Me410

Hey Hombresinropa, is it ok if some of us guys who just got thier KMP/EMS 72" Spitfires blab alittle on this thread about our build, experience, flights, etc. I will try not to repeat stuff that already been covered?

I see you have shimmed your landing gear ahead to gain an extra 1/2" on the wheels. Always a good thing for a warbird.
I wonder if this Spitfire of mine may be an updated new production run? The landing gearmounts seem to haveok rake built in and thebeams seem to be built oftwoplates of 1/8' ply sandwiching a 1/8" plate of fiberglass or nylon? It's unusual to me, but it all looks strong enough, so I don't think I need to reinforce that area at all?

I have a set of Robart 530 air retracts with 7/16 struts that gave good service in a TF Seafury 65" WS that wieghed 15 lb. The gear is rated for 18lb so I think they will be fine in the Spitfire. I will fit them tonight and get a idea where the axle / wheel sits in relation the the wing leading edge when extended.

Tom

hombresinropa

My Feedback: (4)

Post anything you'd like, I don't mind. This is for conversing about the spitfire model, so anything ESM/KMP/YT spitfire is good!

hombresinropa

My Feedback: (4)

Gentlemen,

I've poked a couple holes in my wing on accident in transport... Does anyone have any good ideas for repair?  Is there a certain type of covering, paint, or airbrush technique that would be best to use?  I was planning on covering it with monokote or ultracote and then airbrushing it with tamaya military colors and then dull coting it with fuel proof paint.

Am I on target here or does someone have better ideas?

Thanks!

Mike

hombresinropa

My Feedback: (4)

Me410... how's your  build going?  I've had no issues with the gear mount... I think you are good without reinforcement, but it would never hurt!

Me410

My build is going slow, but a few things done.

One thing that should give you guys a good laugh. I was cutting out the covering over the wheels wells and that went ok, thenI had to cut out the servo bays.I started with the left aleron bay andchecked out the poor instructions. The diagram was very vague and I felt around and it seemed to be behind the spar. So inI went with the blade and to my horror, this area was not a servo bay ! Too late now, cut the whole panel out and now i need to do a patch job. I am going to use a patch of white iron-on Solartex and I have some Tamiya flat gray that needs a tint of green and i should be all fixed up! I chalk it up to ARF inexperience.

I too was unhappy with the plastic parts, very brittle and so easy to crack. I soaked the wheel well and radiator parts in hot water, but they still cracked. The front corner of one rad cracked off, so i need to try to fix that.

The rads are located in the wrong area for scale, and even worse, they expect you to partly glue over the flap servo with just the slot on the side for the horn and linkage showing! What were they thinking?I plan to open up the front and rear of the rads to allow air flow through and I will place the rad right over the flap servo cover. The linkage will come out the rear of the rad opening.I have a plan to attach the rads and make them removeable, I can attach a pic of that when I get to it. And they will be in the scale position.

The retract rails look strong enough, but not enough forward rake of the gear. If I leave it the way it is, I too will have nose over problems on the grass field I fly off. I will make up some angled shims so the gear brackets sit flush on thier mounts but still have the more forward rake.
I am using Robart 530 steel gear with thier 7/16 struts, I know they will give me good service.

Engine wise, my DLE30V2 will not fit as it is too long by 1/2". I could cut a big hole in the center of the firewall so the rear mount carb can recess back though and then get shorter stand offs. ButI alsoneed to order a inverted wrap aound muffler forthe DLE and it may not then fit well due to the firewall mods? So, I have a near new Saito 120 that's going in, I ordered an aluminum Saito mount for it and I know the whole installation willgo smooth and neat. The saito is very heavy, and that is also good. Using expensive , messy glow is not good, butfor now, that's what it gets.

I will post more soon.

Tom

Duplicator41

My Feedback: (1)

ME410:

I would recommend strongly that you fiberglass the inside of the radiators, they are so flimsy that they will not last long even under the best of conditions. Forget a wheels up landing, they will be destroyed if you don't stengthen them substantially. ESM should have provided fiberglass radiators with this ARF.

Cheers,

Me410

Good plan on the radiators. If you fly enough, you will have to do a belly-in sooner or later.
I actually thought of using the plastic ones as moulds and making all fiberglass ones. Although a belly-in would shatter the plastic ones into a thousand pieces, fiberglass ones might get busted up also, o well, less bits to pick up.

