Well Chaps,

I only managed a few jobs yesterday, as I was working, so I did some of the canopy work in the office!! I started the rudder assembly and I cut a slot for the Rudder Pinch bolt. I have been using these poster pens, they work really well for painting the inside of the fuselage and canopy. They are water based, fade free and water resistance apparently time will tell. They cover really well and you can adjust the amount of paint applied by pressing the felt nibs in. They come in different sizes, the two I have used are 4mm and 6mm. I will paint the front Canopy hoop when I do the front Dash board cover. Hopefully I will be starting my Turbine install this weekend.

Have a good weekend.

H

Mick I thought you were the one hiding!! Any new toys?<br type="_moz" />

Yes, still slaveing on the Sea Fury and waiting for Ali to put some pressure on Anton for my new T33.

m

Hello all,
I am new to this forum and though I would add a few pictures of some mods I did to the Viper Jet that I did not see on here yet.

-Installed servo leads in the wing forward of front wing tube, this gets it away from the landing gear.
-Installed all turbine and radio components behind nose attachements so we could remove the nose easily.
-made custom servo mount for rudder and wing servos.


Thanks,
Brandon

G-DAY HANGERMAN
I cut a 15mm hole across inside the wing from the servo box towards the leading edge forward of the wing tube box allso a 20mm hole in the root rib forward of the wing tube hole then a mt of fine watch chain from BUNNINGS here, lowes over there,Then dropped it through the hole in the servo box hang onto one end hold the wing verticle and the chain will drop through hopefully, BEEN FISHING ,HEY hope you understand all that
REGARDS
JOHN

It sounds like we all came up with the same route for the wing servo wires to go. Fishing is one word for it, although the air was a bit more blue than that when we were doing it lol

I'm doing a bit more on mine tonight, so i'll take some pics.

Duncan

John,

I see what you mean!! I use a basic method similar to that but cheaper! I use cotton thread with a small nut! I have in the past used with mixed results again with cotton thread,one end has tied / glued a really small piece of cotton wool, use a hoover with a pipe and use the suction to draw it through. (Doing the housework?)


H

Talking of Pics...........no good keep taking them if you dont share them!
<br type="_moz" />

MATE I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN [:@]
But chain just drops through finds its own track real easy
REGARDS

Finished installing the receiver and Airpower valve, these two components makes the layout very simple!

Chaps,

Another session in the shed today saw me complete a few more items.

I attacked the Rudder assembly and finished it off today. The supports for the hinges were glued yesterday. I checked that the supports were inline with each and no one mount was higher or lower than the rest. I placed a bit of straight balsa over the mounts so I could see if any needed adjusting. they were all pretty good relative to each other and one final dry fit to check for movement and binding before the aeropoxy was applied.

I took Duncans advice and removed the the under carriage which did help, it also highlighted one of the pipes for the "down" system was only just hanging on! So maybe its a good idea anyway to take these things out and just check to be on the safe side.John I went fishing today and I used the the chain method with great success and no heart ache, worked really well for me. But finding the way through the formers was interesting as the guys have stated. Thanks to Mark Schro. for his Cad Cam artwork it helped! I have pulled the string through ready for all the servo leads and lighting cables. I cut one of the wings for the light assembley to be installed,<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; ">the "white cotton wool" in the wing in the last photo is infact glue... It cant be said that skymaster skimp on the glue in their construction! </span>I'm going to vist my local B&amp;Q tomorrow and ask for their "model lighting department".

Hope you all had a good weekend building or flying and hopefully hear of your endeavors.

H<br type="_moz" />

Brandon,

Question for you about building material.. Top row, far right picture..What is the black insulation material called, that you used around your air lines and servo wire? I've asked for it at a few auto parts stores, and they don't even know what I'm talking about.


Thanks,
Ron

It looks to me like braided cable wrap which I have used. It works great in .25, .5 & .75 dia. Use some shrink tubing on the ends to keep it neat.

http://cableorganizer.com/wire-management/

George

I managed to get a little bit done over the weekend, if the weather hadn't been so good for flying yesterday i'd of done a bit more

First off was to hysol the control horns into the wings. I masked off the area around the slits, pushed as much glue into the slit as possible and slid each horn into place. I removed the excess and used a wet finger to make the fillet, plumbers styley!

I bonded the rear former that holds the back of the tailpipe in place with hysol using a nozzle on the gun to give a noce smooth fillet (i had used some drops of cyano around the former to hold it in place while applying the hysol) Once dry i painted it, so it matches the rest of the inside of the model, that i had painted in grey primer last week.

Next was to mount the tailpipe to the bypass. This was done by drilling the stainless tabs on the pipe and after a measure drilling holes into the bypass, where i bonded some captive nuts. The alignment between the bypass and rear of the tailpipe was alot closer than i thought it would be and the only step out of line is between the bypass and the extension piece which joins it to the intake. Steve had told me that would be the case, so i'm no longer worried about it, although with a few washers i think i can get it bang on :af


just for henry i took some pics

HEY RON
If you get on to hobby city site
they have it in six or seven colours
REGARDS
JOHN

Duncan,
did you find any wood inside the surfaces (for the horns) ?
PS: nice touch with the "inside painting", looks very nice (I was too lazy to do that )

My Viper is finished. Been over it a dozen times checking everything, so no more excuses. The maiden is set for Wednesday, weather permitting.

Yep no problems with hard points so far, Ali cut the slots in the wings and said Anton has certainly added them accordingly

Hmm,
strange, I simply don't understand Skymaster, why is there so much difference between the individual models ?
The ones we have here (even some brand new ones) has not sufficient wood inside, far from !
The Ailerons has NONE inside, the Flaps has some, but far from enough

weird, have you got both servo output shafts facing the outside of the box tha same as in Brandons pic?

I dont understand either as all of the vipers that I have owned and flown ( 9 so far ) apart from prototype number mode 1 have had wood in the flying surfaces. There have been a couple where the wood in the rudder was positioned in a different place to where my builders aligned the control horn but that was an easy fix.
Dunc. For Christmas can you ask your wife to get you a decent camera please!
Regards Al

lol i would do, but i believe she has already organised my pressie I actually took my proper camera into the garage this morning to take the pics, but the batteries were flat[:@]

Yep,
servos positioned same way (and it's not just my Viper that has the issues, 3 more here in Denmark)

My elevators & rudder had no hard points.

Thats cause they know who the kits are going to and that your word - ie what you say on RCU or anywhere else - carries big weight. Don't kid yourself if you don't think so. There are so many things in the Chinese culture that are so different than Western. I've been travelling to Asia for business for over 10 years now and still don't have a clue.

I can also almost guarantee you that these aircraft are not built to any drawings or whatever. I have been in plants in Asia where they build entire machines with very little in terms of engineering drawings - copy once and repeat. Lots of room for "minor discrepancies" in manufacturing. Plus, most likely, the people assembling these airframes would have no idea why they are putting the wood pieces in place so no "logic" is used. Get used to it and just resign to the fact that you will need to carefully inspect your airframe for missing spars, hard points, formers, etc.

Now if they would just hurry up and ship my kit - they've had my money for 2 months now and I want to get building.[]

PaulD

Here are the mods that Celso De Santi, the person building my Viper is doing to the cockpits. The idea is to have the two tubs attached to the canopy, like you have on a Bandit ARF. So when you remove the canopy, the tubs come out together.

You can see that he has replaced the instrument panel cover with a thin sheet of 1/16 ply, and reinforced the front tub with balsa.