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Must see finished rufe...keep it coming !

southpaw50

I'm doing my best, despite my "real" job being a paid distraction. Just got hold of a new ( $$$ ) compressor for my airbrush and just in time too! I'm stoked! G.

Profiled

Must hurry....

southpaw50

WINGTIP LIGHTS. I didn't want to merely paint these on but rather pull heated clear plastic over molds. It began with cutting the actual lens-sized pieces out of the wingtip, backing both sides of
the plug with 1/4" balsa in order to extend the formed lens area into where they'd be glued to the wing. A dowel was glued to the backside, the units mounted in a vise and the
sheet of clear vacu-plastic ( held fast between clamped sandpapered-sticks ), softened with a heat gun and immediately pulled down over each form.
The inside faces of the wingtip light area was finished in thin styrene and painted silver. To replicate a "faux" bulb, I got a piece of clear styrene sprue from a plastic model kit, shaped it
into a dowel and put it in my "poor man's lathe"..... a screw gun, turned it down and shaped a bulb & socket. I gauged the diameters on both bulbs to match up and polished them both on
a buffing wheel w/ compound. With the outer lens covers trimmed to size, the glued areas on the wing were recessed in order to mount the lenses flush. I then airbrushed the insides of both lenses with transparent red & blue, allowed it to dry 48 hrs., only to discover the finish became frosted and not crystal clear as when first applied. Light could pass through it but you wouldn't be able to
see the bulb. I coated the entire inside of the lens w/ 30 min. epoxy, as well as the receiving area on the wing and taped everything in place overnight.
Now the bulb can readily be seen and I'll call it a success. Time to move on to fabricating formation lights for the wing.

neons

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Gerry,
Very nice piece of work adding a nice touch to you model. Amazing what we do with just thinking and producing something with using our minds and actually using things around us on hand.. Sometime I do my best work when I go to bed and dream about "How Too's". Gets a good nights rest.
**Neons** Bob

southpaw50

Thanks for the kind words. Just pushing the corners of the envelope, learn something and if successful, apply it to the next model. I guess you never know what you can do until you give it a shot.
Nothing quite like success to motivate yourself forward. You gotta love it when a plan comes together!

southpaw50

Formation Lights : According to the plans for the Royal A6M5 Zero ( and the Marutaka Rufe ) the formation light blisters seemed a bit too large, as compared to the Tamiya 1/48th scale Rufe plastic model that serves as the definitive example to base my endeavors on. Once the size was determined, I used circular and elliptical templates to draft the designated shape and size. This was transferred to the appropriate thickness ply, to which a hole was drilled on the backside and a dowel glued in to facilitate handling during the shaping process. ( The ply layers show the shaping irregularities to good effect. )
After the blister plug was shaped, a slightly larger outlined ply plate was made to fit over the plug, allowing room for the vacu-formed plastic to fit around it and seal down to a flat flange around the blister, necessary to glue it to the wing's upper surface. I taped the clear vacu-plastic in place on the underside of the "framing" cut-out, heated the plastic with a heat gun and immediately pushed it down onto the form ( which was mounted on a base and there you have it! ) While still attached to the "base plate", I sanded the base perimeter w/ sandpaper to make the final gluing of the blister to the wing very secure. You can see the blister cut-out outline already marked on the flange plate. I used a marker to trace that outline on the plastic blister and then pulled the casting free and cut it out. I made the necessary 4 blisters ( plus 2 extra ones ) and we're good to go.
Thanks to good buddy Bob (Neons ) who researched the particulars, the inner faux bulbs in the blister will be white and the inside of the blister's wing skin area will be aluminum. These details will be added only when the entire plane has been primed, sanded and ready for paint, as I wouldn't want these protuberances to be accidentally knocked off while handling the plane during the next couple of months.

