RUSH

Like I stated earlier in the build, the leading edge is made from laminations of 1/16" balsa strips. I get them good and soaked with Windex and then use the ribs and pins (in open areas) as guides to get the correct shape. Then let it sit in that shape until it dries.

The 1st laminate is glued to the ribs and spars while still in place with medium CA (sorry, I forgot to get a pic of this ). I mix a little bit of water with some carpenter's glue in a jar (about 10-20% water), and apply it to subsequent laminates with an epoxy brush - pic 1. I use pins and small clamps to clamp each laminate to the previous one. You can see that in the pic of the left wing panel.

Pic 2 shows the 3rd and final laminate dry and ready to be glued to the wing.

To those of you thinking "what about all those unsightly dents in the LE from the pins?" Easy, apply a little water and go over it with your covering iron - presto, the dent is gone!

offtom

Show off.........




Very impressive work.

Stevephoon

WOW Rush,

Very nice. Very detailed.... Great pics and explanations as well. I can see just where you are going and I know that I'll never have the patience and precision to do what you are doing. I wish I did, but I'm not really a craftsman like you. (And some others here) You are proving why I build kits.

Steve
Watching and learning

RUSH

Wow, thanks guys! I never thought of myself as a craftsman, maybe a little on the anal side of things, but...

I was wondering if I was being a little too detailed with these posts, but at least a couple people are following along, so I'll try to continue with it

USMC_VTOL_Mech

Rush...
Looks great man...now I know what you are spending your time doing....that thing is crazy bro....
Keep it up...I am enjoying the pics

Bill G

One thing I just remembered is that there was only one small parts fit issue:
At the leading edge wingtips, the former heights at the LE do not exactly make for a continuous taper of the LE, when shaping. This is difficult to draw in a 2D design with elliptical wingtips, so it's not a knock. I did a bit of padding to the front of the formers, to allow for a bit more sanding latitude.

The wing is a lot of work on this plane. You'll almost feel as if you're finished, once you finish with it. The only other tricky part is shaping the complex curve on the laminated former, where the wing meets the fuse. I think I had to make one more former, to provide enough material for the shaping.

Your wing LE work is cleaner than mine. The wingtips on mine are a cobbled laminate of wood strips, wood pieces, wood chips, CF horsehair, and bottles of CA. Once sanded, or you could almost say "ground" to shape, they were fine.

RUSH

Hey USMC, thanks for the compliment! I'll post up some more pics soon. BTW, let me know if you're going to the basin soon, I gotta get some flying in myself.

Bill G thanks for the tips, looks like it will take a while to sand it to shape

BTW, I tried to make the included ABS spinner work, but it was a disaster. I don't know if the spinner was improperly molded or if I didn't cut it out properly (tried to be very careful here ). But, it turned out very untrue, so I'm going to try to make one out of foam next.

Right now, I'm framing up the fuselage. Pics to follow soon...

Bill G

Well my suspicion was correct. I thought your spinner looked similar to mine. I gave my spare glass spinner to a guy at RCG, and he sent it to Manzano. Apparently they sent it to Keith Sparks, to make a mold from. That's where your plastic spinner came from. I'm sure they would have never told me about it. Probably due to being on the avoided persons list, since admin JTG over there has a grudge against me. This is a much better place here because of that of that stuff. The spinner was actually perfect for a mold, as it was a hair under size.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...7&postcount=41

RUSH

Anyone know of a good way to cut a 5 inch foam sphere in half? I don't have a band saw available, so I'm stumped on how to do this with some reasonable accuracy. Wishing I had a guillotine right now

tripacer3659z

Suggestion.....Hack it off roughly with a coping (sp) or hack saw blade then sand to the specific circumfrence needed using a wole sheet of sandpaper and a flat surface.....\\\

PS...I've never actually done this (yet) so consider the source!

Mark

tripacer3659z

BTW.....Good luck with the build.....You inspired me to purchase the Manzano short kit of this beauty!

Mark

Bill G

For the spinner?
I would just back it with a wooden disk, like the one I had in the picture above your post. You can cut slots in afterward, to slide the prop into place. The only reason I went to the massive hassle of making a removable backing plate for the balsa spinner pictured earlier in the thread, was to minimize the size of the prop cuts in the spinner. They need to be larger, to slide the prop into place.
You could also take a plastic cylinder, and glue it on center between the backing plate and the front of the spinner, for crush resistance. The prop cutouts would obviously need to be cut into it also, to install the prop.

RUSH

tripacer : Good to hear you are going to build the kit! It's been a pleasure to build for me so far. The parts fit is better than most kits I've built and the wood is good quality. BTW, might be a good idea to build from copies of the plans so you can save the originals for a future build or repairs. I got copies from a local shop for around $6.

Bill G : I am going to back the foam spinner with a wood disk like you suggested. I might go ahead and make it removable like you did since I could make the prop slot fit tighter - like on the real airplane. I did manage to cut the foam sphere pretty well, so I now need to make the backing plate and shape the foam, etc.

I'll post up some progress on the fuselage tomorrow since I'm too tired right now...

RUSH

I wanted to keep the ailerons with the wing until the sanding is done, so I hot glued the inboard sides to the wing - pic 1. Should be able to remove it easily with the hot knife. BTW, the outboard sides are held by the leading edges.

