jofunk

Here are the pix. from my last post.

jofunk

Mr. Roth came over tonight to work on his rudder and tip tanks in between talking to Tim Redelman and drinking all of Mr. funs Blue Moon beer. He got the bulkheads in and the halves glued together. We cut a foam wedge and sheeted it in the vacuum bag. John will go home and trim it and cap it into the two segments and fairing he needs. If it's not right we'll tweak the size and cut another one. It's only about a ten minute job.

jofunk

My leading edge needed to be a little deeper so I glued on 1/8" more balsa. I gave it some planing, and a little sanding, and it looks pretty good. The plane saves creating a lot of dust.... I also started to box in the fuel tank area. when this is completed the area will get sealed with some resin to protect against leaks and spills.... My girlfriend ventured downstairs and commented that my plane looked a little rough. I said, "My plane is over here. That one is Mr. funs"..... I also installed the flap and aileron hinge covers. After selecting "only the finest"Smead file folders I cut them to width and glued them on the wing. The covers are very delicate now. Soon they will get feathered in with some light filler and then get glassed over to make them rigid. Once glassed only the worst of crashes will disturb them.

jofunk

I got some glass on the hinge covers and while I had some resin mixed up I glassed one side of the flaps and ailerons. The tools to spread the resin were a couple of playing cards, an acid brush, and a little segment of a mini roller on a 1/4-20 bolt handle. Only use the roller on slow curing resin or the roller will harden quickly being saturated with resin. Or work quickly. I wrapped the cloth all the way around the leading edge of the control surfaces. The control surfaces will stick a little to the stick but they will pop right off once the resin cures. It is better than having them glue themselves to the table. I should have propped them up on something plastic but I didn't have anything handy when I started going with the glass. The fuse makes a nice wing holder when glassing the wings. Soon I can glass the wings and 99% of the glass work will be done. Only some structural glass will be left to secure the hoz. stab and the tip tanks.

jofunk

Here are some pix.

jroth

My Feedback: (60)

Well, I am trying to keep up with John and Joe. I worked Saturday on fitting the wings to the fuselage, fitting the flaps and ailerons.

jofunk

Saturday Mr. Fun, Al Y. and Billy Jaws came over. Al helped Mr. Fun get another layer of glass on the entire top of his fuse. John also worked on his tip tank and has it pretty nice. He may pull a commercial mold off of the tank complete with panel lines and everything. Bill brought over his gremlin wing to to work on it a bit to get it ready for the up coming combat season. He should be working on his Panther but working on anything is better than nothing. John also started installing his flap servo pockets. He located them closer to the root of the wing and is contending with the aluminum plug in. It wasn't too bad. He only had to grind a half moon out of it to get the push rod to clear. I finished glassing my wing control surfaces and worked on boxing in around the fuel tank area.

jofunk

Earlier today I glassed my wings. I did the top and bottom in one shot. The fuse. did come in handy to hold the wings. Since I was cutting quite a few pieces of glass I put masking tape down on the glass along the trailing edge as I was cutting the pieces. It gave me more ability to handle and place one edge with out the weave starting to unravel. With the extra resin I rolled another coat on the control surfaces. With gloves on I rolled both sides at the same time and hung them up to dry. It looks like a different plane with the wings plugged in upside down.

jroth

My Feedback: (60)

I had the vertical fin on the plane and the rudders fitted to the fin and I was not happy with the shape of the leading edge of the built up fin, so we cut it off and we hot wire cut a new top fin and Joe sheeted it in his vacuum bag. Joe and I decided to cut a new rudder, but it was too wide at the top, so I used the old built up rudder top and I made a new lower rudder and center fairing. I have to fit the top rudder and install some sheeting and the hinge cover.

I think it will be alright.

jofunk

Vladimir stopped by with his foam cores and the skins he put together, so I started sheeting them in the vacuum bag. there is room for only one panel so it will take a few days to complete. With the left over resin from the sheeting process I fuel proofed my tank compartment floor. ( I hate to waste resin.) I had to steal my clamp table from under the nose of Mr. Funs fuse. so I could start working on my tip tanks. A little while with the # 120 belt and some body filler on the seam and it will be time to brush on a coat of 2k primer to see where we are.

Greg Wright

My Feedback: (6)

That's Tim Redelman.

jofunk

All fixed Greg.......... I put Vladimirs other wing in the bag. On my wing after glassing it there was only one seam line to sand. I also painted a coat of primer on the tip tanks. I will let them dry and see how they sand.

jofunk

I Installed the hatch pins on the back of my hatch. They fit really well. First I drilled two holes in the fuse. where the pins will plug in. Then I fitted the pins into the holes. The fit is snug but not tight. then I removed the pins and pushed them through some plastic wrap and reinstalled them. make sure they are tight through the plastic. This is what will keep you from gluing the hatch on. I then glued some balsa blocks in the hatch where the pins will be located. In that area I drilled two holes through the hatch and into the balsa blocks. The holes were much bigger than the pins. I dry fitted it once to check the fit. When I was happy with the fit I removed the hatch and filled the hatch holes and balsa blocks with glue. I then reinstalled the hatch on the fuse. when the glue dried I took the hatch off and that pulled the pins out of the fuse. and they were nicely glued into the hatch.

czirh

Nice work, congratulations. My favorite aircraft. This is my project:[link]http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1522634[/link] Panther..

