fliegertom

I can understand, what you are going through. There are many resons to stop building. Sometimes we just need a break.

abufletcher

Sometimes what you need is a fresh start.

geezeraviation

My Feedback: (3)

Yeah, after all it's a hobby. You're supposed to be having fun here.
Doc

abufletcher

Here's where I've gotten to with this build.

abufletcher

I've cleaned the entire shop and looked high and low, but there's no sign of the 90-size machine screws I order months ago and which I used on the tail skid and which I needed on the hinges. So that's $50 for nothing. I know I put them someplace "special." Just one of many frustrations.

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

Your build looks great Abu, (if it is any consolation). Sometimes it is best to just go buy some more if you can. Amazing how much time we can waste just looking for stuff sometimes. Organization is a constant struggle for me as I have moved more times than I can count.
I definately want to build one of these one day and look forward to seeing yours fly. Keep it up.

abufletcher

Yeah, I think I'm just going to have to order more. Which is fine because I'm going to have to redo all the strap hinges. The brass that I used for the "strap" is just too thin and doesn't hold the hinge in place. Which, of course means I'm going to have to tear apart the one elevator I did build to remove the hinges. And, of course, I can't buy brass sheet locally, so I'll have to order some of that too. I guess you could say that the only thing I really accomplished in the last week was to discover all the problems I still have to deal with. []

Well, at least the shop's clean.

TFF

Until you buy some more, you will not find the ones you have. Thats how I find stuff; works every time.

abufletcher

Found them!!! And a whole box of other RC goodies! Maybe just the threat of me digging out the catalog was sufficient this time for the parts to reveal themselves. Slowly, things are coming back together. But now I'm going out to fly.

abufletcher

Yeah, that's what I needed! A nice day at the field! Man does not live by building alone. I did three flights with my Puppeteer, had some nice chats with clubmates, and got a nice light rosy sunburn. Oh, and got a CDROM with hi-res photos of my Snipe in flight from the editor of RC Technique.

And I ordered a Seagull Spacewalker that I'll superficially bash into an Avia BH-5. Should be fun. And I've been needing some light-hearted fun.

abufletcher

Strap hinge - Mark III. This time I used 0.4mm brass for the strap (before it was 0.1mm). I also embedded the hardwood blocks in the stab TE and drilled for two 0-80 machine screws on each strap. I needed to make a new fixture for cutting and bending the straps.

fliegertom

Hey Abu....that`s a fantastik Work!
Vieleicht sätze ich das auch mal so um.....in ein paar Jahren....bei der DH2
Ich glaube, unsere Diagnose lautet......." Winterdepession!

abufletcher

With my renewed vigor from a day of flying, I pressed on with the remaining hinges and tail feathers. Note the different hinge used on the bottom of the rudder. This hinge is epoxied into the tail post and the whole unit slides in from the top. To remove either the rudder or the elevators is just a matter of removing the machine screws, which makes any repairs a simple matter. Strictly speaking it wouldn't be necessary to glue the fin or stab spars into the fuse tubes. The tail struts would hold the whole unit together. Take off the struts and both stab and fin could be removed for transport.

I have to say that these strap hinges are functionally perfect. No other type of hinge comes close to the absolute freedom of motion that these allow. This method also produces the smallest possible gap, one that is literally the width of brass tube wall. Once you get the procedure down for making the hinges, it goes pretty quickly. Or to look at it from another perspective, it's certainly much faster to make these strap hinges than to wait from mail order ones to arrive.

There are still a few tasks to complete. For example, I need to add the little hardwood blocks that keep the tail surfaces from sliding sideways. And I need to add the control horns. On the fin and stab I need to add the attachment points for the struts. And, obviously, I need to cut off the bottom of the rudder LE tube.

Mein Duff

Beautifull work Don,
Ya a nice day at the field with some greaser landings will rejuvenate you like nothing else can...
I can't wait to try out these hinges in the future, it's these little details that set you apart in the scale world and is so much appreciated by the dedicated scalers....just the know how and patience is all it takes...
keep it up !

Nieuport nut

My Feedback: (10)

Love those hinges Don, very nice.

I really enjoy your builds, as you take good photos at the appropriate intervals to make it all clear.

