RCPtero

Barry,

No, I didn't leave a gap at the top. I'll hold off on doing anything with them until I see what you do with the biscuit. It sounds interesting and I may very well copy yours.

--
Tom

Wolflord

Barry,
I sent you a pm on your exhaust stacks, did you get it? It was awhile ago.

Geoff

NCIS

Wolford,

No I didn't. But if you want some contact Kelvin at Keleo Creations.

Barry

NCIS

I finally finished notching and sanding the radius out of the TE of one side of the wing. It made my shop a mess with all the dust from the dremel and sanding. Here is how it came out. I feel like quitting and just tossing the whole thing in the trash. This kit has been a big pain in the BUTT!!! I think I'm going to order a simple kit and build it in a week.[>:]

Barry

Rocketman612

My Feedback: (85)

Barry,

Hang in there buddy. You have a nice build going. it's always darkest before the dawn. It took me days to get my flaps working well.

Pete

saramos

The results look really good. When I have to do two items, and I complete one, I realize that I am more than half way there because I then know the road ahead. For some people, keeping at pushing through the rough spots is the best approach. For others, taking a step back, then going forward is the best approach. Which ever way you go, in the end, you're going to have a really nice plane that others will admire, and you will be able to appreciate the work and be proud of.

Scott

RCPtero

Progress!! I now have the white and light blue paint on the fuse. Tomorrow night will be the navy blue, and then Sunday I'll do some touch up. Took me about two hours to tape and paper the thing tonight for ten minutes of painting and another fifteen of removing the tape and paper. Here's a couple of shots. Where it looks like overspray on the line between the white and lite blue is actually just glare from the flash. The line itself is straight and clean!!



--
Tom

SMUGator

Hi Barry,

I didn't see how you dealt with opening and closing your tailwheel doors. I have mine laid up and hinged and am messing with the actuation mech now. Did you decide to leave the doors off?

Tom

NCIS

Tom,

I decided to just forget about the tailwheel gear doors. This thing has taken me long enough and I have other projects I want to get to. I will save all that for the 1/4 scale Corsair where there is room to move around and weight won't be such a huge issue. This 1/8 scale is driving me nuts it's so small and there isn't enough room for anything. Plus the weight issue I have is another reason. I'm thinking of only having the main doors on for static appeal and then remove them when I fly the plane just for the weight loss. This is also why I dicontinued the idea of a sliding canopy. The exhaust sytem I bought from you weighs to darn much. It seems to be about a pound with everything there is to make it work. I hope my rubber hoses can handle the heat from the firewall to the stacks. I figured the most heat will be from the head to the Y-Part in the firewall. That is being worked on by Kelvin. He is trying to make something up for the Saito. When I bought it from you I had planned on a Magnum 1.20 for the plane. The thread difference is why I have to go back to Kelvin. Don't get me wrong, I love the exhaust. But it is taking up a lot of room in the front of the plane inside the firewall. I'm going to have to move my fuel tank back and I don't know where my receivers and batteries will go for the plane and the lighting system. The lighting systems receiver and battery will probably have to stay on the ground also for flight. But at least it will look pretty when it's on the ground. Hope your not having the same issues as I'm having.

Post a little more often, it's nice to hear from you,

Barry

NCIS

You Guy's are OK!!!

Thanks for the motivation to continue on with this build. I need a break and I am going to take one and go back to the fuselage. I need to do some painting to relax. I think I'll take on that cockpit I've been putting off. I also need to paint the white stripes in front of the canopy on the turtle deck. Here's my motivation for doing that. This is a Corsair being finished up in the UK.

Barry

RCPtero

Okay!! She's in full color now. She'll need a little bit of touch-up, but at least the hard masking is done.

As for the wing, I'm still fighting the flaps. Also have noticed that one of my hinges wants to twist in the hole as I raise and lower the flap. I believe that means the hole isn't aligned just right.



Barry,

Hang in there. You're giving me inspiration. Can't have you giving up on me!!! And besides, ya get through the flaps, the rest is a piece of cake!

--
Tom

NCIS

I finished up the wing except sanding the ailerons to their final shape and the flaps just need to be made to work smoothly. I need to patch the hole in the bottom of the left wing where I had to cut out to find the hinge blocks. Then cut out the other retract and I hope to glass it tomorrow. I'm happy that the wing is done except rigging the flaps to move smoothly and work on the gear doors. Plus some minor sanding of the ailerons.

Gibbs

NCIS

Instead of cutting out the other etract and glassing I just worked on shaping the ailerons and also started on my cockpit. I've got the big parts painted and now it's time to start paining all the little stuff.

Tom,

What happened to the pictures of the paint job. I'm looking forward to seeing that dark blue on it. Have you ordered all the graphics for yours yet? I'm doing mine just as the picture shows it except mine will have the 16 japanese flags on the fuselage in front of the number 29.

Gibbs

NCIS

Oops,

I didn't see that it did have the kill flags. Anyway thats it.

Barry

RCPtero

Gibs,

Check out post 756. That's with the blue on it last night.

Haven't really looked at much in the way of graphics yet. Expect I will do my own masks and spray them on.

--
Tom

NCIS

Tom,

I have only test fitted the flaps and hinged them. I haven't tried them to see if the hinges twist or not. I'll have to check into that. Sorry about the wanting to see the dark blue. I skipped right by your post and didn't even see it. Why did you paint the bottom of the stab light blue? I thought it was suppose to be dark blue. Anyway mine is so I'm not going to change it if I'm wrong. The cockpit is kinda tedious if you know what I mean. More tiny work.

