can see another bar on top in that photo (post 235) but I decided not to include it, not enough detail to proceed. Like you say, the average guy would not have any idea. This cockpit will be sport scale. Just enough detail to look the part.

Interesting, your point on the cable arm links pointing down. I thought a pull pull system would be snug. Is that not so on the rudder pedals of the real aircraft ?

Kevin

Leroy Gardner

Kevin the rudder on most small craft have a set up like a tiller bar, center pivot with cables via pulleys that connect to a push pull bar doing the same thing as our control rods. Later models of cubs and the Cessnas and others likely still use it, it's been a fool proof system for many years.

Leroy

VincentJ

Fine job Kevin, oh the lengths that we all go through..just amazing! Now quit "playing" with Betty and get to building!

Melchizedek

Made me Laugh Vince

Kevin

Melchizedek

Just to clarify Vince. The Laugh part was concerning "playing with Betty"
Thanks

I hope you all can bear with me a little while longer on Betty and her house.
Feel like this belongs in the Doll House forum.
Soon the building will continue. Believe me, I am ready to get going also.

Well you know who got her left arm. That arm took a whole evening.
I set the arm to her shoulder. Then the next evening had a look and it didn't match her right shoulder.
So I broke it off (OUCH) , did some grinding and reset it. I am pretty happy with the result.

Next was the control stick. My first thought was to marry the stick with her hand so she could be lifted out during construction and finishing.
But then it occurred to me that putting a shirt on her while holding the control stick wasn't going to happen.
So plan B. Control stick would be in 2 pieces. The handle gets glued to her hand and the stick gets glued to the floor.
When she is set in the cockpit, the handle slips over the stick. At the end of the build, handle will get glued to stick as Betty gets glued to her seat.


A blob of Bondo was plopped on the end of the control stick handle. Then chucked up in the drill press and turned down to a little handle end.
A remnant of tan leather was cut into a half circle and stitched together to make a control stick boot.
Two washers were soldered to the base of the control stick. Brass tube was taped to accept bolt for mounting.





With just a little finesse Betty can be slipped in and out .




Kevin

magwie

Great job on the details Kevin, can't wait to see what you do next.

Melchizedek

Thank You Magwie

Now that all the geometry and ergonomics of Betty are out of the way I can move forward with the build Vincent .
Although she will be making cameo appearances now and then as she picks out her attire.

So next up is the instrument panel. The last cockpit detail before it can get skinned.

The kit comes with a 1/32 ply already cut out for the panel. Although it is less than a stellar fit.
I picked up some gauges from I fly tallies. They have a little depth to them and are mounted from the back.
A 3/16 thick panel is about right to have the gauge face protrude through instrument panel face the desired amount.

So I used some 1/8 light ply scrap. Also decided to use cherry veneer for the face to spruce it up.
Skin front and back with the veneer and wallaw 3/16. Almost
If you have a Rockler Woodworking store in your area they usually stock small pieces of veneer some fancy (burl, crotch, birds eye. etc....)

A little bit about Cherry. It starts out a pinkish redish. When exposed to light, especially UV light it gets darker. Even after it is finished.
Even under indoor lighting it will get darker. For instance. A raw cherry panel or board left open with a narrow board left across it for a day or two will leave a light stripe. Where the cover board lay it will be lighter. If left for a few weeks it will be very noticeable. But as it ages the darkening Hue gets rich.
The other extreme is Walnut. It starts out rich chocolate. If exposed to enough UV light it will eventually turn white.

I digress.

You always want to veneer both sides of a panel to keep it balanced. Run the grain of the veneer 90 deg to face ply (if you are using ply as a sub straight)
Also the back veneer goes the same direction as the face veneer. It only takes a very thin glue line for veneer. Put to much glue down you can squeeze it through to the face. I used a flat stick to trowel a very thin layer of yellow glue. Then clamped it up for 3 hours. It is important to get good even flat pressure or you will have unglued spots or curled veneer.






The plans show the instrument panel face siting 90 degs from datum line. I decided to place it a 18 deg angle for esthetic's reasons.
After fitting the lower edge. I spot glued a lower spacer to hold the lower edge in plane and drew an oversize scribe line. Then band sawed blank.
I then spot glued the blank in place for final shaping.

When you have a curved panel and then lean it at an angle, for the curve to stay on plane the shape changes. The easiest way to get that shape is to grind it to plane.
So I used a sanding bar with sanding paper only where the cutting was to happen. Then taped the plane that I wanted to cut to but not cut. When the tape was pushed aside I moved on.
All cutting motion was front to back keeping the sanding bar 90 degrees to the shape since the shape changes.



Next step was final cut. I penciled the leading edge of the former behind the instrument panel and sanded left to right (to alleviate flat spots) until pencil was gone.
Now the top edge of the instrument panel will fit tightly to the underside of the fuse skin when ever it is time to mount the panel.




Next the instruments can be laid out and cut in. Then the panel can be finished and installed whenever convenient .

Kevin

Melchizedek

It is just sitting together nothing fastened.
I plan on putting a quadrant of small screws around each bezel.

Can begin to finish the veneer. Will use Waterlox tung oil sealer.
This product can be sprayed but also can be wiped on with a lint free rag. It is slow drying, recoat next day.
The beauteous thing about this product is is sinks deep in the wood pores and brings out the richness of the natural God made beauty of the wood.
The slow drying of the product means wipe marks fade away. No muss no fuss.
Here is an example. This was sprayed on but the same results (almost) can be achieved with wipe on.
Its not a fast finish but it is a fine one that is low tech.



Kevin

magwie

Great job on the dash Kevin.
My "full time job" is repairing and restoring gauges, they look spot on well done.

acerc

Outstanding, again Kevin.

Leroy Gardner

Nice work Kevin, a full cockpit sure looks alot better than those instrument pannels that sit on the floor, add a good looking babe and it looks even better. Isn't it about time to build some wings yet, ha ha.

Leroy

Melchizedek

Thanks Magwie,
I played with the arrangement for a couple of hours before I committed and started drilling.
In the end, I threw esthetics out and went practical. Mechanical dials grouped together and aeronautical dials grouped together.
Then applied esthetics to that formula. Function first then a dash of form.

Robert, Thank you, means a lot to me.

Leroy, You are quite right !
I have been so long tending to a tree that the forest went and died on me.
I've gotten completely lost without a game plan on the rest of the build. MOJOLESS !!!
Kind of like momentum in a football game.
Like Cool Hand Luke would say. "it's time to get my mind right"

Kevin