Martin

abufletcher

Thanks, Martin. For me, photography is almost an indispensable part of the build. It's not just a matter of "documenting" but rather I've come to rely on the photos as a kind of objective diagnostic tool. Often I'll "see" something in the photos that I didn't/couldn't see before. Also the process of building, shooting, building, shooting slows me down and keeps me from getting ahead of myself. I find that scale modeling requires as much time spent thinking as building.

abufletcher

The ARF That Almost Was: Seagull Spacewalker II. I had a fun plan to bash this into an Avia BH-5. This was my reaction to the building blues. I could have pulled all the equipment from my defunct Legionnaire. But it was not to be. The hobby shop in Osaka (RC Champ) mistakenly sent me the EP (electric power) version, which is of course useless (and almost insulting) to a gas-guy like me. So I have to return it and was told that no gas version is available and probably won't be until summer when the next shipment from Vietnam "might" come in. []

Anyway, now I'm thinking it might be better to pick up a 90-sized ARF for me to learn the ins and outs of the RCV91cd before putting that in the CI. But I'm not finding many choices other than the Yak/Edge/Extra/Cap look-alikes that I hate.

abufletcher

For a little fun, I painted the rifle that will hang next to the observer's cockpit. This is from Dragon Toys (bought on eBay). Of course the Golden Rule of scale modeling is never to use anything stock. So I first painted the "wood" flat black. Then I dry brushed it with Burnt Sienna. The metal parts were painted with Gunmetal and then given highlights with dry brushed silver. I'm hoping that most people won't notice that this is actually the standard issue Karabine K98 from WWII.

I thought about carving the stock out of wood and "cutting and pasting" the "metal" parts. But that seemed a bit overboard. And if I were going to go that routine I've have to also make the Parabellum from scratch. Actually, I will have to make a Danish Madsen machine gun from scratch, which will be mounted over the wing as per the prototype I'm modeling.

abufletcher

Back to building. The final step in doing strap hinges is making the hardwood brackets that surround the strap and thereby keep the tube from sliding sideways. Instead of filing each one out from a small block, I decided to build a C-shaped length of wood made of a base of 2mm x 15mm (about) with pieces of 2mm x 2mm glued to it. The gap is about 6.5mm. This is about the average width of the tube part of the hinges. On some I'll need to file this to be a bit wider. But it's a good starting point.

Then using a circular file about the same diameter as the CF LE tube (5.3mm), I filed in curved notch to mate with the LE. Then I cut off a roughly 5.5-5.7mm section of the wood. This method is much faster and creates a uniform set of these brackets.

Next step is to glue these VERY VERY CAREFULLY to the LE making sure that no glue gets into the hinge. Maybe this is a time for the old vaseline trick. Of course, they don't sell vaseline in Japan. I don't trust CA not to wick into the hinge, so I might just put a dap of epoxy on the outsides of the block.

semeraro

I like the way you do your strap hinges. It is simpler than the way I do it and looks like it works just as well or better. I am going to try your method on my next project. That is, if I ever finish my current project.

Dave

abufletcher

"My" way is just a variation on the way Glen and Del did the hinges on his 1/3 scale DrI, which is a variation on how the original strap hinges were done (following Achim Engel's reproduction). My "addition" to this was to adapt the method to smaller scale brass tubes.

BTW, how did you do your strap hinges? Can you post a photo here?

abufletcher

Next thing to figure out is the stab/fin struts. Here's a photo of the BII, which had three struts on the bottom vs. the two on the CI. But I assume the style of the attachment points were the same. BTW, this photo also nicely shows the edge tapes that were used on the fuselage.

GianFrancesco

May be of some help....

GianFrancesco

I don't understand why no photos; I try again.....

abufletcher

GF, that first photo highlights something I wasn't aware off (exactly). It looks like the stab TE enters the fuselage just ahead of the tailpost. If I can confirm that I might add a "dummy piece" to simulate that. Also the metal bracket at the tail is interesting. But I'm assuming this is a replica in the photo (or at least a partial reconstruction) so maybe it's just the way it was done by the replica builders.

Once again, I'm struck by how little I really know about the intimate details of the aircraft I'm trying to model.

BTW, you just gotta love the title "Offizier Fliegerfunker." I think new favorite curse will be "Ach, Du verdammter Fliegerfunker!"