Well today I put her on her feet. Well two of them.


The main landing gear is fastened to a ply plate with plastic landing gear straps. And then the ply plate is held with screws to the bottom of the plane. The landing gear plate is also access to the tank area.


I was completely bone headed When I closed up the back of the plane. I FORGOT THE STUPID TAIL WHEEL. I will have to cut open a small section for a mounting block and install a tail wheel.


I think I should have plenty of ground clearance.


Now I got to get back on the struts.


Ken

Belatedly working on the tail wheel. I made a light ply sandwich to hold the wire. The two halves are epoxied together. I will glue some balsa fill material to it so it can be glued to the sides. I will have to pick up a small wheel. Check my stash of spare stuff, and no joy. But I will get the mount and wire in there.


As soon as this assembly is installed I will get back to the struts.


Ken

Went back and did the tail wheel. Still have to get a usable tail wheel as this had the axle hole drilled out bit enough to drive a Mack truck through.


Worked on the struts last night. Now to get on and finish the cabane strut assembly.


Ken

Carved on the struts. I decided to remove the front fairing on them, and just leave the rear fairing.


So time to mount em up. Here she is all her bones.


Ken

Find the mistake.
?
?
?



Ken

Well???????
?
?
?

see it yet?

Ken

Hey I know ya can.


?


Meanwhile I am fixing it.


If some one does not spot it, I ain't saying. I will just re post theses shots and see if I have any takers.


Ken

I fixed it.


Game still on.








I just check the wing stiffness. They are way stiffer and stronger than I expected. The L.E.s seemed rather light and small. So each wing seemed week in torsion. But when they are joined at all three points they are actually very stiff torsionaly. So I am no longer concerned about structural integrity.




Ken

Ok I talked to John earlier and the cat (mistake?) is out of the bag.


So I will stop yanking you guys chain, although I sure did get a hoot out of it.

Take a good look at the outside struts. All the struts have fairings on them. Fairings go on the back side of the struts. Well a close look will reveal that I got my back and front confused on the outboard strut. I fared the front of the blasted thing. Sorry I did not get a picture of it and not on purpose. I was just so P.O.d that I immediately starting removing the offending wood from it. I did not even think of a picture till 2 days later. It shows up best in the second picture.


But thanks guys. I had some fun with it.

I am severely warped. I love to yank peoples chains just to get a reaction out of them.

Ken

Epoxying the cabanes to the fuse as I type. It will be a bit before I can touch as it is 30 minute epoxy.


I am not making any changes to the bird, but I am at that point where I can fully see it and see things I should have and will do different on another build. Some structural, some assembly. And I see some aesthetic things. Even longer wings would look better and lower the wing loading. That would have been a good thing to have done.


Got to make some wing tips yet.


Ken

Ken the lines I must admit are growing on me and from an esthetic point of view she is looking good.

John

Well thanks John. That means a lot coming from you.

Ken

I have not done much work on this plane of late, so there has not been any thing new to report.

I have been in a season of uncertainty of late. I am facing at least two more surgeies. One on my neck (spine). Another on my right hand. Can't use it very much with out pain, and for a long time after.
Been unable to work. Constant pain. Have two lawyers to handle two different matters, SS disability and the car wreck.

We are moving out of the apartment by the end of the month. We have a place local to go. That is a real blessing as my doctors and surgeons are here.

So any way that is why no work on the plane.

But yesterday I was just going stir crazy. I just had to work on the plane or something. So plane it was.

I could not live with the foam wing tips I had made. So I cut some new ones out of balsa. They are 1.75" long. That pushes the wing span out to 39.5". Gives me 533 square inches of wing area.

The tips will be milled out hollow with a ball mill after being rounded over. Got to as they are rather heavy at this point.

I will try to get more work done on the plane. But we are starting to pack. Most of our stuff will go into storage. But where we will be staying for a while there is a garage, so my tools and at least some of my planes will go there, so I will be able to work there.

We are blessed that the Lord has provided us a roof.

Ken

Nice work on roughing the tip blocks, should be nice once hollowed, installed, sanded, sealed. The Lord is looking out for you.

Thanks George. Band saw and new paper on the sander made it easy. Old paper came off easy and the little that was stubborn yielded to a propane touch. Yelp I was lazy. The table realigned dead square first try. Never had that happen before.
That made it all easy and fast. Got er done before the rain came. I use those tools on the patio.

Ken

Took a break from the little bit of pack I can do (moving).


Worked on the wing tips, making them lighter by hollowing them out.


I not about to dig them out even with a ball mill in my Dremel. So I bored them out. I used the chucks from when I rough cut the tip blocks out to help the tips vertical and avoid pressure in one spot when clamped up in my drill vice.


I then chucked a Fostner style drill bit up in my drill press. I set the depth stop lock to leave me about 3/4" from the end. I then drilled a series of close spaced holes.


There is plenty of non-drilled stock at the end to carve it round. Then I will smooth out the inside a bit, and take the inside closer to the end of the tips.


It is already a heck of a lot lighter.


Ken

Has not been much to report back on.


This last week between pack and out right lazy, I have been working to salvage another plane that I pulled out of a friends garage he has in the country. It is the sole building on the property and so not in good repair. I had and still have a bunch of stuff stored out there. I had some planes and wings stored there. Well We needed to get some things out and so I took a look at my planes and decided they had to come out and come out now. The weather was getting to them, and critters. Mud Dobbers had used them to build mud nest in, and mice also. I am surprised I have not encountered in rattle snakes or black widows. I know they are there.