Ok, on to the fuselage. The fuse is built in two halves (top and bottom). Pic 2 shows the bottom firewall piece glued to the forward keels (not sure if that's the correct term, but that's all I can think of). Then the fuse sides and forward formers were glued to the firewall/keels - pic 3.

Next, the rear keels were glued to the forward ones, and the rear formers glued to the keels. Also, the tail skid support was glued in. Pics 4 - 7. No surprises so far - the parts fit very nicely.

1/8" x 1/16" stringers made from hard balsa were glued to the formers and the tail skid support. BTW, the taper angle at the skid support is 15 degrees. 1/8" sq. stiffeners were glued to the skid support per plan as well. See Pics 8 - 10.

RUSH

A brass tube for the landing gear wires was glued to the ply support. I lashed it down with some strong thread and thin CA. I also put a small dam of epoxy on the front of the tube so it won't slide forward. The upper sheeting was also applied to the formers/stringers - pic 1.

Next, the bottom sheeting was cut to size and taped on one side. A sharpened brass tube was used to cut a hole for the landing gear wire on that side while the sheeting was held down against the formers - pic 2. Then the sheeting was glued down and the other side cut with the tube - pic 3.

The access hatch was then framed up and the side rails sanded to match the shape of the formers - pic 4. I pinned the hatch into the fuse with wax paper and then fitted/glued the sheeting to it - pics 5 & 6.

Pic 7 shows drilling some holes for locating pins in the hatch and fuselage sides. Pic 8 shows the hatch in place with the pins glued in - I'll fill the holes in later.

The hatch is held in with 4 little magnets which I mounted in some small pieces of balsa glued to the fuselage sides - pic 9. Pic 10 shows the bottom of the hatch where you can see the locating pins and small washers (for the magnets).

I want this to be a clean looking hatch, so I glued a strong magnet to the inside bottom (pic 11), and made a removal tool from a couple more magnets glued inside a brass tube (pic 12). The idea is that you place the magnet of the tool up against the bottom of the hatch and the magnets attract each other, allowing you to lift up the hatch.

RUSH

BTW, I found a cool video of the M1c. The 1st part has a nice walk around and the second part (at around 5 min.) shows the Shuttleworth replica taking off, flying, and landing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pluJ9ow4rKk

RUSH

The forward part of the fuse bottom has a complex shape, so it will be carved from balsa block. Pic 1 shows a couple 1" blocks glued to the fuselage. After much planing and sanding, the fuse bottom is finally taking shape - pics 2 & 3.

texasclouds

This looks like a fun build!

RUSH

Yes, it's been a fun build so far. Lots of different techniques involved to keep things interesting

tripacer3659z

Rush,

I am curious as to any progress on the M1c....Hope all is well...Not trying to rush you...

Mark

RUSH

I haven't done much on the M1c lately, just working on the spinner here and there. I think the foam spinner is going to work out pretty well. Will post up some pics when I get it finished up.

RUSH

Okay, here is a small amount of progress Like I stated a while back, I started work on a foam spinner since the abs one didn't work out. Pic 1 shows the backplate I made from 2 pieces of 1/16 inch balsa glued with the grain at 90 degrees to each other then glassed on both sides.

I cut a foam ball from the craft store in half to make the shaped spinner portion and inserted lite ply circles and drilled/tapped holes for screws to hold it to the backplate - pic 2.

I then put the "spinner" on the motor I'm going to use and spun it up and used sandpaper to get the general shape. Then I slathered on some lightweight filler to fill the voids and ran it up again with sandpaper to smooth it out and make it consistent - pic 3. I made a balsa tube and inserted it in the middle to make a consistent hole (as it were). Then filled in the rest of the voids and spun it up once again to get a smooth, even surface - pic 4. I haven't cut out the spinner for the prop yet - stay tuned on that

I also started on the fuselage top. Pic 5 shows the forward section framed up - very similar to the bottom. By the way former T5 should really be flush with former T4 - T5 is the one where you can see the stringer notches end at the very top. I messed this up and had to fill in the notches to accommodate the stringers at the right height for the 1/16 inch sheeting that goes on the front.

This is where my digital camera died. I will post up some more pics when I get another camera. BTW I seriously doubt I will finish this airplane before the contest deadline But I will keep posting to this thread as I make progress.

tripacer3659z

Glad to see you are able to spend more time on the model.....deadlines don't mattter so long as you are havin' fun! Good luck

Mark

Stevephoon

What Mark Said !!

But still watching, so keep us updated.

Steve

Dereck

Hi Rush
Never mind the comp - just keep us posted on this lovely model.

Your solution to the spinner is good. That's probably the one area that keeps me from digging out my photos, buying a kit and building a Bristol M1 of my own. Suppose they had less balance issues with the full size, what with having the entire engine spinning around behind it.

Fair makes one wonder what the world would be like if the folk at the top of the Ministry had persisted. The main reason this fast, agile fighter with its great pilot visibility didn't get far because the Grande PooBahs of the day thought everyone should fly biplanes.

If they'd won on the long term, the 747 and F35 would look a lot different...

Will be interested in how you make the prop clearance through your foam spinner.

About those larger images? Sent you a PM

Good luck with the project

Dereck