southpaw50

Cannon Shell Chutes: I didn't want to merely paint black rectangles under the wings to portray where the cannon shells get ejected but come up with a plausible faux example to heighten the
realism. First, I had to figure out exactly where these exit portals are and to do that, plot out all the panel lines from that 1/48th scale Tamiya Rufe kit that has served me well.
After plotting out the panel lines on tracing paper, the chute location was derived and transferred to the wing bottoms. Using 1/64th ply as a base, the shell casing exit itself was cut out and lined w/ 1/4" balsa to make a "well". The actual chutes were made by gluing 4 pieces of 1/16" styrene to a shaped rectangular plug with the styrene hanging off one end to create a channel. That portion of the "well" furthest away from the outer 64th ply skin got a cap with a rectangular-shaped cut-out. When cemented in, it keeps an equidistant space around the chute opening / wing surface.
At this point, everything is about to get C/A coated, sanded and airbrushed flat black with the chute itself being sprayed aluminum on the very outside edge at the wing bottom, gradually fading to black for a tromp l'oeil depth effect. Then the whole works get glued into place after the receiving area gets routed 1/64" deep so its completely flush.

southpaw50

Hello Gang, Gerry D. here again after an enjoyable flying season, ready to keep on where I left off with this Zero/Rufe project, now in its 5th and FINAL winter of building. And its about time!!
The only progress I've made over the summer ( flying ) months was to prime and sand the wings and all 3 pontoons. I didn't photo log and post because it wasn't of any major whoop, but rest assured the camera
batteries are being charged as I take this project over the finish line by late winter / early Spring. Tally-Ho!

southpaw50

Having a major problem uploading photos.... can someone guide me???? VERY frustrating!

Joe.

After clicking either "Post Reply" or "Go Advanced" from the bottom of the page it should bring you to the "Reply to Thread" box thing. From there you click the paperclip icon in the right-center of the toolbar (with the Bold, Italic, Underline, etc options) to get the "Manage Attachments" window.

THEN from there you can use the "Choose File" box things to select and upload files from your computer. It looks like the files show up under "Attach Files" in the "Additional Options" box under the Reply box.

I assume the photos then end up at the bottom of the post? I tried attaching a photo to this reply to see if it works.

You can also upload the files to another host (Google Photos for instance) and link them here using their URLs with the Image icon, but that's a whole other can of worms.

southpaw50

Joe...Thanks for your assistance... Here goes...
I cut the cowling blanks from blue foam which were then glued together using Elmers white glue for center portions while 3M-77 spray cement was used on the perimeters, keeping the outer 1/4" masked and free of anything so it
wouldn't interfere with the shaping/sanding. Once sanded within a sixteenth inch of the final shape, blue foam contour sanding blocks were traced & copied from the plans and 120 grit paper glued in place. ( Three were made,
1 each for top & bottom and 1 for the sides. The final sanding was done with 220 and 320 foam sandpaper. Now its starting to look like something.
Before all this took place, a small disc of plywood was routed into the top dead center of the cowling front and used as a base for the compass held X-Acto blade to make the recess in the front. Next installment is fiberglass.

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Probably the best build thread on RC Universe right now, beautiful workmanship.

southpaw50

Chad, High praise indeed and thanks! Sometimes I wonder why I even post it, figuring that its all been done before and by people who have more time, talent and money. I'm raising the bar for myself on this project, which is
turning into a marathon, what with this new ground I'm crossing. But frankly, I'm enjoying it ( between all the head-scratching ) and my final hope is that it will fly as good as I believe it will look. If not, I'll end up with a
show-winning dog that doesn't behave worth a damn! Encouragement like yours is the impetus that will cross the finish line and complete it. I am most grateful. G.

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

High praise but well deserved as far as I am concerned. I'm one of those seemingly ever decreasing group of modelers who still enjoys .60-.90 size warbirds and building from balsa so this one is right up my alley. I look forward to each update and have no doubt the finished product will not only look stunning but fly good as well. Have you per chance checked out YouTube for Rufe videos? There is a surprisingly large number of them as the type seems to be very popular with Japanese modelers. I was surprised at not only the sheer number but also the seemingly high quality of many of them. Apparently lots of Rufe builders take great pride in their work!

southpaw50

Chad, I agree. We seem to be a dying breed, especially when it comes to building balsa warbirds. I haven't perused any Rufe videos ( other than the one that was forwarded to me, featuring a huge gasser ) as I avoid most
everything involving the internet, etc. Frankly, I don't have the time, desire or patience to do so and as a result, I'm fortunate to have my wife take care of all the machinations involved in getting any of this out on the internet in the first place, though the "hunt & peck" typing is by my own hand. As for my project, more glassing was accomplished today, photos and text to follow soon. G.