Cem

czirh

two times, sorry..[]

Cem

jofunk

No problem Cem............ Nice work and good luck with your Panther.

Joe Felonk

jroth

My Feedback: (60)

Joe came over to help me glass the wings on Friday night and then I added a second layer of cloth on Saturday morning.

I laminated a sheet of poster board with cloth and resin to make a “composite� hinge cover for the rudder; I glued a ½ inch strip around the trailing edge of the rudder post.

I worked on the vertical fin and rudders; I glassed the vertical on both sides.

jroth

My Feedback: (60)

I spent some time working on the Tip Tanks that Vladimir made for us. I started with 40 grit paper to knock down the weave of the cloth, I shot some rattle can primer on the tanks, then I glazed the tanks with two part Bondo, then I knocked the Bondo down with 80 grit sand paper and I followed that up with some 120 grit sand paper. I brought my tanks to a body shop for some advice on high filling primers and Larry and Visser’s Collision Center offered to shoot a new primer on my tanks for me, I picked them up today and they look pretty good, but I need to sand them with 150 grit paper and fill any low spots. Larry misted black laquer paint over the tanks to use as a sanding guide coat so that I can identify the low spots easier.

jofunk

Here is a pic. of my hatch pins glued in. For the life of me I could not get Mr. Funs intakes to fit, even after hacking one down to a minimum size...... I started making my own plugs that will clear everything in my plane. I started out with some pink foam the size of the inlet, a Vee shape. Then I made a piece the shape I wanted to end up, a Dee shape. I placed them where the intake starts and where I wanted to end up respectively. I then connected them with two more Vees and one more Dee. If I don't change the shape of the first v or last d and fill the rest in I should have an intake that fits right in. They will not converge in the center of the plane. but they will smoothly get air into the fuse. I will need to fill them out as much a possible because the narrowest point will be the most amount of air they let pass.

N419BH

The spot where the V and D shapes meet is gonna be your choke point. I think you're going to want to make the inside of the intake a good deal deeper in that area.

jofunk

The last few things I could glass were the wing roots and the tail above the exhaust. Everything else I need to do involves primer or body filler right now ,and I am not doing that in the house. So until the weather moderates I can work on the intakes. If they come to a standstill then it is time to break out the Hostetler 172. Here are some pix. of the intakes. The two areas where the blue marker is scribbled all over are the areas where I didn't want to change the shape. Although It looks like I can add a wedge of foam on the inside of the intake to add more area and it won't interfere with the fuel tank going all the way back closer to the CG..................I also sanded down the tip tanks. One more coat of primer should finish them.

jofunk

I took my intake plugs over to the club gremlin build to sand on them. They wouldn't let me because they were fiber glassing. So much for converting a few of them to jet pilots. Joe C. did take a look at them for a minute. I got the shape to where I wanted them but forgot about the splitter plates. They will change the size of the intake. I made the splitter plates out of balsa and glued them on to the fuse. I put masking tape on the outside of them so they would"t crack along the grain as I bent them over the radius of the fuse. Once they were on I had to cut down the plugs to fit in the new intake size. The fuse. was happy sitting on its side as I worked on it. Just no quick moves around it. I also repaired and painted my Ziroli P 47 that I cracked up last summer. That's one less thing now to trip over in the basement.

jofunk

It was almost 60 degrees in Chicago land today so I dragged a bunch of Panther parts outside to brush on some primer. First I wiped them down with a damp cloth and stacked them to dry. Next came the primer. I clamped the wings to my work mate table and primed both sides in one shot. It was a little windy today so I put a cinder block across the legs so the wings wouldn't take off. I didn't prime the tips of the wings because I still need to attach the tip tanks. The same for the center of the hoz. stab. It needs to be glued into the fuse. When everything was dry to the touch I loaded it into the van. It was close to 80 degrees in there with the sun shining on it. After a few hours it all came back in the basement with no bad smell. I stacked the parts again inside to let more air circulate around them. I also glued some dowels into the intake plugs for some hand holds. Now I have plenty of work to keep me busy. Can anyone say"wet sand"?

AndyAndrews

What a great project. It's really cool seeing all of the older guys with the younger guys building together. That is a learning experience that money can't buy.

jofunk

All the stuff that was primed got sanded down. The 2 K primer sands really well. I did the hoz. stab, both elevators, wings, ailerons, flaps, and tip tanks without using a full sheet of sand paper. The paper just didn't load up. The paper failed when it started to tear. I opened everything that was glassed over on the control surfaces. On the flaps I painted the pockets with some black latex paint because they were bare wood. The intake plugs got a coat of gray latex paint. They will soon get glassed over. With everything sanded I can now glue the tip tanks on to the wing. It is just a matter of getting them lined up on three dimensions.