DaleCS

Back to building. Last few weeks have been hectic, including a quick trip to California. Wife and I dropped our son off in LA for his summer internship at Northrop-Grumman. He's been out to see the F-35 assembly plant, and will be helping unload the JW Space telescope from a C5-A Galaxy. He's pretty stoked, and the beach isn't bad, either!

Just saw the flap pictures, above - don't know if the pics would have changed my work plan, but they'll be helpful in finishing. I had a bad gap on the center wing trailing edge. Removed a section of the sheeting, replacing it with a wider section then tried to sand it to shape, to leave an acceptable gap between the TE and F7. Since F7 is on an angle and the center section isn't flat, this leads to a curve in the TE - more noticeable in other pictures.

Here, I've got sand paper on F7, trying to move it back and forth, sanding my TE piece. Ugly work. Next idea sprouted and I moved on.



Removed, again, a section of the top sheeting. This time, mounted wing, centered up wing tips, tightened wing bolts and taped some thin ply strips against F7 to form a gap space. Then, inserted a strip of sheeting - and bent it to follow the curve of the TE/F7 line. Tack it in place with some CA, some TIght-Bond fillets along the ribs, let it set and good to go!


Used the TE curve as a template to cut a curve into some balsa sheet for filling the gap and installed - so much easier that sanding mess I first tried.


Sheeting sanded flush with fuse side; nice, neat TE gap :


Now, 760aaron62's pictures show that I should fill that space between W2 and the fuse.

Ok - will do that. Means I could have been less picky about the TE gap inside the fuse - it's hidden, who cares? Well, it's done and I'm happy with my solution - I started with a difficult solution, developed and implemented a better solution, it looks good, I know its there, even if others never see it.

Next - moving onto fit some of the cockpit bits before completing fuse sheeting. Still need to sort the belly pan situation out, but wanted to work on something new, fun, rather than rework something that I could have done better in the first place. Live and learn. Also, I need to start getting servos for elevators, rudder, flaps, lightening solution - mounting this stuff and running wires.

DaleCS

Questions:

Servos: Due to costs, rethinking S-Bus, probably just go with standard servos. Can see the benefit I've putting S-Bus servos on elevators and flaps - reduced wires and ability to trim end points and sync pairs. Have never used S-Bus servos.

Q: Anyone use these on scale fighters? Are they worth the expense?

Lights: Looking to install several - have never installed lighting, not familiar with what's available, installation techniques. Looking to install:
- wing tips
- tail
- dorsal ID/Rec (2)
- landing
- formation

Electro-Dynamics is a mile away from where I work - will stop in there for recommendations.

Q: Anyone have good references on installation techniques and current source recommendations?

DaleCS

Dash Panel, left and right Side panels and Rear Wall, from Dynamic Balsa, fitted. Would have been much easier to fit the dash and rear wall to the formers, at the start of the project, before starting fuse assembly!

I ended up make paper templates, even using 'pencil transfers' (lay paper on parts, rub pencil over rivets, other identifying features). Then, cut out large sections where template had to fit around stringers, CF reinforcements. This allowed proper positioning of the template. Then, I taped in 'filler' pieces over the cut-out sections, filling the gaps up to the stringers and CF bits.

Lastly, removed templates, taped to parts and made my cuts. If you zoom in on the rear wall, you'll see I got a nice fit around the stringers, CF reinforcements, etc.

This Dynamic Balsa kit fits the 1/6 scale Ziroli very well - appears that all features that should be seen, will be seen - nothing covered up or cut-out to make fit.

What's with the blue tape? I've got some strips of 1/8" balsa held in place to simulate the sheeting - the rear wall rivets need be close to the sheeting's edge - not the former's edge. Once the rear wall is permanently mounted and sheeting installed, the plastic wall edge will get sanded flush to the sheeting.

Why haven't I installed the rest of the fuse sheeting, yet? Its been very handy to work inside the fuse, fitting bits, with the sheeting off. Still have a number of things to do inside the fuse, before sheeting goes on.

Next, I want to fit the floor - looks like I'll be able to mount it at scale height and have clearance to run the elevator rods underneath it. Then figure out means to mount the left and right side dash panels. Once all the bits are fitted, then its making them look good: paint, install gauges, levers, nobs, fitting gun sight, etc.