Spare ones might be the best plan? But your right, going to need to do something.

BTY, my cowl also cracked!!!Cracked about 4-5 inches along the top/center/rear. I was showing my friends and slidding the cowl on and off a couple of times, and was carefull, and suddenly-cracko! So Iput in a large fiberglass patch on the inside with 6 oz cloth and Z-poxy. The repair worked great, but I am conserned about the brittleness of the fiberglass now! AfterI cut out the cowl for the engine and exhaust I will reinforce any areas that look like they need it.

All in all this build will take longer than i thought. But I did read alot about the EMS/KMP arfs and am not suprised about the extra work. I feel ( at least so far ) for 300$ plus 60$ shipping that this plane is still a good deal.

I also did not use the supplied threaded bolt/washer horn design on the flaps and alerons. Irecessed 1/8 ply plates into those control surfacesand then screwed in Dubro horns. Again, extra work, but it looks alot better.

Tom

Duplicator41

My Feedback: (1)

My Yellow A/C has fiberglass radiators which are quite substantial and that's where I got the idea to fiberglas the ESM radiators. Also the seams on the fuselage of my ESM Spitty were rather poorly joined, I had to fiberglass those as well. You might want to check yours.

Cheers,

Me410

Thanks for the tip Duplicator.

Getting my 4" Dubro wheels to fit with my Robart retracts and struts is abit tricky. Not only do I need to shim the gear forward,I have to block it up to get the wheel to fit in the wing, so much so that the rear gear bracket would be above the wing sheeting! My Dubros are 1 3/16 " thick so it looks like I need to find more narrow wheels. Robart plastic 4" wheels are supposed to be 1 1/16" thick, so a saving of 1/8 " will help.

Hombresinropa: You used the EMS wheels and gear, can you tell me how narrow your wheels were and how the fit was?
BTY, the holes in your wing, top and bottem? I am going to go to my LHS and get Tamaya paints to touch up any dings, I'll let you know how I made out and what i had to mix to get the colors spot on.

I know I can buy fancy aluminum wheels that would be more narrow, but I don,t want to spend that kind of money. I wish manufactures would make more scale-like "narrow" warbird wheels that did not cost an arm and leg.

Tom

hombresinropa

My Feedback: (4)

I'll have to measure them... they were definitely thinner than the dubro wheels... I have those too.  When I shimmed the gear forward, I have to grind an angle on the leading gear mounting rails so the retract mechanism would fit in there and sit at an angle.  If you haven't done that, that may be part of why your wheels aren't fitting and you're having to block up your retract.  I did switch to another set of aluminum wheels, the 4" ESM replacement wheels, but they are fatter than the ones that originally came with my retracts.  The ones I'm using now are just about the same as my plastic 4" dubro wheels' thickness.  I had similar problems to what you're having until I ground the leading gear mounting rails in the wing.  Once I made them angled, things started fitting and working properly.

Me410

I have ordered the Robart 4" wheels, they should be in this week and then I can play with the gear rails. My Robart struts have no offset, I think the ESM do have some?. In any case it means my whole wheel is fully on the side of the straight strut and may make for a tight fit.

I am going to try to add a picture, I have not done it before, I'll see if I can make it work, then I can go over my progress to date.

Me410

Bummer, I did a long write up and added a bunch of pics and thentimed out or overloaded the system. I am not going to do it all again, I'll just shorten it up and do add a couple of pics.

Short version:
I used an arrow shaft push rod for the elevator linkage, like it better than pull-pull, although Though pull -pull would have been fine.

I used 5/16 wing dowels that went through the leading edge into a made up secondary support spar. Stronger than what the plans called for. Maybe too strong, when I cartwheel down the runway the dowels will hold on with grim determination and tear the front of the fuselage off.

I ground off the bit of rib in the wheel well and glassed that area.

The rads I glassed inside and then made a system that attaches them to the wing, and they are removable, and fully cover the flap servo hatch, see pic for how it was done.

Will try just a couple of pics now.
will not take 4 pics, try 2

Me410

Adding the two other pics of the rad install.
Message says that worked.

So this was painfull, any tips on how much time you have to type befor you time out? And what to do with pics? How many at a time? etc.

Thanks
Tom

Me410

My Robart 4" wheels showed up, but they are no thiner than by Dubro wheels, They are not as thin as advertized, o-well, in the drawer they go, the Dubros seem to fit better.

