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Flew the warbirds replica 190 this morning, using Ron's excellent dolly,it flew well no trim needed,might take a bit of nose weight out for next time.All in all pleased with it

Hello Geoff Nice model! His designs are always good, the sports models fly perfectly and the "scale" designs are a good compromise between scale and flyability. I've seen some detailed-up and they look great. The same goes for Flair of course. Grahame Well summer has arrived, at least for today! That gave me something of a dilemma, should I go flying to get some thumb practice, or assemble the SE5a and take some “good” outdoor shots. I decided on the latter, which was the right decision as it turned out because the wind ended up quite strong; the streamers on the interplane struts were blown horizontal. To assemble the model actually took 20 minutes, not too bad, but longer than I thought it would be. I have only done it a few times and I’m sure I will get quicker with practice; I did make a couple of mistakes which meant I had to reverse a bit. The photos have turned out well; the only problem was the “giant” dandelions, which I’ve removed with the PhotoShop clone tool. I’m no expert when it comes to photo manipulation but so long as you don’t zoom in too close the overall effect is OK. I think the hangers in the background really add to the photos, hope you agree. I’m getting to quite like this photo manipulation! On this one I’ve also removed the grass overlapping the wheels, which gave the game away somewhat. A black and white “grainy” photo more like WW1. When I checked I found that I hadn’t in fact got a photo of the finished cockpit so I took a pilot’s eye view!

Or use one of my new self powered and flight controller / GPS equipped ones that automatically returns to base! Having said that, if you're flying on your own take off at a slight angle so that the dolly runs off to the side leaving enough room to land, if you're with flying buddies get one of them to retrieve it for you!

Built this Pushycat yonks ago. Only needs a prop and some courage to hand launch it lol. Cheers

This afternoon was quite reasonable, not much wind and no rain so a bit more EDF practise so I got out my first foam build Hawker the Sea Hawk.I had not flown it for 2 years. Although the photo is nearly 3 years old it still looks exactly the same today. The inlet ducting is far from perfect. Any yaw any you can hear the fan note change and the direction of the inlet airflow is disturbed. With its generous area straight wings it does fly passably well although it needs nearly full power to climb. Like most 50s jets it has a low drag airframe so glides really well for and EDF. Managed 5 minutes 28 seconds which is rewarding. That leaves 2 more of my Hawker jets to fly. The P1081, the second swept wing Sea Hawk that crashed and the prototype Hunter. They are both painted all over pale sky blue that Hawker used on all their jet prototypes. It may be scale but they are just horrible to see at any distance!

I had inlines on order from mid last year and in the end Jon offered me me single 155's so I went for them. As I understand the issue is of design vs manufacturing (all things are compromises) and some engines suffer with the issue and some don't. Its not so much a part that can be swapped, but more a fundamental design and manufacturing decision. The redesign would involve a number of significant component changes, but as I said not all engines are affected. I guess you need to run it to see which side of the fence yours sits, if there is an issue then involve the Laser warranty sooner rather than later. Perhaps that is why they were sold as development engines, so that people ran them and then issues would come up and be resolved, a bit like the petrol engines some sold and very few ever run and little feedback to Jon so very difficult to know if its an issue or not.

Hi Steve and Guys, I am still working on the CAD files, and will then do some more testing. I just need more time!! Trust me, Xfire will live again. Cheers for now Pete

Amazon offer the best Lipo service that I've experienced in many years. With Amazon Prime you get next day delivery, including Sundays, of the very good value Zeee Power lipos, with great quality at a competitive price. These have replaced my previous favourite HRB lipos from Amazon, which got so popular their availability of some sizes was impacted. The customer service is second to none. I check my new lipos the instant they arrive and any problem or inbalance is dealt with right away. Last order one of the packs had a badly unbalanced cell and the refund and reorder was sorted within minutes, with a replacement pair of lipos arriving next day, which meant I got three for the price of two. Highly recommended. Other retailers can be a bit more awkward if there is a problem, plus there is that mandatory courier charge and my Amazon Prime more than pays for itself every month, even without all the additional benefits.

