jofunk

"I make jig". Actually just some cardboard with holes cut in it to hold the tip tank level and in line. I clamped the wing down to the table by the plug ins with the root parallel to the edge. I hot melted a few sticks to the wing and the table near the tip. They help to keep the wing from bouncing up and down. I drew two lines on the table parallel with the root, one at the wing tip and one down the center line under the tank. I then extended a line out the leading edge and aileron hinge line and measured down to the center line of the tank. the leading edge was lower than the aileron hinge line because of the washout. The two measurements averaged out to 3 1/4". That is the distance up I cut the holes in the cardboard. The tip tank is now in line with the crutch. There is no washout in the tip tank. I free handed the slots for the tank brackets before I clamped it to the table. Once I was happy with the alignment I used some urethane glue to secure them to the wing.

jofunk

A little heat and the hot melt glue releases. I wanted the tip tank on the end of the wing like a lolly pop and not like the letter p. It looks pretty good. I will do the same for the left wing. If everything was built straight I should be able to use the same pieces of cardboard to hold the left tank in place. I will double check before I just go ahead and use them. The line on the tank is where the L.E. should be.

jofunk

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jofunk

The left slots were cut and I installed the left tip tank. I was able to use the same cardboard jigs. I had to modify them by adding an 1/8" piece of balsa under them to bring them up a bit. I was a bit surprised that they only needed to be adjusted that small amount considering all the variables from the fuse. to the tip tank heading out in two different directions. at any rate they are both on now.

jofunk

The urethane glue did a nice job of expanding but now the glue an excess aircraft ply needs to be removed. A hacksaw blade works great. I held plenty of the blade side surface against the glass on the wing and started cutting. The blade skated on the glass and cut right through the glue and wood. There is a gap between the wing tip and tank because one is straight and one is curved. A few pieces of scrap filled the gap with a little light filler. A few pieces of glass will finish the wing building.

jofunk

Well here in Chicago it went from not really warm enough to work outside to summer. That was enough to stop me on the Panther, give some war birds an airworthiness check, and send me to the field a half dozen times this late winter. Now that spring is here it's a little cool out the last day or two. So not much has happened. I filled all the gaps between the wings and tanks, and it sits with the wings plugged in up side down. The bottom will get glass first and in the same batches of resin the intake plugs will start to get glassed. Mr. Funs fuse. has been relegated to the corner again due to the club board meeting being at the house this week. I also cleaned off the work bench for another round of messing it up.

mirce

Guys, great work...

Can you tell me what is a dimension of wing joiner, and how long it come inside of the fuselage?

Thanks in advance

Regards from Serbia

Mirce

jofunk

Hi Mirce,

Here are the dimensions of the aluminum bars in the wing. There are two in each wing sunk into the wing about a foot deep. I also took a picture of one of the plug ins that Vladimir machined for us. While I was in the basement I glassed the tip tanks on. I also laid a few layers of glass on the intake plugs. They will then be primed and sanded smooth to pull some intakes off of them.

mirce

Thank you, you are so kind...
Great job on F9F. Can't wait to see how it fly...

Best regards from Serbia

Mirce

jofunk

Mr. Fun stopped by after the board meeting and couldn't help but work on his plane. He trimmed a lot of the glass overhang off. I started sanding the edges on the glass at the tip tanks. Two layers in eight spots gives me 16 edges to sand off. I started with the top because as I go along the attention to detail falls off a little. I also sanded some of the edges on the intake plugs. Soon I'll have a bunch to prime again, the tip tank area, the intake plugs, the nose, and the engine hatch.

jofunk

The engine hatch needed to be slightly shimmed out to get the edges lined up and flush. The engine hatch also needed to be mounted so I started by installing some hatch pins. I installed them the same way the top hatch was done. The rear of the hatch will need to be secured. The easiest way will be to make some aluminum straps and sink some hard wood blocks behind them to screw into. The gap the shims formed will be back filled with some body filler. The fuse will be lined with clear tape and the filler will be applied to the edge of the hatch to make the separation line as minimal as possible. The tape will act as the mold release. If it works I will back fill the top hatch separation the same way.

jofunk

I Got home after work and it was still 60 degrees outside so I slopped some primer on a few parts. I then put them in the car again to cure. It's about 80 degrees in there when the car is parked the sun. The car also gets fumigated while the primer cures. Once I sand the areas where I attached the tip tanks the wings are done.

hooker53

My Feedback: (106)

I admire any modeler that will go to any extent to improve their build process. Ha. Ha.

jofunk

I guess you can say I started priming the fuse. But that won't start full tilt until I work on the hatch lines. The nose is hard to hold and work on. I hot melted it to the work bench and then hit it with the sanding belt. I want to pay extra attention to the detail on the nose since that is what will hit the ground first.

jofunk

I started sanding the intake plugs by hand in the area where they are concave. I also sanded some of the primer in the tip tank area. I'll do the rest with the palm sander, but outside because of the dust it creates. Does anyone have a straight on photo of where the aileron comes up to the tip tank? It looks like the aileron needs to be extended a bit. I don't know if it is straight or angled and how much of a gap there is.

N419BH

I believe that gap is actually filled with a small fixed piece attached to the tank and wing but let me see if I can find a photo of that area.