As you can see by the pic, my Robart gear has all the wheel and most of thestrut below the mount flange. No way it fits the ESM Spity as the gear mount rails are quite low into the wing, as much as 3/4" in the front below the sheeting.. Can't complain,as I'mnot using the ESM stuff that should fit.
So what I did was add a 1/4" plate to the rear rail and a 1/8" to the front rail, this raised up the gear and gave me more forward angle. I also added some small shims to get the added plates to sit flush on the gear flange.

Me410

I still had a problem as the wheel would hit the upper wing sheeting.
For new guys, here's a quick tip on retracts. If the wheel hits the wing when retracted It may not lock, then if you do a loop you may see your gear pull out due to G force. Even worse if the gear does lock up and is pushing hard against the wing sheeting, it may not unlock and retract as there is too much pressure on the lock cam to pull free. Kind of like the old automatic cars that you would put in park on a steep hill without using the e-brake. Tough then to pull the shifter out of park.

Anyway, I can,t go any higher on the rails so had to add a small shim to each rail plate to rase the outboard end of the plate, this lifts the wheel in the well, and all is well.

Me410

The pic of the added gear rail pic is not that clear. A small shim is added under the plates at the end pointing to the wing tip, this lifts the gear at the wheel end.

Problem is I now have almost no room to add gear doors, unless I do some fancyfiberglass work and build in some bends to go over the strut but still sit tight against the sheeting.The gear is sitting pretty for now, I may holdoff on gear doors .

Me410

Slow going here, with nicer weekends and other planes to fly, the Spitfire has not gotten enough work done.
But I said I would list the stuff I did different than the plans, and a few things have been done.

I installed a Robart 60 size retractable tailwheel, it may be not rated for a 70" plane, but I hope it will hold up. I love the looks of it.
It is fully removable. It's operated by a long dowel. The servo that works the retract air valve also works the tailgear.

The sero that does the pull-pull on the rudder also does the pull pull to steer the tailwheel.

The rudder is all in, I used my own Dubro hardwear as I was missing several bits from the kit hardwear. Also used Robat hinges and added alittle balsa to thevertical stab for the hinge pins.

Elevators are in,operated by a arrow shaft,used Dubro flat hinges.
I will just add two pics at a time.

Tom

Me410

Trying again with the pics.

Me410

Sorry, alittle blurry, heres a couple more.

Me410

again

Me410

I know, I need to read up on Iresizeit or something like that

Me410

Been awhile since I posted anything, but thought I would share some info on my motor mounting.

I am using a Saito 1204S and I ordered an Saito aluminum mount from Horizon.
Most of you know the benefits of an aluminum mount. They are very strong and keep a tight grip on vibration, and the extra wieght is usually needed up front too.
What is not so well known is that the mount also acts as a large heat sink, helping to draw heat off the motor.

So all well and good, except the threaded engine mount holes were too far forward! Good thing I have a friend in our club thats good at machining. He drilled and threaded the holes where I needed them.

Next problem was that mount almost did not fit that tiny firewall. Too big ! To have the spinner line up with the cowl I had to add ply plates inside the cowl to get some meat to mount the blind nuts to. As the fuse tapers toward the firewall, this was possible. The attached pics should show better what I am talking about.

As the engine is mounted inverted I also had to make a mount tray for the fuel tank to get it in the right position so that the center of the tank lines up with the carb

Tom

Can't seem to load the "resized" pics, try later

Me410

try again

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

I believe you will find that the full size Spitfire suffered from the same issue. Initally a blister was included on the top of the wing to allow room for the wheel and the gear doors were flush with the bottom wing skin. However, later versions of the Spit had the blister deleted and, instead, the gear doors were bulged. Thus your "fancy fiberglass work" may in fact be perfectly scale for your Spit!

Me410

Thanks for the interesting scale info Chad , I may yet try those scale doors. Although I have gottent alittle lazy with this plane. As you can see by the pics of the cowl, how much I cut out ! So much for scale.

I considered a remote glow so I would not have to cut so much cowl to allow the glow driver access, but then, this plane is going to be a regular Sunday flyer so goingmore functional.
I don't have a full cockpit, just the ESM bust, made a instrument panel, gun sight, partal side panes.

I could have it ready soon. may fly it before I make the cannons, gear doors etc.

Tom