Tmoth4

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P.S.
I'm going to bring as much of the DH-2 as I can fit in the van to ODP and see what you guys think. It won't have landing gear but I can put it together on a table.

Jim

geezeraviation

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I wrap and solder them these days as it just looks better to me. I have had nicopress pull loose so the ones I still have are soldered. It was thier cable, crimps and tool so I assume it was all compatible. Some guys loop toe wire through an extra time but I dont like the looks myself.

Eindecker_pilot

Hi geezeraviation,

When you had one pull loose, was it by chance their 1/4 scale crimps or the 1/3 scale crimps? I thought their 1/4 scale crimping tool (at least the one they started selling about 4 years ago) had a hole that was too big to get any bite into the 1/4 scale crimp itself, so I'm not too surprised if that's the one you had pull out. Made my own smaller hole that seemed to do better. They are now shipping a different crimping tool with the 1/4 scale nicopress that puts a bigger bite into it. I'll post pictures to show what I mean when I get a chance.

Greg

geezeraviation

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Greg, yes it was 1/4 scale and probably long enough ago that it was the early tool. I still like the look of binding the eye with copper wire and then soldering. It's not difficult just one of those things that if you decide to do it that way, has to be done. Like so many things we do for ourselves as much as for any other reason.
Doc

Eindecker_pilot

"Like so many things we do for ourselves as much as for any other reason. "

Hi Doc, I completely agree; we all have a certain comfort level based on our own experiences & skills.

Steve Percifield

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we can hand launch it
sp

geezeraviation

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Sir Percy, that comment caused me to flash that picture of four or five guys launching a huge B52 sloper, it might have been a magazine cover (too many brain cells ago) but I dont recall it was a lot of years ago. But a vision of you and Paul, Berry, Joe etc.... running down the runway holding the DH 2 over your heads caused me to ROFLMAO.
Thanks for the chuckle
Doc

Eindecker_pilot

Paul could tow it up into the air with his 1/2 scale Fokker... Oops, did I say that out loud?
Greg

Horsepoweraviation

My Feedback: (50)

OR the HPA Camel will get the job done!

HPA

Eindecker_pilot

I wouldn't doubt it!

Tmoth4

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HPA,

How's the paint job on the Camel going? We're all eager to see the Russkie scheme on it!

Jim

Eindecker_pilot

I've got the horizontal stabilizer, the elevator halves, the vertical fin & the rudder framed up.

For the curves on the rudder & the horizontal stabilizer, I used 1/16" strips of balsa, laminated with CA. Made it pretty light & strong. On the stab, a critical feature there is how to attach the strut fittings. In my plane, I'm using the dubro steel straps as the fittings for the boom struts. To anchor it in, I spaced two 1/4" bass wood sticks roughly 1/8" apart, as you can see in the detail photo. That small slot will be packed with JB weld & the steel strap inserted in there with a thin plywood cap to fully enclose it on both sides. These photos show the fitting placed there for an example. I'll wait until the booms are oriented in place to do the final gluing of the fittings.

The rudder is all balsa, except for the middle horizontal stick, which is basswood to give it some rigidity. All the documents show what appear to be ribs showing through the fabric of the rudder, so I laiminated some 1/16" strips on each of the ribs of the rudder, this should stick out enough through the covering to achieve the same visual effect. The profile of the rudder on the Alan Morgan plan does not seem to match the profile views of the rudder in the DH2 In Action book, so I adjusted the curve to match the documentation more closely.

Starting to look at the fuselage nacelle now... I can tell now that I'm running out of the easy stuff to do on this build!
-Greg

LesUyeda

"The profile of the rudder on the Alan Morgan plan does not seem to match the profile views of the rudder in the DH2 In Action book,"

Welcome to "scale" modeling. NEVER use more than one source of information:-))))))))))))))))))) The others will always disagree in something.

Les

Eindecker_pilot

Yeah, it was easier when I didn't look too close.

Eindecker_pilot

I've started the fuselage nacelle sides. I've built up the joints that will support the bolts which will attach the lower wing center section to the fuselage nacelle. The sides are slotted to match the dihedral braces & mounting blocks of the wing's center section so it just slides up into the nacelle. Matching bolt blocks are glued into the bottom of the nacelle.

I ended up routing out the profile of the airfoil to form a pocket on each side of the nacelle. This gives an interference free fit & provides some room for covering to go on as well inside the joint.
-Greg

Eindecker_pilot

Okay, it's been a while since I've posted but progress has been happening! Also it got to be prime flying season with Ohio Dawn Patrol in July, then our club's giant scale fly-in & the Hoosier Dawn Patrol in August, so I certainly wasn't working on this on those weekends.

The fuselage nacelle is coming together as you can see from the pictures below. I wanted to try dual elevator servos. The DH-2 used external control horns at the front of the nacelle to drive pull-pull cables back to the elevators. The plans for this model had those two horns connected to a single axle that was itself driven by a single servo. To achieve dual elevator servos, it seemed simplest to mount them to the side walls, do away with the complexity (& failure modes) of an axle / pushrod arrangment. I purchased servo shaft extensions (with 6-32 hubs) from servocity.com. Those allow the control horn to be mounted externally & a direct drive back to the servo. The servos are mounted to hardwood blocks, epoxied to the inside walls of the nacelle with the hub & shaft extentions protruding through the walls.