Stopped by Electro-Dynamics, earlier this week. They suggested that I email a 3-view to them, with wing and fuse length marked and position of lights marked. They will then figure out everything I need to make my lighting plan work.

Clarification on lights (forgot a few....):
- wing tip navigation (2, red and green)
- tail (1-white)
- dorsal navigation (2, blue and clear/white)
- pectoral ID/Recognition (3, red, blue, yellow)
- landing, left outer wing panel, leading edge (1-white)
- formation, outer wing panels, top, ahead of ailerons (2-bllue)

DaleCS

Back from a week in Germany. Business in Dusseldorf and Friedrichshafen. Cool, rainy, mostly cloudy, most of the trip - unusual for this time of year. No time for site-seeing, but did have a great dinner at Seehof on the shore of Bodensee (Lake Constance). And the best curry wurst I've had, to date is at the Lindner Congress Hotel in Dusseldorf. I'm told the best is at a special restaurant in Hamburg, but work travel hasn't gotten me that far north, yet.

Dash Panel Progress:

Instructions from Dynamic Balsa indicated that one should trim indicator opens leaving 1/16" lip. How to accomplish this, nice and neat?

I made a template from 1/16" ply. Once fitted, rough trimmed the excess plastic and then used a sanding block to take the lips down flush to the ply. Worked well!



Realized that I trimmed too much off the top - needs to be flush with fuse sheeting - I trimmed flush to former. Oops! No worries. I wanted to give the dash a ply backing, anyways - I didn't like the idea that the bottom half of the dash panel would hang below the former, unsupported. Had visions of vibration eventually cracking the thin plastic. Epoxied the dash panel to a piece of 1/16" ply, and filled in the missing bit at the top, that I had erroneously chopped off, with some scrap bits. After the epoxy set up, used some Testors white plastic putty to fill the gaps, sanded smooth - after painting, my mistake should be hidden from everyone!


My only reservation is that I can't find a picture of F6F dash with this layout - all pictures I can find show all instrument openings are circles. The Dynamic Balsa panel has two slots and two half-circles, all where full circles should appear.

Customize, make it right? Or just live with it, move on and get this bird done? Once installed, will be difficult to remove and upgrade, later.

Leaning toward making it right. Anyone have a picture from an actual F6F with these slot/half-circle cut-outs? If there's proof that some full-scale Hellcats used this cut-out pattern, I could be satisfied with leaving it as is.

mirce

On my first Ziroli F6F I used Dynamic Balsa cockpit, but on second one I made it myself...

http://www.nsmodelers.rs/warbirds/he...2011/juli-2011

http://www.nsmodelers.rs/warbirds/he...at/avgust-2011

Maybe help...

Best regards

Mirce

760aaron62

My Feedback: (7)

Here are a couple of cockpit photos from the F6F-5 hellcat from Yanks Air Museum, Chino CA that I took, I got the opportunity to sit in cockpit and a F6F-3 panel and a F6F-5N panel, hope this helps.

thanks Aaron

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

Nice pics


I find it odd that they would use Celsius on temp gauge..anyone care to elaborate on that??

Chad Veich

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The Naval Aviation Museum has a Hellcat cockpit panorama that is outstanding. Go to the link below and then scroll down to "Cockpit Panoramas" and then choose the Hellcat. This is a -3 version but I don't believe the -5 was much different.

http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/e.../virtual-tour/

I can provide kits for the instrument panel and gun sight if you're interested.

DaleCS

Chad,

That's a beautiful panel. How much for it? And, is it 1/6th scale?

I think the Dynamic Balsa gun sight will work - I've bought some additional bolts, stand-offs, and plan to make that quadrangle mounting plate, using the bolts and stand-offs to mount it to the dash. But please, provide the price for the gun site, too - if I can't make the DB sight work to my satisfaction, will follow-up with you. I like the label detail that you added, and the piping elbow at its base.

Found the cockpit panorama from the link you provided - very nice. Impressive how one can rotate the view in any direction, up/down, anywhere and the views are all seamless. Lots of details captured. Very helpful.

Thank you!

