bassman

I guess this has turned into a building forum.. Here we go. I assembled the landing gear for the pup last night. It went really well. The key to it is making sure that the legs of the gear line up and that the metal "V"s have an angle that matches the legs.

First I attached the two pieces of the gear to the landing gear blocks to see how the ends lined up(pic 1). They were pretty far off.
I decided to use the front piece as the master. I took it and layed it on my surface plate to make sure it was flat(pic 2). Then I traced one side on the paper and flipped the gear aorund and checked the other angle to the first(Pic 3). I did this untill the wire was flat and both angles were the same.
I reattached the front wire. I then measured the distance between the ends of the front wire. I the preformed the same process on the back wire making sure that the ends endded up the same distance apart as the front.
Pictures for teh following in teh next post!
Then I put the back wire back on the plane and checked the alignment. I massaged the back wire until the ends aliged (pic 4).
I tapped the "V"s to the front wires and worked them until I had a strees free alignment of all the parts (Pic 5).
With all the parts in place including the axle (the end of the legs trap the axle in place) I started wrapping the back wire and the back leg of the "V" with pre tinned wire (radio shack). I Used a piece long enough to continue the warp form the back leg around the axle and up the front leg (pic 6).
After it was all wrapped I removed the gear and checked that it layed back into the fuselage and wing slots correctly and didn't have to streess it to get it to fit.
I used a propance torch and regular solder to lock the whole thing together.

The whole porcess only took a couple of hours.

Bassman