The cabane struts are mounted to 1/4" thick aircraft plywood blocks, inset from the fuelsage side wall the proper distance These struts are simply cut from Proctor streamline wood struts & bolted to their mounting blocks with a pair of 2-56 socket head capscrews & blind nuts.

The engine will mount directly to the rear firewall, itself made out of 1/4" thick aircraft plywood, reinforeced with triangular hardwood gussets. The other formers are made out of 1/4" thick lite ply. I'm using an OS aluminum engine mount, so the firewall has been drilled for that & blind nuts installed to fit the bolts that came with the mount. The mount is designed by OS to fit their FS 155a 4-stroke glow engine. This engine uses a pump (which is something I've not used before on a glow engine). I plan to mount it inverted, but the mount is reversible if I need it. In this photo, you can see the plywood tray I made to hold the fuel tank betwen the firewall & the middle former. I'm going with a 16oz Hayes tank.

Next step will be to start laying out cable routing & finalize servo location for the rudder. Also next up will be the creation of the fiberglass nose cap.

-Greg

R/C Art

My Feedback: (38)

Hey Greg

How's it going? We need to see the foam plug for the figerglass nose and the actual finished product........you're still working on it, right? Or did you lay down on the project like I layed down on mine?

Just poking to see if you're still awake. I actually got my DH2 project back out today - I feel like I haven't ever seen it before! I sure don't know how Jim works on 2 or 3 planes at the same time and keeps up with them all. I forgot most everything I thought I knew about mine and don't have a clue what I need to do next or for that matter what I did last! So I got the plans layed out and will try to figure out where I was when the lights went out........

Later
Art

Eindecker_pilot

Hi Art!

It's going pretty good. I've actually been working steadily on my fiberglass nose cap & doing some of the more tedious hardware installation in the fuselage (receiver mounting, servos, pull-pull wire tubes, switches, hatches). It's coming along steady but slow. On the nose cap, I do a layer & let it cure, then rotate the piece around & do another section. For the handling of the nosecap during fiberglass application, I'm using a clamp that can be rotated around 360 degrees on a ball/socket joint. Let's me position the piece so that the fiberglass doesn't slide off when applying epoxy, not to mention fully utilize gravity to let it lay down evenly as it cures.

I've actually put on a total of two complete layers of fiberglass all over & now I'm ready to put a thick final coat of epoxy (thickened with silica powder). That should give me a decent layer to sand into a smooth finish. I think I will do that before I dissolve the blue foam mold. I'm using West System epoxy & fiberglass & filler; it's worked really well for me so far.

Here's the current state of the fuselage...

best regards,
Greg

Eindecker_pilot

Fiberglass nose cap update: it's nearly done!.... well, nearly ready to come off the mold & go on the plane!

For the two photos below, I took one to show you the nosecap with the top coat of thickened epoxy initially spread on & then a photo of the nose cap after a considerable amount of sanding on the epoxy top coat. I'm pretty pleased with how it looks & I think it will be really strong.

I've since done a 2nd round of epoxy top coat to fill in the residual low spots & divots and it's looking pretty sweet now.

-Greg

R/C Art

My Feedback: (38)

[:@] those pics remind me of how much I hate sanding!

Eindecker_pilot

Yeah and this method required a lot of sanding!

Eindecker_pilot

Nose cap is off the mold! Dissolved the blue foam with laquer thinner. The cap is sanded nice & smooth now. You can also see the wooden frame being epoxied to the front of the fuselage nacelle. That frame will provide a gluing surface to attach the nosecap. I'll probably use the same kind of thickener (silica) mixed in the with the epoxy to attach the nose cap to the wood frame.

Greg

Eindecker_pilot

Got quite a bit of work done over the Christmas vacation period....

- Made & installed strut fittings into the upper & lower wings
- Mounted the fiberglass nose cap to the fuselage. The nose cap came out really strong, it's about an 1/8" thick with the top coat of silica epoxy. Due to varing thickness of the top coat, it looks lumpier in this photo than it really is. The actual surface is sanded pretty smooth & even. There are a few bubble pits I still need to go back & fill in before it gets painted.
- started making the carbon fiber tailboom struts & their fittings. Carbon fiber tubes I got from McMaster-Carr, the fittings are Dubro threaded rod clevises with an aluminum bushing JB welded to the end. The bushing makes for a nice fit with the ID of the carbon fiber tube. The bushing itself is JB welded then to the carbon fiber tube.
- installed the tail boom strut fittings that go into the wing (elected to bolt on a fitting using 4-40 bolts & blind nuts, instead of filling the blind pocket with epoxy)
- mounted the cabane struts for a trial fitting to the upper wing. So far so good.

The challenge ahead is going to be connecting the tail boom struts to bridge the front nacelle & wings to the tail features in the back. I foresee a long night of fixturing & measuring!

-Greg

Lucky Dog

My Feedback: (1)

Looking like a for-real airplane Greg.

Missed you and Janie at the club banquet Sat. night. What happened? Did you glue your hand to work bench right after posting these?

Eindecker_pilot

Thanks Mike!

Glued my hand? Nah, just glued my pliers to the bench.

Since it was hard to find a babysitter, when we fiinally did.... Janie convinced me we needed to go out for a date night, so I said "yes ma'am!"

-Greg