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Joined: 1/25/2002 From: San Diego, CA, USA Status: offline
More work on the inner nacelles. You should dry fit the nacelles into the wing way early before all the ribs and spars are glued. If the ribs are too close together it's way too late to fix it at this point. I didn't think of that until I started testing nacelle fit just recently, luckily everything seems to fit pretty well. Some of the CNC cut plywood nacelle sides were a little warped so I created the little "sight" in the second picture. You can see the balsa brace I used to hold it where I wanted while I sheeted.
I thought that the nacelles were going to be a bit fiddlier, but they seem to be going together pretty fast so far.
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Joined: 1/25/2002 From: San Diego, CA, USA Status: offline
I got waylaid patching up my Top Flite Sea Fury for our clubs fly-in so I haven't gotten much done over the last couple of weeks. Tonight I finally got back at it. I am about half way through sheeting one of the inboard nacelles. One thing I have found is that you should cut all the sheeting that is described in the patterns on the plan a little big since they have to go around curves...
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Joined: 1/25/2002 From: San Diego, CA, USA Status: offline
Thanks ramcfarland, I have been following your Jug/Flitemetal build thread. I plan on trying that on a Midwest T-6 I won at last years annual club banquet.
More progress on the Lanc. I have finished sheeting both inner nacelles. I couldn't resist putting the fuse and wing together for a couple of pictures. The fuse doesn't quite look perpendicular to the wing. It could just be my eyes playing tricks on me. Hopefully it is, if not maybe when I sand the curves in the bottom it will be less noticeable. In the end if that does not work, I could just crank out a new fuse; it was a pretty fast build.
Next up gear mounting blocks and wire bending... then she's up on her legs.
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Joined: 1/25/2002 From: San Diego, CA, USA Status: offline
Well, the gear is in. I am just going with the bent wire setup right now. If it flies nice and I get motivated maybe I'll make something that is a little more scale looking. Nothing to report really the gear was all straight forward...
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Joined: 11/16/2003 From: Doncaster, UNITED KINGDOM Status: offline
Nice work Scott.
For me the moment a model sits on it's own legs is a point of transformation. It begins to take on a life of it's own. I am sure some other builders have similar oppinions when their models become a "living thing". She certainly looks the part.
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Joined: 1/25/2002 From: San Diego, CA, USA Status: offline
Yeah, the first milestone for me is the wing to fuse join. The gear qualifies too. I got a start on the outer nacelles but more importantly my pilots flew in. Here they are doing a preflight...
These guys are Ultimate Soldier 1/18 P-38 pilots. They came with some accessories like oxygen masks and parachutes. I'll put the mask on one so it wont be so obvious they are twins.
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Joined: 1/25/2002 From: San Diego, CA, USA Status: offline
I'm looking forward to seeing the P6E fly. That one should be really nice.
Finally, the nacelles are framed up. They just need filling in spots and final sanding... Just a progress report and some pictures. No tricky stuff here.
I'm a little tired of breathing balsa dust and staring down four cowls doesn't sound good right now. I think I may rig up a test stand for the motors so I can play with them and break them in. Hopefully they will work well with the three blade Graupner's I have taped to the nacelles.
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Joined: 1/25/2002 From: San Diego, CA, USA Status: offline
Cowls were next on the list.
Since I was making four of them I decided to crank out a little jig to make keeping everything straight a little easier. I just put a straight line on the base and glued on two standoffs of the right height. I then glued a string directly over the line drawn on the base. Finally I glued a “bridge” on that I could clamp the front cowl former to. To build a cowl I tack glue the rear former to the balsa base and clip the front one to the bridge lined up under the string. Then all I have to do start gluing sides on. It took me about 1.5 hours to make this first one; I still need to fill the 1/8” gap.
I deviated from the plans on the cowls. I didn’t really like the screws through the soft balsa as an attachment. Also, my gearbox moves my motor back enough that it was going to fowl the cowl screw. So, my friend and I came up with what you see in the pictures. The rear former is cut from light ply. There are two socket head screws that can be reached with a ball end driver through the air intake. I also added two 1/8” dowels as pins on the top and bottom of the cowl to help with rotational torque from the motor. I’m pretty happy with how it came out.
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Joined: 1/25/2002 From: San Diego, CA, USA Status: offline
All the cowls are done and I have built the horizontal stab and elevators. I deviated from the plans when it came to the leading edge of the stab since I didn't have much fun trying to get the forward edge of the wing sheeting mated up to the wing leading edge for a good glue joint. So, instead of that pain again, I replaced the 3/16" leading edge with a 1/16 sub-leading edge. Glued the sheeting to that and then attached a 1/8" leading edge to the sheeted stab. I think this method makes an easier build and a better glue joint.
The pictures may not show it very well but I sanded the leading edge and trailing edge so the were both the same height. That way I could rest the flipped over assembly on those with some weight during the sheeting process to keep everything true.
And a final note: The plans make no mention of it, but the build article in RCM&E does. Build the stab upside down. The article does not mention why, but if you built it "right side up" your stab would have anhedral instead of dihedral... that's my guess anyway.
Here are all the pictures to prove I'm not just making this up to pop my thread to the top...
Scott.
Edit... Oops, missed pictures.
< Message edited by Scott G -- 1/3/2006 4:19:02 AM >
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Joined: 9/24/2002 From: DrouinVictoria, AUSTRALIA Status: offline
Me and a guy at my club are in the early stages of scratch building an all foam 132" electric Lanc', prototype will be a crash and bash with fixed LG and not a lot of scale detail just to iron out any problems MK2 we will take a bit more time and get things right.
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RE: Electric Lanc Build - 
