bigtim

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funny thing I saw that stuff in a infomercial on late night TV looks interesting

got some more to post on the FW as well later got the pipe fitted a little better and trimmed the stacks, also started fitting the cowl around the engine

bigtim

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back to work after pulling the pipes off I trimmed them to finish fit and gave them a little flare at the ends, I also did a minor adjustment at the inlet so the exhaust header has a smoother transition into the header,just heat the pipe with the tourch and twist, add a little solder done.

in case I go with a solid mounting set up.I wanted them to line up better and if the silicone tube works well enough there is a smoother passage for the gasses to flow through, really jut a minor tweak is all it needed.

having done that it was time to fit the cowl to the engine, the 91 surpass head hangs down just a little bit through the bottom of the cowl, this was a easy cut since the cowl is clear, I just slipped a sharpie through the nose and marked the head location and transfered the marks to the bottom.

I just slowly opened the hole up enough for the top of the head to slip through, I had a feeling that the head wasn't going to clear the inside of the cowl,when I started the engine choice process, but I wanted to go with the 4 stroke, not alot stuck out so I was happy enough, had I gone with a 61 2stroke I am sure that I could have fit it into the cowl fully covered.

once I had the cowl close enough to check the pipes needed to be tweaked just a little bit so they were not hitting the fuse sides or the cowl, these areas will have alum tape to shield from exessive heat, but I feel that there is enough space so there will be enough circulation for cooling.

bigtim

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now that I have a close enough fit to the pipes I wanted to check out the look of my new skyshark 3 blade spinner, I have a 2 blade as well in this size, the A8, but when I talked to Mike Grey at skyshark he said they were not going to make any more warbird spinners and the stock thats left is what there is and no more.

I forgot to add I finally epoxied my engine box into position finally, when I slipped the cowl into position the engine lined right up where it was supposed to be, so a healthy covering of glue and its set for life

after assembling the engine pipes and cowl into position for the umpteenth timeI pulled them off to add some solder to the strap area, its had a bit of a work out, now there super strong.

I was alittle nervous about the positioning of the spinner, just a little, but after assembly I was pretty stoked its starting to look like a FW190 now, I also did a finger tip test for balance just a little nose down with none of the servos inside the fuse this gives me a little wiggle room for the servo placement but I feel I won't need any extra weight in the nose the way it sits right now

bigtim

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hope everyone had a happy mothers day,was cool to see the perfect game, I'm not a big A's fan, more of a Giants guy but ya got to love a little history.

so now that I have the engine area sorted, something that was bugging me a bit was the saddle, and wing fairing, it had a bit of a ridge to it, and had a abupt sort of transition, that I wanted a smooth transition to the wing from the fuse.

my solution was to use some balsa stock I had picked up that was pre shaped to a slight wedge,it is aprox 1/2" wide and tapered from 1/8 to1/16 or so knowing that it was going to be sanded, I wanted it to be some what sturdy since it would stay with the wing,this was med. hard balsa stock.

had I used soft balsa, I dont think it would have worked as well and just melted under the weight of my sandpaper, since I was blending the wing fillet as well.

again my tecnique to use tape to protect the light balsa skin comes to play here, after glueing the strips into positon tightly against the fuse potion of the fairing, the sanding began, this took some doing with some 80 grit,I probably could have used 60 but I wanted to be carefull not to tear up the tape at the edge.
once I got a nice taper into the wing and saddle I went to a lighter grade of paper.

to blend the little bit that I felt wasn't perfect I used some of my favorite filler from Minwax(just picked up a new tub today at the Home Depot)and began to fill and shape the area with a thin layer of filler.

this I will sand back before separating the wing from the fuse to make a nice seam,the nice thing about this filler is when I seal the wood before glassing the brushing laquer I use makes it as hard as a rock,then I can glass over it for a nearly seamless transition to the fuse.

more little details to complete the overall look of the model, part of my little tweaks to the finish line before the glassing starts

I-fly-any-and-all

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Hows your progress? any more pictures? have you fired up the your engine to test out your custom exhaust system?

johnboy151a

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Hay Tim,

You've probably seen this thread, but on the off chance you haven't.... Looks like some outstanding craftsmanship on a Brian Taylor 109.


http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_32...tm.htm#3269976

bigtim

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holy moly a year and a half well I am back at it after letting this project sit I am prepping for glassing so some sort of booring photos to follow mostly filling and sanding as I push towards the glassing process, after separating the wing from the fuse I used some of my Minwax wood putty to clean up some trouble spots in the wing saddle I also laid down a little tape so the seam would be clean just a few more trouble spots on the fuse and I can start glassing its nice to be back at this project I have been a school guy for a while now and have been walking past this plane for way too long

bigtim

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well I have been trying at least fill sand fill sand is my mode I did do some adjusting of the wing saddle and filled the space in the fuse at the trailing edge so the wing is truly locked in, not wanting to use allot of after glassing filler I tried to get as many of the little imperfections out as I could find no doubt there will be more after I glass and prime.