Thanks Keith, worth a try! While I wait for the fine lapping grease and some fresh cast iron for the piston thought I would do some boring bits. The needle itself has been made as my friend suggested, in the chuck and with a grind stone in the dremmel (and it at maximum rpm) shaped the needle point quite well. Turned a needle collar and soft soldered the needle and collar together with little fuss. All screws up and down with some nice resistance which I hope will resist the fine vibration of this turbine like engine... Next came the top of the cooling head and decided to add some more fins as the rest of the sleeve, more heart-stopping parting off tool work, what a din! Soaked the steel cylinder in citric acid solution, 20% crystals and had a good coat of bubbles on the cylinder after 10 mins. all rinsed and it looks much better, but still needs some swiss file work. Oddly, now ground to a halt, little else to do until the iron and grease turn up. Can this adventure (to me) actually be drawing to a close? Plan was to have it ready to run (really?) by my birthday, end of this month. Will i make it? Doubt it! 73T 911 Coup

Test flown this afternoon, built from a Derek Woodward plan as an i.c model (not by me), bought from APOB and converted to 3s electric. Chilton DW1, i plan on building a larger one using foamboard and depron at some point.

I have! In fact, I am still at the field, having a coffee. Lovely day with very gentle breeze... Longest flight on Alt, 1 minute 12 seconds. Well pleased.

Just asking if anyone on here has made a Hemmingway model aero 5cc diesel engine from scratch?

I have, for a while, been looking out for a glider for those lovely summer days that will be coming along soon.......maybe. Nothing I fancied has come along, then I remembered, the first model I built from a plan was a glider, Rex 1a. I had literally hundreds of flights with it. The club I belonged to then in the mid 1970's was the Thanet Model Flying Club in Kent where thermal soaring was quite a big thing, after the Rex I went to a Radiosailplanes Wildfleken, I had two of those, then for the 100s comps a Scirroco all good flyers and lots of fun. All these were hand launched with a tow line, but at age 72 I am not going to do that any more or ask my fellow club mates who in many cases are older than me! So I wondered how hard it would be to fit a motor and lipo into the Rex, I think I have all the right bits in stock so lets get on with it. I no longer have the original plan but handily it is to be found on Outerzone along with original article from Radio Modeller, copy of which is just below This was fifty years ago so I really do not remember much of the build, but it must have been simple as it was my first fully completed plan build after a false start with a Big Wig, so this should be a quick build provided I can squeeze in the motor and battery, so I will start with the fuselage as that is where all the main changes will be. Overlaying the motor that I intend to use an Overlander T3548/05 ( purely because it is in stock) and a folding prop a Graupner 13/7 (ditto) I can see that I can keep the side elevation almost as per the plan by moving the front bulkhead forward a little and at the same time arranging a little down thrust ( as I have seen that in other plans that I have looked at. I have increase the width of the bulkhead just a tad to give me a bit more room. This is the original unaltered drawing, the download from outerzone is not that good but will suffice, I will do away with the wirework for the tow hook, and face the underside of the fuselage with 1/16th ply. Motor and prop will fit about here Plan amended to suit Front bulkhead enlarged just a little for a bit more working room, the plan says balsa but for obvious reasons I have substituted 1/4 ply for this one to mount the motor on The rest of the fuselage is per the plan and a very simple box so quickly knocked up. Here is the fuselage more or less complete, with a canopy made of some scrap balsa, which is shown here with some stopper and primer on as I could not get a good finish on the bare wood with just sandpaper so filled the sanding grooves with stopper and high build primer and then sanded down with wet and dry, it will be covered with some black film So now I know the electric conversion is going to work and not look too bad I will get on with tha tail and wings.

It is very forgiving on the CG position, as I said in my thread, mine is now at 100mm back from F2, a full 30mm back from plan indicated! PS Glad you like the dolly Andrew!

Hello Steve Glad you enjoyed the thread! Grahame

That's the point, I'm not paying that inflated price, I'm getting those excellently priced Lipos from AliExpress at the much better cost that I posted.

It's probably the same stuff that your 'banned' outlets supply anyway!

I’ve used carbon rods with thread extenders expoxied on and they haven’t been an issue on any models. Including gassers.

I have used a right angled bend on the end of the wire pushrod with a corresponding hole in the side of a carbon fibre tube. Insert the wire and juggle the end into the hole. Then insert a dowel plug of suitable diameter to fit inside the tube with a groove cut to suit the pushrod wire diameter and epoxy into place. It won't pull out. * Chris *

Impressive work there! Just starting to get warmer here - heating actually stayed off this morning.. fingers crossed you have a mild winter (so you don't 'freeze in the workshop), and we actually get some sun and dry weather....

An alternative to carbon rods is to use metal turnbuckle type rods. That way you can make minor adjustments to eliminate any electronic trimming by adjusting the rod length mechanically very easily. 3 mm rods should be suitable.