Dale

DaleCS

Chad, 760aaron662, mirce,

Thank you, all, for the responses. All helpful - will see what I can do with the info and pics provided; possibly take Chad up on his panel offer - I'm not that artistic and his panel could be a great time saver, allowing me to work on/improve other stuff. mirce, - your example pics are encouraging me to raise the bar a bit for myself, put a bit more in than I had planned.

Progress is even slower - its summer, yard work, and an old back injury have kept me away from the bench. Have found that riding my bike is an escape from the pain and I'm finally feeling normal again. Progress hasn't been zero but was so frustrating that I admit it was more fun taking the bike out for a ride...

So, the picture in the bottom right of the book shows the seat, with two horizontal bars above it. The Dynamic Balsa kit comes with one bar, the lower bar that is part of the seat support framework. I decided to make the second, upper bar, using brass tubing and some brass flat stock to form the angle brackets that the bar is mounted to. So, far, so good.

Of course, no pipe benders readily available for the diameter of brass required. Tried the 'fill it with water, freeze it then bend it' method: Fail. The ice just cracked. Perhaps it would have worked if both ends of the pipe were crimped and soldered shut with no air pockets for the ice to expand into after cracking. Then tried 'fill it with sand' method. Fail. The brass cracked, though various recommendations said the brass won't crack like aluminum, as its more ductile. Not this brass.

So, repeated the 'fill it with sand method' and applied a torch to it - finally, got a bend that didn't crack. Cut the pipe at the bends, filed flat and soldered to angle brackets bent and drilled from flat stock. The painted result is shown below, above the unpainted Dynamic Balsa bits.

I plan to attach the bar to the back wall using some pan head screws. Was going to paint them, too. but after seeing the panoramic view, can see that these bolts are unpainted in the original plane. The panoramic also shows that hex bolts are used to attach the bar - so, I'll switch from the pan heads, just use them temporarily until I get something proper.

I'm going to replicate the color difference shown in the book's pictures. Have read that there was no exact color requirement defined for Zinc Chromate Green, that its anti-corrosive properties were more important than its pigmentation, and that it was made by many manufacturers, each with different pigmentation (Everything You Need to Know About Zinc Chromate).

So, the plane in the picture below most likely utilizes zinc chromate coatings from different manufacturers. Something different from history to talk about, if anybody notices.

DaleCS

AC2,

I'm not finding anything definitive in my internet search. So, let's apply Occam's Razor - explanation with fewest assumptions is usually correct. Some Hellcat's served with the British. I have read that F8F's transferred to the French in Indo-China after the war had their gauges relabeled. Expect the same may have happened to the F6F's transferred to the British during the war.

What do you think? Plausible? Maybe someone can confirm.

Dale

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

Dale, that is what I thought too but the Cat is in a US museum on the West coast - Pacific Theater? Oh, well....

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

Dale,

btw,

I got a big jump on you lol:



you got me wanting to do the cockpit.... I'm waiting to see Chads answer on the dash.

At first I was going to close the cockpit but I have to trick it out...not sure how far I want to go yet. .....

This is the Micko/Anderson Hellcat. I sold my Ziroli glass fuse and snatched this one up...saving me a hellamount of work but I will need to add rivets still.

Your project is looking good buddy!!

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Hi gents, thanks for your interest in the cockpit items and sorry for the lack of response. I am currently layed up in a hospital bed recovering from hip replacement surgery. Give me a few days to get home and settled and I will get back with the requested info. Superb work on the hellcat Dale, looks great.

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

Ouch! Take care of yourself!!

DaleCS

AC2 - well, that's just cheating, and, I'm a bit envious!

DaleCS

AC2, well, another guess might be that it either served or was planned to serve in a metric unit, and has since been repainted in USN colors. Wikipedia reports the British flew F6F-5 off the HMS Indomitable, part of the British Pacific Fleet. Also, reported there is that the French used these in Indochina after the war. Uruguay flew these into the 1960's. My guess now is that someone found this bird in South America, bought it and brought it back for restoration.

Which museum is it at? Expect they would know, or we could put the question to the National Naval Aviation Museum - expect they know the serial number and could look up its history. I once had a question about a Hellcat on the Yorktown in Charleston - its got the -3 rear windows and paint scheme, -5 cowling and windscreen. The answer I got back was that officially, its a -5, according to its serial number and records. Probably started down the production line as a -3 just as the -5 parts started arriving - a 'transitional -5,' so to speak.

