Milkman

It took a lot of tinkering to get a reasonable fit on the gear doors, but they still do not fit totally flush. The fiberglass gear doors extend over the bottom of the wing. They are about 1/32 of an inch thick. Here's how I ended up with this result.

One of the keys is to use thin wheels. I used Dave Brown light wheels, 3.5". These are mounted on Robarts struts using the pin that comes with the struts. I reversed the pin so it goes through the wheel first, then through the strut. Then I soldered a cap on the pin to hold it in place. All this keeps the thickness of the strut and wheel to a minimum.

The gear doors are made out of epoxy and fiberglass and reinforced with 1/16 ply. I moulded the fiberglass over the curve of the lower wing, using two layers of 6 oz cloth. I used the 1/16 ply to reinforce the doors on the inside is such a way that the struts fit tight against the fiberglass to minimize the thickness of the strut, wheel and door combination. The ply does not extend to the edge of the doors, this allows for a thin layer of glass to overlap the wing at the edge of the wheel wells.

The doors are not scale size, but they are basically the right shape. They are attached to the struts using bolts tapped into the struts. When the gear it fitted, shim the attachment points to get the wheels as far into the wells as possible. When the gear is closed only the thickness of the fiberglass, about 1/32 of an inch thick overlaps onto the top of the wing.

Inside the wheel well I removed all the wing rib and added a 1/32 layer of balsa running at 90 degrees to the grain in the wing top. This reinforces the wheel well.

Finally the Robarts struts are about 1/2 too short to be scale length. I had some steel extensions made to entend the struts to a more scale length. These longer struts cause the gear to close further in towards the wing root, where the wing is thicker, allowing more room for struts.

If you use the spring struts that come with Spring Airs you could probably get a completely flush fit.

Sorry it isn't easier!

Good luck.