What did you do aeroplane wise today?

[TheLurker]

Did something related to building or flying that doesn't warrant a topic all to itself?  Stick it here.

[Nigel_M]

Made a little progress on my Hi-Flyer Ryan ST. Trying to make the wing detachable AND square/level drives me potty. Multiply sanding down the seat only to shave it flat and glue in a new piece of wood to try again. This time I've put a piece of ~1mm carbon rod at the front (only a 'little' too low) and 2mm magnets at the back so I will have to rely on the struts for lateral level. In business speak I believe that's called 'kicking the problem down the road'. The pictues show several months of progress.

[Aerotrope]

I pre-shrunk tissue for the tailfeathers of a Mr. Smoothie I'm building - from the 19" Easybuilt kit.

[Squirrelnet]

Had a go at fitting a new head seal to a GM120 this afternoon. This is the one that fits inside the head fittings and seals the pipe itself. On the advice of GM I used a heat gun to soften the epoxy at the tank end so I could slide the seal and fittings off without disturbing the flared end in the SS pipe which is tricky to remake. GM also very kindly made up some seals for me from silicon tubing. I've yet to test it as I now need to refit the pipes to the tank's fitting with some 24hr Epoxy but hopefully ...

[TheLurker]

Last few days.
- Corrections to a redrawn version of Nick Peppiatt's Tefft Contester plan
- Updated the build notes from John W's (lccjaw of this parish) test build notes for the cleaned up version of Richard Preston's Sonnex Highwing plan.

Today
 - Finished off and sent out the latest issue of the Trinity parish newsletter.
 - Got my entry in for Walsall in April.  Kit Scale if yer even vaguely interested.

I may actually get some build time on the Chiribiri No.5 this week... mebbe.

[Nigel_M]

Had a go at fitting a new head seal to a GM120 this afternoon... On the advice of GM I used a heat gun to soften the epoxy at the tank end so I could slide the seal and fittings off without disturbing the flared end in the SS pipe ... I now need to refit the pipes to the tank's fitting with some 24hr Epoxy but hopefully ...

Please let us know how you get on with whichever epoxy you use. I have used HK 15 minute epoxy in the past to re-seal leaking pipes but on first refilling, it basically spat a lump of the epoxy back at me! Bizarrely the pipes were sealed afterwards    I had cleaned the old epoxy off and de-greased the parts very thoroughly  before re-glueing.

I surmise the rapid cooling and shrinking of the metal, perhaps before the epoxy could react likewise, meant the pipe was smaller than the gap in the epoxy, so it stayed stuck in parts but squeezed the unlucky bit of epoxy out of position? I then went on a hunt for low-temperature capable epoxy and (as always) got distracted before finding an answer. Then again it didn't happen on all the joints I had made so hopefully it won't be a problem for you.

[Spiros]

On top of the on going, Bebe Jodel (peanut), Citabria (kit scale) & Jodel D150 (Kit scale), had to start a Basic Bostonian.

So now, I'm trying to cope with 4 projects at the same time. One is glued, the other sanded etc etc....

P.S. I'm seriusly thinking of making a Guillow's kit too, due to the international competition. I really like the idea!

[Jmk89]

Today was very hot in Sydney, so I stayed inside and ticked off a job been on my to do list for quite a while. I turned an old three speed and drill that I picked up into a rubber winder with the same three speeds: 2x, 7x and 15x. The photos are pretty self explanatory.

The three gearings are accessible through 10 mm hex stems on the winder body (two on one side and one on the other) so I took a 10 mm deep socket and melted it into a suitable handle that I printed off using the 3D printer. Then, I took off the chuck and put together the standard "Croydon" spring-loaded hook attachment and mounted it in the nose of the winder. Finally, I epoxied a magnet into the button for the nose connector and arranged and arranged for the sensor from a a cheap magnetic counter that I picked up on Timu (about AUD 20) to be placed just opposite ithat magnet so that I can keep count of the turns.

The 15x and 2x stems are on one side of the winding body and the 7x stem is on the other side. That means that, I have to rotate the front handle and counter box in order to wind using my right hand. The front handle is a friction fit tightened by a thread in a surrounding ring. To ensure that rotating this doesn't disturb the magnetic counter, a bit of slack wire is available. Also, the counter itself is mounted with magnets (it will end up on the bottom of the body once are the drill is rotated over).

[TheLurker]

I have no idea why, but my first thought was, "That's Desperate Dan's motor winder." My second was that Wallace would most definitely approve; as do I.

[Andrew D]

I spent much of yesterday and a small amount of time today building this little all sheet fun flyer.  It's the Keil Kraft Sportsman - not to be confused with the Sportster in the same series.  Original kits are like hen's teeth so I used the plans and parts from Paul Bradley's excellent Parmodels website.  The parts we transferred on to the balsa via iron on T shirt transfer paper which is inkjet printed.  Most is 1/32" or 1/32" laminated but I went with the original 1/16" for the wings as they are completely flat.  You have to be a bit careful applying the T shirt transfers - it's a bit of a learning curve for sure, but it came out pretty well for a first go. I managed to find a felt tip to colour the edges of the balsa which worked quite well.  The span in about 18" and it weighs 27g with a 1.5 times hook to prop loop of 3/16". I hope to get this to fly at the indoor session at Alfreton next week...

[Squirrelnet]

Great new model Andrew. It looks good and no doubt will go well, look forward to any pics or videos. I love the look of those printed balsa models . I think an EzeBuilt? Puss Moth was my first successful model aged 6 or 7

Some more messing about with CO2 motors today. I found after my last time fitting some head to Pipe seals to a GM120 I had some vertical movement in the pipe which should n't be there. I consulted CO2 Guru GM, and after some proper investigation, with the magnifying headset on this time, the vertical play was actually the seal being to thin and allowing the inner fitting to disappear up inside the outer fitting. Fitting two internal pipe seals has given me the correct flush fitting of the inner and outer head fittings. There was a tiny bit of play between the flare and the inner head fitting so not being an engineer (look away now if are !)  I mounted the pipe in a pin vice and gave a couple of taps of a centre punch which seems to have spread it enough to fit better in the housing without splitting the brittle stainless steel pipe. Reassembling the head there is now no vertical movement in the pipe.

With that done I have fitted new O rings, the old piston ring was quite badly nicked and worn and sorted the pipe out for fitment into a future Aerographics Avro 504K build. Looks like the engine will have to be inverted unfortunately there's not enough room with the expected 5 deg of downthrust

I need to do a proper degrease before re epoxying the tank fitted ...that's the next job

[Andrew D]

Yeah, it was one of the Ezebilt ones.  I do like an all sheet model!  Often they belie their predicted performance...

[9600baud]

Hi Andrew, love the all sheets model and I've been looking for a long time at all models presented at Paul Bradley's website. So many opportunities
With the T-shirt-transfer-method, how much does it add to the weight?

Cheers
Alex

[ramses]

Finished my Fairey Firefly:

Marine Luchtvaart Dienst Fairey Firefly Mk.IV K66
Modified Aerographics Kit
Test model for (maybe) a future F4D model

Scale 1/20
Wingspan 24.8"/ 63cm
Length 23.6"/ 60cm

Next tests will be indoor, in a gym in Velp in february

Cheers, Ramses

[MKelly]

Very nice Firefly!  What modifications did you make as you were building the kit?  I picked one up last year and have been contemplating whether to lighten it up for rubber or build it for CO2 power.

Mike