I also had to do some serious clean up on my wing fillet so I could get the wing back on but I am happy with the taper and fit, its now time to seal the balsa before I glass the model with WB poly not sure if there's a noticeable difference but I took a couple of pics after I blew off the plane with my air nozzle.

the seam at the wing filet is quite small and I am fairly happy with the smooth transition.

johnboy151a

My Feedback: (68)

Glad to see you're back at it Tim!!!!!!

Me410

Hi Tim

I built a Royal FW190A8 over 20 years ago, but it did not come with a fiberglass cowl and gun hood. Mine had a small spun aluminum front cowl section, and then you had to plank in a round cowl.

You are lucky you got the glass parts, they must be after market stuff.

Mine flew great, but did not live long . I did a disruptive- angular camo paint job in gray and green. I flew with a hangover on a gray day and we have lots of green fir trees around, and you can guess the rest.

Tom

bigtim

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Tom if you read through the thread the "after market cowl" is one I made myself,so I guess its after market, I am prepping the mold to make another one this week for a RCU member

using the original kits spun aluminum nose section, and the former's I copied, to make a plug of the nose section, I then built up a plug, and a form to make the cowl myself, the planking on the front of the model was a bit out dated for me, and I also wanted more airflow for the engine I am using the origonal plug weighs a ton and is litterally covered in bondo and auto body filler to get the correct shape and fairly strait lines,it was a major mini project I had no idea how involved it was, thanks to some great ideas I picked up on RCU I pulled it off and am happy with the results.

I also did allot of reworking of the tail section to allow for a retract unit and to lighten that area up a bit since the blunt nose FW-A8 always seems to need weight up front to balance,several other things like single piece sheeting of the fuse side, instead of the Royal method of planking the rear portion for weight control worked out well.

the gun hood came from fiberglass specialties for the TF FW190D,but I also had to cut it and modify the shape to match the A model as well,I will do some cosmetic work when I get to the painting portion on it.

Me410

Great job on the cowl Tim. Good for you. I have always tried to buy a cowl instead of attempting what you have done.

I thought I had read through all of this thread, but with all the other interesting stuff on RCU ,I must have gotten mixed up and did not read the cowl part. Sorry about that.

I have a Royal 60 Bearcat that is built, but requires finishing. I built the cowl the "Royal" way, royal pain!

Speaking of 60 size FW190A cowls, I see Trapplet in England now sells cowls for the Brain Taylor 190A . I had those plans and cowl years ago and sold them. It was a very nice cowl. It might fit your Royal? But might is not good enough, you have one now that's the perfect fit.

Looking forward to seeing your plane finished.

Tom

bigtim

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OK so I have been sick as a dog, and haven't done much lately except some light filling and sanding , so today I have been working on blending the fuse and wing at the bottom some small steps to clean up the joints and make a smooth transition this requires a couple of steps to accomplish, and I had to remove the wing several times to get a good fit and clean transitions.

the first thing was to fill the gaps in the wing saddle at the trailing edge, there is a 1x1 space that would have been filled by the solid wood block used in the kit,I didn't account for this space when I built the wing,and since I used a more modern replacement ply saddle like Top Flight these small blocks had to be added and shaped,I have also moved to using my trusty putty knife to do any filling this helps to pre-smooth the filler and makes it alot easier to get smooth transitions .

next was to fill and blend at the undersides of the wing at the leading and trailing edges,both the front and back of the wing sits slightly lower than the fuse ,my solution was to use soft balsa as the major filling component and sanding them back to blend into the lip the forward area I used 1/8 balsa pre cut into a triangle shape from the center of the wing to just about the center of the wheel wellsmos of this material was removed by sanding, but the triangle shape did reduce the amount of dust I created since i am still stuffy and coughing every bit helps.