N419BH

These are the best pics I can find that show that area:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:F9...21_CVA-41.jpeg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:F9..._side_view.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3133/4...e1b66fcd_z.jpg

Pics 2 and 3 seem to indicate that the aileron is actually rounded off and that gap remains, though it appears the tip tank is still at full circumference in that area. Pic one seems to indicate that the aileron is straight and there is no gap but it's also not a very good angle. I am looking to see if there is a Panther in a museum near Chicago that you might be able to go see and get a few hundred pics from.

N419BH

There is a panther displayed outdoors in Jainesville, WI at the VFW post. This might not be the best example to base scale details off of since it's surely been weatherized and all the gaps will be filled but it will be the closest and easiest to get to. Otherwise they all seem to be on the coasts. The National Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL has a nice example but it's hanging from the ceiling so you'll only get the details on the bottom. The Cavanuagh Flight Museum in Dallas has the only flyable example and it looks gorgeous.

http://www.cavanaughflightmuseum.com/Panther.htm

I dunno if or how far you're willing to travel but perhaps these organizations will have or will be able to obtain for you photos specs and other documents in order to get these models as close to the real thing as possible.

jroth

My Feedback: (60)

Here is the picture I took of the Janesville plane, it is an F9F-5. It looks like the aileron is extended.

John

N419BH

Looks like now is when you'll start making decisions regarding exactly which model you will...model. The geometry seems different in that pic but it is probably the angle of the photo. I also see a seam in the aileron; it might signify that the Aircraft was "dressed up" for display or perhaps that panel is designed to break away in the event the tip tank bends and causes interference.

jroth

My Feedback: (60)

here are some drawings from a manual that I found.

The first one is a F-2.

Terry Holston

My Feedback: (1)

John, I would take all drawings with a grain of salt. Most are just that drawings with out regard to the actual part. I think the tank keeps a constant diameter until the aft end of the aileron , THEN it tapers to the rear end of the teardrop shape. The gap at the end of the aileron is parallel to the dia of the tank.

jroth

My Feedback: (60)

Joe said he has writer’s cramp and asked if I would post an update from last night’s work.

At the beginning of the build, Vladimir Hollis made five sets of wing plug in mounts; Vladimir gave us each a set at Joe's house in late 2010. By the time I was ready to install my wing spars and mounts, I could not find my mounts, we all looked, and no one had the extra set. Mr. Fun fabricated me a second set which I installed and they work great, but they are not like the Byron/Yellow/Sig or Vladimir's. There is not enough "meat" in the top or bottom of the new mounts to drill and tap the mount so that I can use a screw to pinch the wing spar vertically.

This created a speed bump which stole my motivation for two months and a challenge to find a creative way to secure my wings to the fuselage. Unfortunately all of the cool ways with springs and cams and cables and pins were beyond my mental capacity, so last night Joe, Mr. Fun and I decided to run a screw through the wing spars horizontally. The aft mount looks like I can install a cap head screw through the spar and bulkhead and into a blind nut. I think that I will have room to use a ball driver to tighten the screw after my installation is complete.

The forward wing mount is a little trickier, I can not get to the aft of the mount because of the landing gear structure, so I have to install a screw from the front, but the air inlet blocks the front of the mount. Upon further head scratching, Joe thought that access could be gained through a small hole drilled outboard of the inlet. Mr. Fun thought of capturing a cap head bolt in a block of wood with a blind nut and a locknut. The whole plan came together after a trip to Home Depot to buy more blind nuts and long drill bits.

After we were sure the wings slide on and off with out binding, it was time to complete the sheeting on the top of the winglet, sand the winglets and smear some light filler on the sheeting.

I appreciate the help from Joe and Mr. Fun, I really needed help getting the motivation to complete the wing mounts.

jofunk

Thanks everyone for the input on the plan view of the aileron tip. I decided to go with a line that follows the tip tank to the trailing edge. I filled in the plan view with some balsa and the rest will be built up with some bondo. for the guys that didn't glass their ailerons build them a little long then you can easily sand them to the shape you want. I couldn't bring myself to mount the engine hatch with some external straps as I described in an earlier post. So I glued in some ply tabs on the hatch and some hard wood blocks in the fuse. The screws are now hidden inside the plane with only two small holes in the bottom of the hatch to access them. You can't really see the holes when you stand next to the plane. I know you would see the straps if you were looking at the back end. The engine hatch had me hung up for a while. I'm glad I have the mounting resolved.

Instructor

My Feedback: (16)

That looks good, but I would fill the space between the tab in the hatch and the block in the fuse so you don't break off the tab when you tighen down the screws. Have you given any thought to how much weight you might have to add to the nose by mounting the turbine that far back? If your turbine weights 3 pounds, you might need as much as 10 to 12 pounds of nose weight. I have a Ziroli Panther powered with a P-80 and it's mounted as far forward in the fan mounts as I could get it and not have a large thrust tube, and it still took 1.5 pounds of weight along with the receiver and ECU battries in the nose to get it to blance right. I also had to balance it so the nose is 25º below level so it wouldn't climb out at a 40º nose up attitude. Don't forget these were designed for Ducted fan and the incidents is set for fan, not turbine. I am watching you progress. Good luck with them........


Larry