RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

I love to sit down and hear stories from Vets. It's so very sad that their are not many left from WWII http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f...sappointed.gif. Thanks for the story Raptureboy....

I can't tell you how much fun it has been building this plane... More progress on the stabilizer, I added the hinge blocking and front bracing which has made this very strong. I carried the laminations on the elevator past where the plans have you stop, I prefer it this way, it eliminates a glue joint ( visible on last photo) . One half of the elevator has been completed as well. Last major part of the build that is left is the rudder and fin, then all the majorbuilding will havebeen completed.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Superb!

Hopefully I can get back to building my Nieuport, you are making me jealous doing all that fine woodworking!

SunDevilPilot<br type="_moz" />

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

That looks darn good there VJ!  Darn good!  Hey, you better hurry though if you want to finish this before I finish my Cub.  :)  NOT REALLY!  I have faith that you will finish way before me.

Keep 'em coming!
David

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Finished the right half of the elevator tonight. tomorrow I will drill the holes for the hinges and start to cut out the fuselage for the hoizontal stab. In the photo are there one or two elevator halves?If you guessed two you were right. they came out spot on.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

And we would expect nothing less.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

LOL, And now for my next trick watch me pull a rabbit out of......

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Started on the hinging, but didn't get it all finished but you can see what it will look like. I decided to use 1/8" steel pin hinges made by Robart, these were the middle sized hinges part # 308 which have 15 in a package.

I first placed my pencil marks on both the stabilizer and elevators indicating where I wanted my hinges to go. I debated whether to use the drill press or to drill them by hand with a Robart drill guide. Because the parts are tapered it would have required me to spend time making a jig to hold the pieces in their proper position to drill using the drill press, confident that I could perform the same by hand I opted for for less work ( I'm tired this evening). The drilling process was done by turninga 1/8"drill bit by hand, I felt I had better control this way. The holes on the ends left no room for error because of the taper.In the end all went well. I hand recessed the hinges by filing the knuckle end to get a nice tight hinge line.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Nice work on the hinges. I find the Robart drill jig to be an invaluable tool.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Couldn't agree with you more Tom.http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f.../thumbs_up.gif Once you use these types of hinges you'll never go back to CA type hinges again....

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Okay, I've got a question on the Robart hinges.  How do you do the final insert at the knuckle?  Mine don't look quite so clean.  They really do look impressive!  Maybe it's just your craftsmanship?

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

The round recessed grooves were filed out in this case by hand David using a small deep socket out of my 1/4 inch drive set with some sandpaper attatched to it. I did it this way because of the taper in the parts, otherwise I would have done them on the drill press using the very small Dremel drum sander in the chuck. I have a depth stop to get consistant cutouts each time.( Check out the photos in post #230 ) The very top portion of thehinge if you look carefully is tapered and Iuse atapered reamerturned by hand to get the perfect fit. I can post a pic of the reamer I use if you would like...</p>

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Here are the completed photos of the stabilizer. I have also included a photo ofthe reamer and socket that I used to fit the hinges. I am now going to fab the wire that will attatch the elevator halves together. I am not using the one supplied in the kit.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Ah, I see.  Very nice.  Beats trying to use an Xacto knife and pick away at it! 

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Trying to improve on the original , I set out to do just that withthe linkage that connects the elevator halves together. I went to my LHS this morningand purchased some 1/8" square brass tubing, 1/4" x 1/16" brass flat stock and 3/32" music wire.Talking to my friend Joewho is a <u>very</u> talented modeler, he gave me some welcomed advice on howto best do the job. Thanks Joe!

I cut the sqaure tubing to fit the space between the elevator halves and then bent up the music wire as per the plans shown, making sure I slid the tubing over the wire <u>before</u> the last bend was made. I then took the flat stock and made the contol horn, I keyed the flat stock to thesquare stock so it wouldn't rotate on me in flight with a small file. Next was the soldering of the components, you can see how it turned out. Now off to fit the assembly to the elevators!

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Sweet!  Nice soldering job, VJ.  I wonder if I could go back and rebuild the elevators on my Cub to look a bit more scale, at least when viewed from after completion?  NOT!!!  ;)

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Thanks David. Herearesomeshots of it fitted.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

I'm a bit confused here.

What does the brass tube do? What would happen if you did not have it there?

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

The brass tube gets soldered to the piano wire for more contact surface. Then the brass horn solder's to the tube, which is a stronger joint than soldered to the wire.
If that is not VJ's reason, it's at least mine. And he may correct me when he get's back. But that's how I do it.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f.../thumbs_up.gifRoberts right on the money. If you look at the opening in the control horn I made a square hole,which fits tightly over the square tube. It can't turn/twist, the solder is basically preventing it from moving side to side.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Makes sense. However, does the square shape not interfere with smooth operation, which is rotational motion against the stab?

I've alwasy silver soldered the horns to the wire and never had a failure yet, no matter how brutal I've been with my aerobatics. You never know though when a failure is about to occur. Knock on wood and all that.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

do335a- the square tubing doesn't interfere at all, it is recessed in the stabs leading edge. Remember this is 1/8" square tubing... alsothe slighthinge gap thatI have is also additional insurance that they will never touch.

The way I looked at this from the start was could I make this assembly stronger/better that what the kit came with. The original had the same design only the horn was made from nylonwith the steel 3/32" wire running through it. I have to believe that this assembly of parts will have additional strength from stock, not to mention the nylon horn was already 41 years old and may have gotten brittle over this time span! I will take a close up photo for you showing this area later this evening...http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f.../msn/49_49.gif

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

It is Sunday and in order to get the Sunday bonus edition in I had to get up early and get some work done before I go to the flying field.

I fit the stab to the fuse, it required some careful measurements and layout. Before I took knife to fuse, measurements were checked at least a half dozen times! The fit came out well. I will check the incidence later this evening.

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Onlytook one picture tonight, my battery needs charging... I glued one of theupper 1/8" fuselage sheeting. Would have been much easier doing it in two layers of 1/16" sheeting. Bending 1/8" is always a bit of a struggle especially around tight curves evenif wet. I also made the final jig for the fin and rudder as you can see. Tomorrow I'll get the laminations into the jig. I'm trying to keep the tail portion of the fuse sheeting off as I want to get the tubes/guides in place for the pull-pull system and the elevator. I can tell you it's real tight in the back of this plane, not much room!

When it's late and your dead dog tired you make mistakes. Looking at this photo this morning I noticed that I trimmed the fin/rudder jig at the wrong place. If you look at the jig if I laminated it the way it isI would have ended up with parts that were oversized. Glad I spotted it before I did any laminating! I must be getting old...http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f.../sad_smile.gif

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Better to catch it now than later. Just ran across this for any of you fellows looking for this kit. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1772886

RE: Sig Ryan STA
 

Well it's time to sheet the tail section of the fuse and I've had my insides tell me it wasn't going to be easy to do especially with 1/8" sheeting around atight radiusand guess what.....I was right. I tried wetting the sheet and soaking the sheet, every time SNAP!!!! So I'm officially waving the white flag and tomorrow I'm going to buy some 1/16" sheeting and cover it the way it should have been done in the first place.http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f.../msn/48_48.gifposting some photos of the sheeting I was able to accomplish.