for the trailing edge I followed the same process, the only difference was I used thinner sheeting 1/16 , I wouldn't have even needed to do the rear of the fuse but when I built up the fuse bottom I went with a thicker piece so I could shape the fuse to be closer to the scale plane, using thinner sheeting would have made for a more boxy appearance that I wasn't after.

as for the peak of the wing my plan is to make a tank/bomb pylon to cover and blend the ridge away, but I will do this after I apply glass to the wing and a couple of coats of poly, I will then attach the pylon and apply the remaining coats for a smooth surface.

it looks like RCU is having trouble with uploading pics so I will do that later

bigtim

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looks like RCU sorted out there photo uploading issues, still sick so I have been fine tuning the filling and sanding work inching towards the glassing.

I did find some loose sheeting in the wing so I fixed that as well, super tedious but I am hoping it saves me time and weight in the final finish.

bigtim

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let the games begin, happy memorial day
well the work is never really done, but i have come to the point where I felt the glassing work could progress, some of this may seem a bit redundant, but I will cover the steps I am using since its been the theme so far in this project log.

after my fill and sand effort, I decided the skin on the wings was too thin for strait WB Varathane over 1/2oz cloth, it was too risky for warping, so I went for a light coat of the DEFT satin in a spray can,the stuff is stinky as all get out, but my wife suffered through it, nice thing is its quick and dry's faster than the brush on,and you don't get excessive material on the wood,less is more for the weight factor.

I posted a pic of the fuse, the most notable thing about the sealing process is the filler seems to really like the DEFT, and hardens up as it seals the pin holes the Minwax wood filler tends to have, even after sanding with fine paper,I thin the filler with a little water so it smooths out better but the texture is a little rough, the sealer takes care of it though, a light texture is fine for the glass to stick too.

next I cut my pieces of glass to fit the wing, I bought 4 yards of .5oz cloth which is double the amount needed for a model this size,I am rather stingy when it comes to the cloth so when I lay it over the subject i usually leave about 1-2" of extra over the edges max I just try to be careful when I start brushing the material out on the surface.

starting on the bottom of the wing I lay 2 pieces of the cloth overlapping just a little at the center section, not much maybe 2" is all, starting with the middle of the wing and brushing out towards the edges, I lightly brush just enough to wet the cloth I don't want it to be floating on the wood,I want the cloth to be nice and tight , I brush on enough so the cloth changes color from white to translucent, the texture of the cloth should be visible with this first coat of poly.

Baldeagle

My Feedback: (7)

Tim it looks realy good. One of these days Iwill build another one. Stilll the best flying WB I ever had. Rich

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

when I am glassing I also wrap my poly around a edge, what I mean is the cloth will form around most compound curves when it is wet, I wanted to have double thickness at the leading edge so I brush up about 3/4" up at the LE and so the cloth has some droop at the wing tips, I didn't want to glass the flap bays to save weight + there full of little pieces that didn't need this extra work.

that said after the first coat the glass is super fragile and can be pulled from the wood so I am really careful about moving the subject.

now Varathane drys really fast about a 1/2 hour or so and its dry to the touch but can be re-coated as per there instructions, so I slap coat #2 on there, I am really handy with a brush so it takes me about 5 min max for this second coat to lay out on the surface, I am also not so stingy since this is part of the build up process, I did this last night and let it sit to dry fully.

this morning I was going to pick up some resin to cast another cowl and oops store is closed, so back to the bench to trim the cloth, still being careful I trim the excess with a exacto knife so there is just a ruffle of cloth on the edges, then with some 120grit I lightly sand the edge of the cloth the excess literally melts away.

I don't get all crazy with the sanding since its delicate, just enough to clean up the edge, I then cut another 2 pieces of cloth and repeat the steps for the top of the wing.

after the 2 coats of poly are dry on the top I will trim the excess and with some light paper 220 max just lightly go over the glass any little tiny spots that may need to be gone over thats all, at this point the glass is so fragile that any aggressive sanding and your sitting on wood in a second, and will need to do a patch,no thanks.

now for the build up,you have 2 coats already , I usually will hit it with 3 in a row with a over night dry, nice thing is you can do the whole subject in this case the wing because the material dry's to the touch quickly, word of caution the poly is super soft after 3 coats, and read the can on re-coat times.
you don't want to rush it too soon, but also don't let it dry too much,there's a bonding action that happens when the Varathane has not cured that your looking for when laying up the coats.