I see Hellcats listed in San Diego, Chino, Camarillo and Palm Springs.

-- Checking the Chino museum's site, there's no Hellcat there.
-- The Palm Springs Hellcat has no history posted.
-- The San Diego Hellcat never flew in combat, was always in US service, used in post-war testing.http://sandiegoairandspace.org/colle...-f6f-3-hellcat
-- On to CAF-SoCal (Camarillo) - if you were looking at Minsi III, then the story may be even simpler - its just a mixed bag of parts from anything and everything, including F4U brakes - https://www.cafsocal.com/our-aircraf...n-f6f-hellcat/ (the link is good, though they did misspell Grumman in the URL!) Wish the write-up included the history between the end of the war and how it ended up in Minnesota.

So, if it's Minsi III at CAF-SoCal - bag o' parts is the answer.

If its the Palm Springs Hellcat, or another Hellcat somewhere else that I've missed, let me know - expect we can put question to the museum where its at, or ask the National Naval Aviation Museum.

Thanks for asking question - I've had fun doing the research. Maybe someone else can add to this.

DaleCS

Chad - best to you on your recovery, fast and complete. Saw that your area had some damage from the 100-year monsoon - hope it missed you - last thing you need is property damage on top of your hip replacement!

AC2

My Feedback: (34)

Good info Dale!! Maybe one of these days I will have time to build up a plane. I just have too many other things to do right now but I sure miss being able to build from a wood kit.

I will have to modify mine from the 5 to the 3 version for my scheme. Still less time and work though.

Speaking of monsoons, my son sent me a video a couple weeks ago of one of the lightening shows from a Tucson monsoon. I lived there a few years and the amount of rain in insane!

mirce

Dale, products I sale are easy for applying. For example earlier I use solder iron for rivets, but with that technique every mistake is visible...

Chad, instrument panel and gun sight are great...

Regards

Mirce

fly4food18

My Feedback: (15)

Great build.

subscribed

760aaron62

My Feedback: (7)

The Yanks Air Museum at Chino's location has 2 F6F's a F6F-3 in the Restoration hanger and A F6F-5 on display.

thanks Aaron

DaleCS

Hi Chad - have you made it home? How's the new hip doing?

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Home and recuperating Dale, hip is doing very well. Not back out in the shop quite yet but will be in the next week or so. Shoot me an email off the board if you would like to talk about the Hellcat panel and/or gun sight.

[email protected]

DaleCS

Ok - progress is no faster....spending quite a bit of time on the mountain bike trails. The exercise is good for me - too much sitting at work, and a new bike has helped relieve a couple pain issues.

I contacted Chad and he's putting a dashboard and gun sight together for me. Though the DB gun sight is also a Mark VIII, Chad's has a second piece of glass on it, that is seen in few F6F pictures - need to do some my research, to find out what this piece does - perhaps a filter to reduce glare on sunny days? Should have the parts in a couple weeks. Will post pics right away.



In this picture, note the phenolic brackets at top and bottom, behind the seat. These were once one piece, from DB. I don't know, yet, if this is what DB intended, but I ended up cutting the one piece bracket into two. As one piece, it didn't look close enough to scale. Also, the larger one-piece bracket sat on top of rivets in the rear panel, when placing the bar at correct height. In some of the pics/links identified by others in this thread, I became aware of the bottom bracket. So, take the large piece, cut it and now I have top and bottom brackets that look a bit more scale.

Also, I intend to attach the lap belt anchors to these bottom brackets, as found in some on-line pics.

Next, I plan to drill/peg the top brackets - don't want to rely just on glue, given engine vibration and the pain that it will be to repair if it comes loose - if I just use glue and it comes loose, it will be much more difficult to peg it, later, Once this is done, I can glue up the seat, its frame work, paint the rear panel and floor.

Not shown, I've reinforced the joint where the rear panel and floor come together, from back/internal side, and then filled/smoothed the corner with a fillet of epoxy and micro balloons. Also, trimmed, sanded the rear panel, lower fuse portion for attaching stringers and sheeting, and cut clearances for the sliding canopy rail. Not big stuff, but necessary.