fytrjok

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks brad.

I'm wondering what is supposed to keep the lower axle assembly attached to the ram (sliding tube). The spring pushes against this and eventually pushed it out. I'm wondering if somehow pinning the ram to the axle assy. would work, or maybe just a little glue of some sort?

transatlanticflight

For what it is worth I own a yellow spit and a p40...The springs in the p40 gear have two different compression stages. The first 3/4 of the travel is easy and for the last 1/4 there is a second, stiffer compression spring that prevents bottoming out on tough landings. The p40 is a more recent offering than the Spit and may have benefitted from the trials and tribulations of earlier models like the Spit. I had some dialogue with Charles when I bought the two kits (since I picked them up personally from the warehouse). I seem to remember discussion about the challenge of single spring setups being either too much or too little compression and recoil.

I can't speak to the gear you have except to say that mine came with far more scale wheels with four wedge-shaped cut outs...not round holes, which leads me to believe you have an earlier version. The spit gear on my kit are somewhat stiffly sprung...which makes them less forgiving on taxi over a grass field but unlikely to bottom out in a tough landing. I'm guessing the early ones may have been lightly sprung favoring taxi performance but more prone to bottom out.

Though not an overtly rough landing, (better than most of mine), a close inspection of the slow mo in your video reveals the gear do completely bottom out, hard enough to deflect the entire strut rearwards from the mount. Then it appears the link pivot point snaps just like a skiers kneecap when he's hit a bad mogul, and on the rebound all hell breaks loose.

I have to defend Yellow aircraft here though because, as you point out, you acquired the gear second hand. I'm sure he would warrantee anything he sold to you...but the last guy might have had the same experience, bought the newer gear, and let you acquire his problem. I would say buy another set of the newer Yellow Spit gear or get a set of Sierra gear...no complaints about those except $$.

Rick

Peter_OZ

My Feedback: (1)

here in Oz Custom retracts offer oil damped oleos - gets rid of the recoil effect

fytrjok

My Feedback: (2)

Rick,

I appreciate your comments and observations. I do want to clarify the fact that these were not second-hand gear. They were purchased brand new several years ago. I also want to make it clear that I'm not after Yellow to replace anything under "warranty". My purpose for posting concerns about these gear is intended only to garner response on what the problem might be, alert others to my experiences and possibly learn what steps I might take to solve it before I order a new strut. The lack of any positive connection between the axle assembly and the ram is I think, a legitimate concern and I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced the same failure and how they solved it. Other than that, I'm happy with everything else about the gear. By the way, since you appear to have a more recent version of the Yellow gear, how is the axle assy. and the ram joined or is it all one piece?

Brad330l

My Feedback: (1)

Yes I was the one who got my gear second hand off Leo and they are fine.

Brad

transatlanticflight

I'll take a closer look when I have a minute and report back.

transatlanticflight

Peter, who's selling those?

ljsoarinson

My Feedback: (45)

Hi all,

I have a war weary YA Spitfire that I am reconditioning. This thread has been a real help.

I would like to check the balance on the spinner/backplate assembly but am not sure how to do that. I have a Robart balancer that will work with a spinner that has a hole through the center but the YA spinner has none.

Would someone please post a photo and/or description of how you've done it?

Thanks!

Larry

Brad330l

My Feedback: (1)

Hi Larry,
I am sure your Robart can be set up like my DuBro one so I'll explain how I did mine.

First off, set the balancer up in the cantilever position so the heavy back plate will 'hang' out one end.
Now with the balancer shaft you will need to set up the tapers so that one of them is flat on the back or front of the back plate and the other pocks through the shaft collet in the center of your backplate.
I used a small wheel collet to tighten this all together as the fuel tubing did not cope with the weight of the spinner cone when I put this on.

So now, balance back plate. Occasionally twist the whole assembly on the balance shaft and retighten to check if there is any error like a bend shaft etc.

When back plate is done, screw cone in place and add little bits of weight to the out side until balanced. I used 'Blutak' stuff for putting posters on your wall and then marked the position and on the inside glued 30 minute epoxy thickened with powder to replace the temporary stuff. I added what I thought was a tiny bit more weight like this and when dry rechecked the balance and filed away some weight until rebalanced.
This did take a while but I got the balance very darn close. My problem is an out of whack spinner cone that wobbles a bit at full power. Still trying to get around to fixing that.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here goes. Ilistrated with my to-be balanced ESM 109 spinner.

Cheers,

Brad

Brad330l

My Feedback: (1)

Here you go mate.

http://www.customretracts.com.au/

Cheers,

Brad

ljsoarinson

My Feedback: (45)

Thanks Brad, great description and illustration. I had not thought of reversing one cone or using the wheel collars.

Is anyone using flat head socket cap screws for fastening the spinner cone to the back plate? This would give a cleaner look than pan heads, etc. Of course locktite would be essential, just curious if there might be any issues.

Brad330l

My Feedback: (1)

My 'dome' head 3mm screws are not that obtrusive and hold on well. I have not loctited them at all and have had no problems with them getting loose even with the vibration I have been experiencing.
Once every thing is running well I will loctite but at the moment I am taking things apart too often and checking things regularly.

Cheers,

Brad

lbscottsdale

I am using the same screws as Brad with absolutely no problems during the run-in period. (At least two gallons of gas!!!) In fact I don't think I will loctite them when the Spit is finished. make sure you place scewholes in the spinner close as feasible underneath the prop blades. Otherwise the "tail" of the spinner The narrow wedge shape formed by cutting the prop slots will lift at high rpm.
Cheers

Len

lbscottsdale

Progress report:
Fuselage, wing and various bits now complete with undercoat/primer. Still a little woodgrain showing through which I have to fix. weather is turning cold now so I have to heat up the garage for an hour before doing any painting which slows things down. Used Warbird primer on wings and Rustoleum primer on fuse. Hopefully there wont be any problems when i put on the next layer of paint! Time will tell. Also included a shot of spinner painted "Sky" showing location of mounting holes vis-a-vis the prop cut outs. trying to order stencils from getstencils but so far no reply to my email. Probably because I told them that identical roundels had been ordered by "Brad" in Western Australia and they are still searching in their files!!!