Gibbs

RCPtero

Yes, the cockpit can be a bit tedious, but not as bad as the dang flaps!! However, I think I've figured out how to do the flaps. I'll let you know after I give it a shot.

As for the underside of the tail, I'm going based upon a photo I have of one in flight. Can't see the underside, but you can see the leading edge of horizontal stab, and it appears to be light from the centerline down. Also, looking at an electric ARF I have with that paint scheme, I suspect it really should be white. And, if you think about the camouflage aspects, either light blue, or white make sense. Looking up from below, it would blend in with the blue sky, or white clouds, and looking down from above it'll blend in with the dark blue ocean. Not certain that's why they did this scheme, but I suspect it played into it.

And agree with "not gonna change it if I'm wrong". Same thing here!!


--
Tom

NCIS

Tom,

I guess I'm going to have to change mine just because I'm so much of a prefectionist. Should I go light blue or white. You make the call. It seems as if either one would be right but the bottom of the wing is white in the center and light blue at the foling area out. I think I'll go for light blue. Darn this thing. At least it will give me something to do instead of the flaps. I'll wait and see what your up to before I continue on them. The ball is in your corner now. I painted the whole cockpit. Now I just need to cut things out and glue them together and then touch up. I opted to spray my olive drab instead of all the brush marks. Here it is so far.

Barry

RCPtero

Uhm, gee thanks for the ball, I guess.

Oh, and as for tedious, wait until you start putting all of the dials stickers in place. Now THAT was a major pain!! Might be easier to take their suggestion and drill out the dials, mount the sticker to a piece of thin ply and fasten it to the back of the panel.

My thoughts on the flaps were to tape the pieces into position on the wing, draw a couple of parallel lines straight out from the wing on each end between the center flap and the other two, then to slice straight down through that line. Effectively trimming off the ends of both flaps at each joint. Then rebuild using scrap stock. so that there is about a 1/16 or 1/32 inch gap between the two.
However, I've got mine so messed up right now that I think I'm going to restart the flaps from scratch. This will be somewhat tricky as I've already carved out the trailing edge of the wing, but I'll figure it out. Probably trace it onto some poster board and build from there.

So, that being said, I'll set the ball down for now and see where it is when I get back in town next week.

--

Tom

saramos

The method I used for my Spitfire instrument panel might work. It was made up of several layers. I started by scanning a set of instrument faces from an old Royal kit. I then cleaned up the artwork in a graphics package and created an image with all the instruments in the proper places and printed it out on photo paper. I then cut out the panel. Next, I cut out a piece of clear plastic that covered all the instruments. Next I cut a piece of styrene the shape of the panel and used hollow punches to punch out the holes for each instrument. I made the bezels by wrapping copper wire around round stock the same diameter of each hole and glued them into place. The screws were dots of glue and the swithches and knobs were bits cut from plastic stock and plastic toothpicks. The layers were put together for the final result. I think the result is much better than the panels included in the cockpit kits.

Scott

NCIS

saramos,

That looks really good but I'm not going to that extreme on this 1/8 scale model. I will just let my wife cut out the decals and let her put them in. She was working on the cockpit when I got up today anyway. I'm turning it over to her. I finished cutting out the retracts and put on some final putty. I'll sand it tomorrow and glass the top of the wing. I am having to re-cover the elevators because when I went to change the dark blue to light blue on the bottom the top that was masked off lost most of it's paint when the tape came off. I tried to wet sand it but sure enough through the fabric I went.

Gibbs

NCIS

I decided to glass the top of the wing today and the bottom tomorrow. I want to get this thing all painted with the exception of some control surfaces. I'm not going to glass them. I am just going to paint them with thinned Z-Poxy for a nice smooth surface to paint. I don't see any reason for glassing them. I will glass the middle flaps because they are built up and it will give them strenght but the rest are just solid balsa. I already covered the rudder with fabric and it's painted and you know the story on the elevators. Here is the wing.

Gibbs

RCPtero

Looks good, Gibbs. I've decided to rebuild my center flaps. I'm going to carve them out of solid balsa. Actually, 3/8" x 3" balsa sheet that I sliced up and glued together night before last three layers deep. I too have thought about just painting with epoxy to give a hard surface, but no need for the fiberglass.

Unfortunately, I'm off the project for the weekend, but will be back on it next week.

--
Tom

NCIS

I glassed the bottom of the wing and hope to get it sanded puttied and sandeded early tomorrow and then prime it. We will see what tomorrow brings. I also worked a little on fitting the cockpit and Pilot into the plane. It doesn't fit the way they say to cut it. I had to cutt a bunch more off than where the little dots were. It looks good but it is another time that TF dropped the ball. I also had to do some more surgery on Lt. Doc Miller to get him to fit. First off I had to cut the seat pedistal out of the floor of the cockpit and then cut another 1/4" off Doc's waist. Other than that he fits nicely. I still have to cut out all the decals and put them in the cockpit. I used a T-Pin for the fire extinguiser for the handle and trigger. You can't see it with Doc in there but I enclosed one with him out of the plane.Here are some pic's.

Gibbs

RCPtero

Gibbs,

Looking good! The T-Pin fire extinguisher handle is a great idea! I'm probably not going to have a pilot in mine, so it will show.

--
Tom