Leaderboard

Following on from the gear doors I have been having a go at hinging/actuating the upper leg covers and setting the main leg covers in position. The main covers are attached to the sprung/moving part of the u/c legs and the Sierra gear came with a pair of collars with a imperial bolt protruding for this purpose. The Imperial allen bolts were not quite long enough so I tapped the threads in the collars a little larger to take some 3mm threaded rod. A pair of hardwood blocks spacers and a third fixing point nearer bottom of the cover allows for some adjustment to get it all sitting nicely. There is no attachment point on the legs to fix a ball link to, so I made up a pair of ply half collars to take the link and have glued these in place with cyano. A little epoxy fillet on the edge will provide some extra support once I am certain the geometry is correct. It will be interesting to see if glue alone will be enough to hold them. If they fail I can always add a thin alloy strap and use the ball link to hold it in place. With the link in place and the upper cover hinged everything moved ok, but I did need to relieve the top corner of the main cover to clear the arm during part of its travel.

If you find a 4mm long series hex key with a ball end, it’s mine

That is in fairness a 5L tub. A lot of ice cream. I like salt and caramel. Cut out the gourmand bits, and the 100 liter bin, as a receptacle , does the bench, as in a palm sweeps in the sweepings. Thats where my 4 mm hex went, or it teleported to his bench. I suspect my 1/16 AF hex followed in sympathy.

I will build Destiny and I am looking forward to the fun. Meanwhile a busy satisfying day for me. Finish left aileron tomorrow?

Thanks KC for your suggestion and endorsement of their value as a good read. I once had high hopes of building scale models but earning a crust prevented me from becoming even a competent radio flyer. I'm too long in the tooth now so they have to go. For anyone remotely interested, the plans featured range from .049 sizes up to .60cu and include quite a few by David Boddington. I can supply a plan list on request. I advertised at the price shown because I hoped they would find an appreciative home. To put the asking price into perspective, the current price of the Westland Wizard plan (RSQ 1708) is £12.50.

My new CAA number was visible on the site today - all very smooth and easy, many thanks Andy & all at BMFA.

My problem Nigel is having to work on models up to 7 foot span in an 8x6 shed. Its just impossible to keep things tidy. I need a house with a garage!

A massively useful tactic from the world of full size is the use of stackable FOD trays (foreign object / debris), anything loose goes in one and they can quickly and easily be stacked out the way; they are used religiously, but then again we also have random bench audits and a bit of a telling off if loose bits are found lying about in our less professional world, I find empty 2L ice cream tubs invaluable (and as a bonus they come full of ice cream), one or two of those keeps all the widgets for 'the current battle' out of harms way, and makes the bench easy to clear. I also like the 'build bin' and 'burn bin' system (shamelessly borrowed from the professional carpenters world), they stay handy for big and small (respectively) offcuts to go in. It's so much nicer not having to clear away before each job! Sorry. Back to the ugly stang...

The Wizard plan seems to be available from Sarik as RSQ 1708 if anyone needs it. Looks a very good but simple scale plan.

In a way I am suprised that these were not snapped up immediately! But to fork out 75 quid for s'h mags may put people off. I would suggest offering them in 1 year bundles if nobody wants the lot. It won't be me because I already have almost all of them - it's probably David Boddingtons's best work so very well worth having them. I won't part with my copies! The very best reading and extremely good plans too. I see that Magazine Exchange has almost none of these copies for sale today- up to recently they had many for sale, which suggests they are becoming rare! They might be a buyer of the lot perhaps......

Excellent.. Very handsome.. Despite the unpainted switch?

This is another very good reason why a Laser is an excellent choice, what other engine manufacturer will do this?

Just set this up over the last couple of weeks and I am very pleased with it. Offers tremendous flexibility (can charge 4 batteries at the same time with different or identical chemistry) at a very good price. The charger is a Hota F6 The power supply (1500 watt, 25 volt, 62.5 amp) is extremely well put together and provides more than enough power for the charger to deliver its full potential (250 watts per channel / 1000 overall -note some chargers require 48 volt power supplies to deliver anywhere near the maximum claimed. The power supply was supplied by [email protected] and was made and delivered within less than a week of ordering (with the specified xt60 lead) for the cost of £100. Ian has various threads on RC groups forums for those that want a further look Might be worthy of consideration for those that want a fairly powerful and flexible charging solution

My Gangster 63 Lite. Original build thread here (ridiculously long, but only started building last Autumn, i.e. most of the way down Page 5): https://www.modelflying.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/38487-mick-reeves-gangster-63-lite/page/11/#comments

Hi Kc Mine is 55" span weighing in at 4.5lb using an AXI 4120/14, Turnigy 4s 3000mA Lipo, APCe 13x8 prop, 60A HK esc. Timer set for 8 minutes will easily do 10 minutes maybe more. Covered in laminating film then tissue on top applied with water based varnish. Since the photo was taken I moved the rudder and elevator servos to the rear as it was nose heavy.

Irrespective of gloss or matt I still run the fine sandpaper over the lam film to provide a good key for the ‘standard’ primer that I use. I’ve found that doing this results in a very durable finish, the side benefit is that the sanding highlights any areas of the film that haven’t stuck to the airframe.

ground floor flat so no loft ?

Well, today has been a bit of a nightmare. I started with some paint removal from the fuselage. After my palm sander sent my hand numb i went to using a chisel to scrape it all off. This was effective but time consuming and i still have a long way to go. I then turned my attention to the wing. I chopped off the wing tips with my tenon saw, then yanked all the control surfaces off. After that i started stripping the covering and was really shocked by how heavy it was with all the paint on it. As you can see, it just splinters off and reveals some nice markings. I dont know why you would paint over it. Anyway the wing looked a bit dodgy when first stripped as all the painted areas in the next photos were where previous repairs had either glued the covering down or, in the case of the under side, was solid filler. It was at this point that things began to go rather wrong. Every time i peeled back a piece of wood i found something nasty. This meant a larger area needed stripping. I then found even more nasties. This was made worse by the fact that the wood use has to be the softest and most fragile balsa i have ever known. Just looking at it makes it all fall apart. But, all 4 main spars are broken, some in 4 places, and the previous 'repair' work was a massive bodge job and needed to be stripped out. I need to replace all of the leading edge ribs, much of the sheeting, and make some ply webs to take the load off of the damaged spars. All in all, its a right dogs dinner.