Cheers for now

len

glazier808

My Feedback: (1)

Vickie just moved locations, but she'll get back to you...bump her another email.
(shes doing a couple of sets for me at the moment)
Looks great by the way!

Casey

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Len,

I used Warbird Colors on my Midwest Texan and have been very happy with the results. Because it is a water based paint with no solvents in it I think you could put it over pretty much anything without any compatability issues. Hope to meet you and see your finished Spit at some point.

Brad330l

My Feedback: (1)

Looking good Len!! Man if you have to warm the shed for an hour before painting then I would rather put up with the heat. I will have to check 'Maps' to see where you live. You must be at some altitude above sea level ay?
I hope you are enjoying yourself and also have better luck with your spinner compared to me. I almost have mine sorted but still get a fair bit of vibration at full noise.

Keep plugg'n, cheers,

Brad

lbscottsdale

Chad,
We met at the Sun Valley Fliers club at a meet a couple of years ago. You were very helpful. On that particular day you didn't have your Spit and mine was going to be ready......... in September.. good job I didn't say what year!!
General question to the group.. What does your Spitfire wing weigh? Mine with two coats of paint still to go BUT including all sevos and landing gear is at 7lbs 14 oz. Not sure whether I've built a wing or a surfboard... had a lot of trouble "filling the weave"

Cheers

Len

lbscottsdale

Brad you are right. I am at 5000ft in our "Summer place" unfortunately it's becoming winter fast here... BUT it's where the Spit is and my main workshop and before I go down to sea level and a balmy 80F I have sworn to get most of the paint job done!!! My spinner "seemed" fine as i didn't have any excessive vibration. At leastI didn't think so BUT I bought a balancer capable of balancing the back plate etc which has been delivered to my Scottsdale house... so in a few days when I go down there I will balance it and find out whether i have anything to worry about.

Cheers

Len

Flyfast1

My Feedback: (1)

Hello Fellow Yellow Spitfire Lovers:

It's been a few months since I lost my Yellow spit to a wing failure in a dive. I didn't even want to look at the wreckage for the first month. If you have lost a plane, you know what I mean. But, now I have sorted it out and started a new build. Before we get to that, here are some pictures of the wreckage. As you can see, where the wing broke, the wing joiner and the supporting foam was simply ripped out of the wing. I am surprised at how short the wing joiners are, so I am thinking about doing the wing spar modification that is documented on this thread. The bad news is that everything was destroyed in the crash. All the servos, the engine, everything. The only thing that could be saved was the Sierra retracts, since they were retracted. Pretty bad.

-Ed B.

Flyfast1

My Feedback: (1)

So, now for some good news. I ordered a new Spitifire kit and it arrived on my door in one week. My wife called me at work to let me know that two large boxes had arrived. Thank you wife! Great service by Yellow.

-Ed

Flyfast1

My Feedback: (1)

So, where to begin? I decided that for this build I would like to add some features that I haven't done before. I am not as experienced a builder as many on this thread, but perhaps I can contribute something. First, I've always wanted to have a sliding canopy, operable from the transmitter. This requires cutting the canopy and frame. The frame on the Yellow spitfire is quite narrow, so I found a thin cut dremel blade at Lowes that is quite a bit thinner than the regular dremel cutting wheel. I taped the plastic canopy to the frame and cut through both the frame and canopy at the same time. It made a nice thin cut, removing very little material. Here are some pics of the thin cut dremel blade, the cut, separating the two halves and trial fitting the canopy on the fuselage. So far, so good. I am thinking about how to move the canopy. I am leaning towards a servo-actuated canopy instead of using an air valvue, to provide linear control, but I am not sure. More on that later after I experiment.

-Ed B.

Brad330l

My Feedback: (1)

Flyfast1, I am very sad for the loss of your Spitty but very happy you have another to build. Defiantly do the wing modifications and you will I am sure have no problems like your first one. I would like Yellow A/C to mod their kit as we all know it should be done.
Great start with the canopy, very neat cut.

I have been working on my spinner (slowly) and should finish it soon and fly soon. Got a bit of a sore back so everything has come to a halt.
Good luck with your build and post away.

Cheers,

Brad

Flyfast1

My Feedback: (1)

While I am thinking about how to setup the mechanism to move the canopy, I decided to start work on the wing. I have always wanted to have flaps with some rib detail, so I started on the flaps. I removed the foam from the flap wells to give me more space to add details to the flaps. I went ahead and made some ribs from 1/16" balsa sheet and added some aluminum tubing. I think the flaps on the full scale spitfire used a large tube mounted to the large end of the ribs to actuate the flaps. Here are some pictures of what I came up with. Note that when the foam is removed from the flap well, there are gaps on the side that I decided to cover with small triangles of 1/16" sheeting. Pretty cool I think, or as some say in California, "Kewl" LOL

-Ed B.

P.S. Now that I look at these pictures, I think I will replace the center rib that is too short. Just one more thing to fix, but I am happy with the way the flap looks overall.

Brad330l

My Feedback: (1)

Flyfast just be aware that the aluminium tube makes it hard to hinge the flap properly. I tried this but reverted back to wood to ease hinging and bonding of materials.
I wish I had removed all the foam from the flap well like you have done and added detail but in reality you cant see anything once the model is on the ground.

Good work mate,

Brad