The plane I valued the most out there was in by far the worse shape, a Great Lakes T2A. Mice had nested in the aft belly and it was rotted. I thought the tail might just fall or snap off moving it. And knew it could not survive a move to a new storage. So I decided to clean all the planes up and upon George's (ghostler) suggestion I sprayed the GT 2A fuse with a 50 50 bleach water solution to guard against rodent born diseases. ?? Hantavirus ??


So between packing I have been busy trying to get the fuse strong enough to safely move. Only the top two braces were intact, spruce and maybe 3 upright braces.


Long story short I restored all the aft structure and removed the stab that was just hanging. So now the plane is safe to move and store till I can work on it later.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/gold...l#post11760811


photobucket http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/ke...t%20Lakes%20Tr...


So for now all building on anything is halted. This weekend we move. Then in 2 weeks neck surgery.


So now I start cleaning up and packing up my build room. Packing in this case is a bit of an euphemism. Just put tools and supplies away.


Only going a mile so so things can ride with out packing or anything.


I will be back. Hoping soon. Not sure of or if I will have building accommodations at our temp residence.


We have been invited to move in with another family till I am back on my feet and start getting a disability check allowing us to be back on our on.


If I can get anything done I will report back.


Here are some pics of the GL. It is a 68" bi plane


Ken

Mostly moved. My building stuff is both here with us, power tools desk. But a lot is in storage, but that is only a mile away and those things are in the front.
I will be able to build here in a while.


Ken

I finished my move. All I have to do is turn in the keys. We have to organize things where we are but we can take our time, as long as we get that done before I am out of service in two weeks (slice and dice). I want to organize a build station a bit so I can get back to work on my birds. I do not like idle hands.


I had to re organize the storage unit a bit, to get the last in it. I was rather proud of my airplane storing solution. Got some things stacked in the vertical and then the kitchen chairs on top, upside down. I use the inverted legs to hold wings on their L.E.s . Saw horse on top of the table for some fuses that have their engines in the nose. I Don't know if it is true or not but I have read that storing a plane vertical on it engine is a bad thing, so I don't. Some got stored by a rope looped over the chair legs.


I made it work. But I think I about made myself not work.


I hate moving. When we get back on our feet, got to do it again.


I really am hoping I can do some building by next week or even better a little later this week. I need to build, even if just a little.


I have been trying to learn Draftsight. I want to design my next designs with it.
Were we are now staying, they have a High School aged son. He want's me to teach some about model planes. I showed a crude pencil (all of my designs are crude pencil) design I had. He down loaded AtuoDesk for students. In two days he had drawn a plane in 3D. Jeez. "OK kid you are gona teach me" is what I said to him. Jeez I have been getting my rear end kicked trying to learn CAD. I think he just handed it to me. JEEZ.


Ken

Good to see Ken that you are finally settled in. Yes, moving is inconvenient at least for me, no matter the situation. To celebrate, does that mean a new engine or model kit?

I wish hahaha

Got to get back on our feet $$ wise.
Then some modest amounts will go to getting into the air

Ken

Just thought I would let you all know I am almost ready to build again.


I still have to get power to the bench top tools. There is stuff in the drawers that needs to go to storage (last minute shove things wherever they will fit while moving panic) and things in storage to come over. Need some shelves. I recycle the shelf unit behind the toilet. I have spent a grand total of $6.37 using my military retiree card at home depot. And using whatever I had on hand.


I should be building in a day or two. I will keep improving the set up.


Oh the shelf unit is mounted to the back of the oak desk.


Ken

Next week I am having at least one disk replaced (I will know more Monday), Wednesday. Then I will be out of action.




I did get a bit of time in building. I am working on two at the same time. The RM bi-plane and the GL T2A.


The wing tips I had made I sanded to deep and went through in several spots. Big holes too.


So I made a new tip. Not hollow! I am going to use it as a plug to make a PoP (Plaster of Paris) female mold. Then I will make four identical (that was the other problem) fiber glass tips.


I am coating the tip with epoxy and sanding that down. I quess I should then hit it with some self etching primer and paint. I have read that hair spray works as good or better than PVA release for making the PoP mold. I have a test piece I will experiment on.


And I was using my covering iron (but not for covering). Had it sitting on the plate I use for hot things while doing the gussets. Then POP! real loud right next to me. I jumped about a foot. Followed by a what the h*ll was that. Looked over to were the iron was and that plate had shattered. You can see in the pic how far pieces went on their on. My ear is still ringing a hour later. The plate was glass. I will have to find a piece of ceramic.


Thinking about it some more even ceramic is a bad choice. Uneven heating will cause that to shatter also. Shattered a $60 Lasagna pan that way. A wire trivet is what I need to get my mitts on.


Ken

omorrow (April 16) I go in to have C5, 6, and & fused in my neck. They will use as much of my bone matter as they can and the rest will be cadaver bone.
The hospital has a real good reputation well as the doctors and staff there. I have had severel friends here say it is more like a hotel stay vice your typical hospital stay.
I have a 7 am show time so they will start prep a little after that. I will be staying 1 night.


Sort of stops for a bit any plane building and longer to fly as I am not supposed to crank my head back beyond level.


Ken

Naw, just means you have to learn to fly VERY low.

Hey man, good luck with the "practicianers".