BigTeeEldorado

The gear should be at a right angle to the ground. The retracts I'm using come from Robart and are designed for the dihedral in this kit by only moving 85 degrees. which has them stop close to a right angle to the ground. I'm not using 4 inch wheels, I don't think many of us do unless they are competition scale builders, there is just not enough room to do 4 inch easily on this size kit. Here is a link to the specs on my struts which will give you a little more information.

http://robart.com/collections/gear-f...-3-3-1-4-wheel

acdii

The struts are usually made of steel, Aluminum wont hold up to the landings and will bend too easily. I have several sets of struts for various planes and they are all steel.

hipik634

very well, steel is much more accessible for me than alluminium. Are you sure that aint Dural? is it magnetic? Does anybody have some kind of lever system on the secondary main gear doors (if made) ? can you post a picture?
any final words on single or dual servo ailerons ? somebody even tried the single servo flaps, any results? i would be for one aileron servo and two flap servos.
for the maiden flight, do you do maiden before final color finishing like after glossing or do you prefer to finish the plane before actually getting into air? the idea is that if there is something to fail it is better to fail before that crazy amount of work with panel lines and so on

BigTeeEldorado

I would not want to say for sure what the material is but mine are magnetic. I designed an actuating system for the inner doors and posted some information back at post #3258. I'm still working on the outer doors and how they will attach to the struts. I'll post another picture here. I am going with a servo on each of the ailerons and flaps, I don't like the play that develops no matter how careful a person is, one straight shot from the servo to the surface is the best. And finally I usually finish a project......take pictures.....then maiden. That is not to say there won't be modifications and refinements after the maiden

The picture from my previous post is a lot clearer.but this is how they are mounted in the center section of the wing

hipik634

The lever system could be probably fed from one servo only, dont you think?
For the ailerons standard size servos or mini ones?
Do you use straight struts? it seems so, i am now in the process of making one trial leg for dimensions only on my lathe, but the weight of 3.1 ounce per strut seems a little too much. The length of complete leg is about 5.1 inch from bottom of the wing? can you take me a closer shot of the leg preferably with ruler ? can you give me the dimension of the inside piston and length of the spring. there are no images like that to be found online. i am guessing the diameter would be around 3/16 inch

BigTeeEldorado

acdii has a utube video showing how he set up a single servo for the inner doors, just put "acdii" in the search bar on Utube. I'm using standard size digital servos cause......that is what I have. There are some really good mini and aileron servos out there that would be lighter and easier to fit. I don't have any idea what the inside of the struts look like, your on your own with that one. Here is a picture of the outside.

hipik634

perfect, thanks a lot. so the outer diameter is around 7/16, internal diameter 1/8 , 11/16 is the working length. the internal of the strut is easy, just a spring. i will paste a drawing as i will be making them. but i am a little bit confused about the lenght of the strut. as for the plans the length should be like 7 1/2 inch and yours is 9 inches, there is a reason for that ?

BigTeeEldorado

The plan shows compressed length on the struts I think and I went with the axle location for strut length using smaller than scale wheels.....and it all fit!!

acdii

I like how BigT did his doors better, less complicated, but he did his 2 years after I did mine. Mine works quite well, but takes up more room than I like, pretty much takes up the area inside where the airtank would go. If I were to do them over again, I would use mini high torque servos instead. The hinging was the most difficult part.

hipik634

i am thinking now about a sequencer, http://www.ebay.com/itm/111807124755 but preferably I will try to make some lever to open with the strut ... i will let you kknow as i will progress, now i am stuck on fabricating struts ... first prototype didt do as well as I planned

hipik634

So fabrication went well enough, but i am confused by the wheel angle, is it normal?

update: i've found, that my whells are flipped, co i will make some welding and create a better leg.

hipik634

after some struggle i am in this state:
due to the electric gear i am not able to fit the struts other than like this. i might be able to sand away a piece of alluminium to make them go only 85 deg but only on the side of closed gear. Due to dimensions of the drice i am not able to fit the drive in true angle to the ground, it just dont fit into the wing. So this is the best i can do for now so i will go on and start sheeting. How do you like my struts? about 2 hours on lathe, welder and grinder

BigTeeEldorado

[QUOTE=hipik634; How do you like my struts? about 2 hours on lathe, welder and grinder[/QUOTE]

Not bad! Actually pretty impressive. I'm pretty sure this wing was not designed with retracts in mind. If you can make them fit and operate your doing pretty good. You have been asking about inner doors so I'm assuming you planning on outer doors as well. I ask because normally the strut would be the other direction but your strut, being nice and flat would be an easy attach point for the door.

One other thing that is kind of amusing to me is those plastic clamps your using in one of the pictures......I have the exact ones......small world!

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

Tony, I think eveyrbody has some of those plastic clamps. They are cheap come in several sizes and easy to use. My wife talked me out of a couple she uses to hold the excess material out of the way when she does her needlepoint. I still borrow them back occasional. I also have a large number of 4" ratching bar claps/spreaders along with few other sizes. I catch them on sale at Harbor Freight.

BigTeeEldorado

I love those bar clamps!! The eyebrow raiser for me with hipik634 and those little plastic clamps was that he is in the Czech Republic.....they must have dollar stores there too

BigTeeEldorado

OK so hipik634 got me looking at the length of the struts and I had a chance to go visit a P51 this past weekend and took some pictures.



It's immediately obvious the kit is not designed to be true scale but it was also obvious I have too much strut. I bet hipik634 is gonna be upset with me after all that nice work building his struts if he based it off my setup, but I think I'm gonna see if I can relocate and shorten mine up a bit.

Ground handling would probably be better with the longer struts cause the wheel ends up a little farther forward of the leading edge. But I think I can get about an inch off the length and get it's posture to look a little less like a zero and more like a P51.



OOPS...how did that SR71 get in there

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

Tony, just don't forget to allow enough clearance for the prop!

hipik634

Tony, no problem. I have actually made mine about an inch shorter because I came to the same conclusion you did now.
What am I concerned now are the beams of the wing. They look kinda bent and I am not really sure if it is ment to be like that. I guess that I am going to measure big time now. And I still haven't started with fuselage checks.
and about dollar shops i think mine were from a hobby market for 2$ per 50 pcs

check out my "my models" section, i've updated with videos

hipik634

Today i reshaped the beams, corrected angles and ready to sheet, so I have had a look on the fuselage. Found again missing pieces. The guy had to be drunk .. I am walking through minefield ...

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

I have had similar experiences with inherited projects. You work thru the mistakes and make your own along the way. ;-)

hipik634

one particular part, the leading edge shall be straight or bent? it is cut and the swept to front, but shall it be also pointing downwards? Can you take me a picture of the wing from the front ?

BigTeeEldorado

BigTeeEldorado

I shortened by as much as I could without making this a project. I can tell the difference even if it doesn't show in the pictures. Scale would require even as much as another inch off but I'm happy with where it's at now. I'm gonna have to be happy because it ain't gonna get any shorter!!

beforeafter

hipik634

very good with the wing. i am asking because i have only these parts of plan, so i am cautionous about possible fails. today i found misplaced control wire on stab, but it went quite ok with relocating. can I have a picture of full plans, to see what is missing from mine ?


nice build Tony have you selected your camo yet ?

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

It pays in the long run to take the plans down and have them copied and then cut the copy up to build on. You never know when you may want to have the plan again.