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

After about three minutes on Facebook I am usually on the verge of doing the same!

southpaw50

Once the blue foam cowling plug reached its final shape, the glassing got underway. I've never vacuum-bagged before and didn't want to get involved with all that procedure so I made up a pattern of fiberglass strips, cut on the
magic marker lines to delineate the borders and initially laid up strips on the cowling, overlapping slightly. When dry, all proud edges got sanded and the next lay-up followed, etc. until the all 4 of the initial 2.30 oz. weight strips were in place. Between the sandings, etc. I wasn't reaching the desired 1/50th thickness necessary to blend in with the fuse so I hopped it up it with 2 outer lay-ups of what I believe was 6 oz. cloth, again laid-up in overlapping paper machier style. Once it hardens, more sanding and fitting the whole works against the fuse to check fit will follow. If all goes well, a final layer of 3/4 oz. glass will top everything off.
I made a round insert out of stiff black foam-core to sit inside the cowl opening in order to keep the excess fiberglass from lifting out and compromising the sanding/shaping of the cowl lip. On a lark, I hand carved a scale blue foam spinner to get a better idea of gauging the intake opening.
That spinner ended up as being a handle for the foam-core glass "press" which keeps the wet, over-lapping fiberglass in place. That faux spinner will get a couple of layers of panty hose nylon stretched over it, knotted on the bottom and resined over to eventually make the scale static display spinner.

I-fly-any-and-all

My Feedback: (1)

I've got a lathe and can offer to get it truly round if you'd like.

I-fly-any-and-all

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Actually i recall fiberglass specialties makes parts for the 40 size zero which essentially the rufe is.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

A Rufe is based on the A6M2,, different shaped cowl as a A6M3-5

I think he's going for scale shape

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Besides the differences noted by Scale Only above this is also based on the .60 size Royal kit, not the .40 size.

southpaw50

Gents, Thanks for the interest and offer to help. And a lot has been going on this week since my last posting. My Zero / Rufe conversion is a 1/7th ( .60 Glo sized ) Royal kit and though its been recommended I check with
Fiberglass Specialties about a cowling, I had already made up my mind to go the extra mile and fabricate it from scratch. What has happened since the cowl began receiving glass lay-ups, I realized that the cowl circumference at the firewall should have been a tad wider when viewed from the top. Granted, that would have been the case if supplied with a spun aluminum cowling as provided by the manufacturer, ( Marutaka ) because that's the nature of all spun aluminum cowlings. When viewed from the side view on the plans, the actual line drawing of the intended aluminum cowling is slightly proud of scale but acceptable. However, the overhead or bottom line drawings from Nakajima show the cowl sides have a slight bulged curve, something barely detectable on my 1/48th scale Tamiya model. To compensate, I've been laying up multiple "terraced" layers of glass, sanding w/ more layers until I now have what I really wanted all along. Tons of sanding to blend everything seamlessly and when it goes to final sanding tomorrow and hopefully checks out, then I'm going to have to sand away at the interior of the cowling, especially where the "cheek" bulges are in order to get the overall weight back down to something more acceptable. Weight does nothing for performance unless you are a Sumo wrestler. This is all in a quest to be kind to a future wing loading. G.

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

I agree wholeheartedly about weight but, food for thought, it is a rare day when a radial engine warbird model ends up nose heavy. Don't go to great pains to remove weight clear up at the front end only to have to add it back in lead. Can't get much further forward than the cowl so that is the perfect place to have some extra "beef" in most cases. My .02 cents of course.

PS - I forgot about that big float sticking way out front on this one. Maybe disregard the above statement!

southpaw50

Chad, "You are correct, sir" as Ed McMahon used to say to Johnny Carson. But you picked up on my strategy of putting the nose weight in the float tip, sticking well ahead of the prop where the least amount will do the most good. In the beginning of this whole build thread ( as sponsored by Ted Brito ), you'll notice the Kingfisher he built that I painted. If memory serves me correctly, that plane needed nose weight so much, just about as many components on board had to be moved onto or in front of the firewall. There might be lead in the pontoon tip but only Ted can say for sure.
At any rate, sanding the inner walls of the cowl seem like the most prudent ( and tedious ) thing to do. As for hindsight, I won't be repeating this mistake anytime soon. And when it comes time to add weight for the C/G balance, I'll saw the nose of the pontoon off and cast it in lead if I have to! G.