then just set it aside overnight to really get hard, the Varathane Diamond I use is really hard stuff after 24 hours the interior product will be so hard that it powders when sanded with 120grit paper and will sand to a nice smooth surface, what I do is sand it down and check for imperfections, some you can't remove without filler so don't get all crazy with the sanding, I then wipe the surface down with a moist paper towel as a tack rag to get any dust off, and do one more final coat so the surface was nice and smooth, depending on how it looks this final coat might not be necessary if not then I start priming.

next will be glassing the fuse

bigtim

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thanks Rich glad to be back at it it was so sad looking at it sit for so long when I was close to the home stretch

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

a little addendum on what I did with the wing, I didn't want to wait for yesterdays coats to dry overnight before painting the whole wing, and I am glad I didn't, after the 3rd coat with 45-60min dry times between coats the poly was really soft ,certainly dry enough to touch but if I was going to flip the wing and do the other side I would need to make sure the wing was on one of its tips or in a position so there was no pressure on the surface.

another thing I did was to cut out the areas where the servo/access hatches were, the poly had bled through the cloth and was going to make a blob on my openings, I have had this happen before and when this stuff dry's its a bear to get out and really tough to cut with a exacto knife, I use a chisel blade to clean the recess and there ready for hatches.

kids are out of school today dad is stuck home so I am going to lay up a cowl

I flipped the wing after inspecting yesterdays work which looks really smooth hardly a trace of the fabric texture, and I started doing the top, if I have the time between running around today I might get to the fuse, we shall see,

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

wow 3 months a little hit and miss work allot of sanding and laying up glass and I am on the threshold of primer I have not been posting much, between my school work, and popping in and out of my shop, there wasn't much to show I didn't get to the fuse for a whole month and when I did I realized there was some filling and tweaking before it was truly ready for glass, this took at least a week at my pace.

the glassing was surprisingly involved with several pieces for coverage of the entire surface area I had to blend the seams at some obvious areas and some not so obvious areas near the tail and at the bottom of the fuse at the corner

with a couple of coats of Varathane applied to the glass I let it dry and then used 120 grit sandpaper to trim the loose glass away and delicately feather the edges so I didn't remove the glass too much, a technique I use is to paint the edge where I project the seam to be so there is a line to follow the 120 clogs quick so its a slow process to get the trimming just right.

after the fuse is completely covered in the light weight glass, I just lightly rough the surface with the 120 grit for the next 2 coats, there is a bit of texture so excessive sanding isn't needed just a light knock down is good enough to get the poly to stick.

the next coats go quick just apply the material head up for dinner come down to the shop hit it with another one and allow it to dry overnight, another sandpaper massage this one can be a little more agressive to get any rough spots smoothed out, the Diamond really powders up when its fully cured and I don't mind knocking a bit of it off to get the surface smooth, with the final coat applied 5 coats and its smooth as glass to the touch.

now its time to prime and all the flaws I didn't catch will show up hopefully sooner than this I graduate in a month so I can get back to modeling after Sept 24 school has been a grinder

I-fly-any-and-all

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looking great! what have you been studying?

bigtim

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health education and massage therapy its been a long year in the classroom

RSA_Flyer

Hi

I picked up a kit for about $180 last week came with the cockpit kit and a scale spinner . Thanks for the build thread bigtim , what do you expect your final weight to be ?

bigtim

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Wow thats a great price they usually go for quite a bit more than that

I am hoping the weight comes in around 8-9 lbs I would prefer it to be on the lighter range of that spectrum, any more than that and its going to be quite a brick,I really want this to be a flyable plane, I will post some more progress pics soon I have been priming it now and its a bit of tedious work and not all that thrilling.

if you have read through the thread you know I have tried to keep it light when ever possible, mainly in the tail area so I don't need a bunch of ballast in the nose to balance it out I will post some pics soon

RSA_Flyer

Thanks weight is what I'm a worried about , I bought a Pilot Zero last year and when finished it flew like a dog . While I did'nt crash the model I stripped out the stuff and gave it to a guy who instructs microlight pilots, he uses it to show new students how control surfaces work.

I'll do mine electric but will be a while before I start . If yours isn't 100% sucsessfull I'll probably just sell it on , I still have a Topflite DC3 and P47 at least I know they will fly well.