Bunkerbarge

I completely agree with Barry, I think taxiing in a scale manner is all part of the experience and further enhances your complete operational skills.

Nothing looks more proffesional than seeing the model line up with the runway before starting it's take off run and returning to the pits after a successfull landing.

I guess it wouldn't be able to after an unsuccessfull one!!!

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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"

Greyhead

If you’ve read this thread from the beginning then you’ll know that I have been giving some thought as to how to make the control horns, which are quite thin; with the tailskid being steerable now is the time to put the thoughts into practice.

Thin steel is really the only option for the horn itself but attaching the cable to it is the problem, a standard clevis would be way too big and a cable passing through a hole would quite quickly be worn through. I hope I’ve solved the problem by bend a “yoke” from thin brass rod.




A thin brass pin goes through the hole in the horn, it’s peened over at the ends and finally the whole lot is soldered to the horn so that the pin isn’t taking the load. The only problem I can see with this is that the attachment point is slightly in front of the horn but I can get around this but slightly altering the angle of the horn and mounting it slightly to the rear.

The skid has a balsa TE extension and is then shaped with lightweight filler where the litho plate shroud will go.



The control is transferred from the horn to the skid via a thin pin to give the servo some “shock protection”, I might also use springs in the cables but from past experience I find these tend to make the steering a bit erratic.

With the shroud fitted that’s the skid virtually finished.

wonwinglo

Grahame have you seen those 1/32 split pins that Nexus supply in packets ? they come in very handy for closed loop systems and jobs like this.

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'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Bunkerbarge

A degree of protection can be offerred to the servo by incorporating a 'Z' in to the linkage without loosing too much control and it of course allows a degree of adjustment of the linkage length.

Possibly a bit more reliable than a spring link.

__________________

“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"

Greyhead

Barry

I’ve used small split pins before for the pulley shackles (SE5a CONSTRUCTION BEGINNING TO . . .)for example; they weren’t suitable for this job as they would have to be bent “the wrong way” around the pin and putting a twist in the legs made them too long, but I may use them for the rudder control horn because that has 2 cables attached both sides.



Richard

All the controls are operated by cables and so far I’ve failed in my attempts to bend them into a “Z”!!

Being serious that’s a really good idea; I could insert a short length of thin piano wire with a “Z bend” into the cable runs, probably use it as a connector to the servo arm, thanks for that idea.

Grahame

Greyhead

The hinge is a short length of brass tube soldered to a brass strip, which goes around the tube as a safety measure in case the solder joint fails. The pin is 22 swg piano wire and will have a brass “keeper” soldered behind the rudder LE when in position.



The rudder is recessed to allow the hinge line to be central to the radius of the LE which has additional strengtheners added.



The brass strip will be riveted to the fin TE either using brass tube or rod, I’ve not decided which as yet, I’ll be doing some experimenting tomorrow.

wonwinglo

Those hinges are not going to come adrift in any hurry Grahame,I oonce lost the rudder on my Parnall Elf at Old Warden in flight,the model came down flat with the rudder hanging,a few feet above the ground the model recovered just buckling the undercarriage,it was a very lucky escape as the hinge had fatigued with vibration,you can never be too careful with things like this.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Greyhead

The hinges are riveted to the fin TE using brass tube, given a final drop of cyano to securely lock them in place then faired in with some 1/32nd balsa.

As I explained earlier, at this scale “true” rib stitching doesn’t look as good as simulated in my opinion; for the wings I used a compromise which holds the covering to the under camber but looks OK but I can’t use this method for the fin and rudder because of the thin section and the core method of construction.

To simulate the rib stitching a simple jig makes life a lot easier. The thread, I’ve used brown here to show up, is laced around the pins, which are set to the correct spacing, and over the top of the Solatex; to hold them in place I use a tiny drop of thin cyano then give the whole lot a coat of Clearcoat.



Thin strips are cut and tacked in position over the ribs and when the top frayed rib tape is ironed on it bonds everything together. The finished rib tape looks near enough like the real thing for me!



I should have been more careful with the heat gun when shrinking the LE tape around the top of the fin because the covering has pulled back from the TE, but it doesn’t really matter as there will eventually be a litho plate cover running down the length of the TE.

wonwinglo

You should see some of the WW1 British aircraft Grahame,quite common to have S.E.5A's with stretched sagging fabric aft of the cockpit area,what they used to do was lace up the underside as a bag with leaded cleats,they used cord drawn through beeswax which takes cellulose dope,so the fabric was replaced in its disturbed state annd sometimes looked a right mess,so I would not worry too much about a few fin wrinkles,as ever aircraft on the front were short lived,if they did not tip onto their noses with novice pilots they would be quickly written off in spinning accidents.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Bunkerbarge

I think 'perfection' with such coverings would actually not look as realistic.

I don't know what your thoughts on weathering this model are but the odd crease in the fabric to me will make it look more like, well 'fabric'!

__________________

“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"