Flyer The method when using brown paper, is to paste it, wait 1 min for it to grow, then apply it wet, so when ironed on it shrinks like appling any film covering, this adding strength to the model. Using a cheap pva - it'll be watered down more, not good as bubbles the paper. Bye a quality brand 😉 and dilute about 5%, Richards just done a write up on this on another thread.

Thanks guys- A bit of investigation of the hieroglyphics finally caught the blighter! I was worried that my translating back would be a one off, but, having clicked on another AliExpress notification in my emails, it's seems permanently back to good old English! (no Scots translation though!!)

Possibly, but its an expensive way of doing compared with PVA glue (when you buy 5L of trade stuff). Oh and the other thing if its Tesco (other long rolls of brown paper are available) ..don't buy a couple extra rolls just in case...because you don't waste much in off cuts so it goes a very long way! PS the brown paper stock I now have will out live me!

My glue of choice at the moment is Titebond Original, which I believe is an aliphatic glue. Are aliphatics any good with the brown paper covering method / heat reactivity, or will I need PVA? Cheers.

Thank you for this valuable advice Dr. Trying to get in touch with Hemmingway today to get a bar of cast iron while I await the 1200 grade lapping grease to arrive. I have had a rod through the prop 'nut' as in the pics to turn the engine over repeatedly. Without the head on there is a light resistance as the piston is driven by hand up the bore, this could be a touch of binding due to the piston not being dead true to the various parts. This is with the cylinder tight to the case via the 4 nuts but no gasket between the case/cylinder. I think the piston is too slack in the cylinder, hence making a new one to match the honed bore. I made the piston really close to the un honed bore, my mistake. Same for the contra piston. Will try to make something to spread the C/P as an experiment and if it works will save me making one again!

A £10 special, Functional resto for the summer, needed a nose job, pan of hot water, glue and filler. nose retract with trailing link and larger wheel, larger diameter mains, trailing links to follow-may be. Top cheater curtesy of Leccyflyer. Plenty of previous owners mods to tidy if its still with us come winter. Roughed out a rudder plan, single servo with connecting rod aft and in-line with the elevator, so kind of hidden. Cheap Powerfun 4S 12 blade edf en-route from aliexpress. Silver was Humbrol met silver, exact match but shiny so a splodge of matt minwax and nose Tamiya red, will supply codes if anyone asks.

Had about 10 short trimming flights this afternoon. It’s the first time I’ve been out since early January!! The flaps worked very well at 90*, and needed only 3-4mm of down elevator to compensate. The plane will need some weight on the port wing but that will be done this week as it’s due to pour down all this week....again

There is a problem with GPS if you have fast planes that also turn tightly as it seems that over a certain level of calculated G the GPS system assumes the latest position is an error and substitutes an interpolated position based on the last "good" track. Phil Green referred to this earlier. I did some experiments with GPS on my F5B planes back in 2016/17 and abandoned the idea as the results were useless. F5B fly up and down a 150m course at high speeds with very tight turns at each end of probably around 10G+. The GPS system was rejecting the latest positions during the turns and substituting assumed positions based on the previous track on the straighter bits. After a few more readings confirmed it really was now heading in the opposite direction it jumped to catch up - by which time I was beginning the next turn 🙃. The attached image shows the result. The yellow line in the middle represents the 150m course I was flying, and as you can see the GPS trace shows I appeared to be overshooting by about 300m in both directions. As a bonus the recorded max speeds were in excess of 300Kph 😀. The GPS sensors in use were the SM GPS Logger or a home built one based in this article https://www.rc-thoughts.com/jeti-gps-sensor/ GPS works fine on my slower gliders for GPS Triangle racing where I use the RC Electronics system. Dick

I regularly solder brass tube to piano wire to mount wheels. I over hang the wire slightly so I can drill a hole for a split pin and washer for scale(ish) wheel retention. It was the method suggested by Dudley Pattinson for the SE5a kit I built as my 3rd model back in 1996. Never lost a wheel yet and all I cleaned/tinned was the wire because of the difficulty getting inside the tube. Brass solders very easily. I use Fluxite to make it easier.

If you want some real grip then really roughen the surfaces. You mention torque rods so perhaps grind notches in the wire or similar.

Thanks chaps. My usual with piano wire is some fresh fine grit paper, then leave the flux in place for a good few minutes, then tin. Seems like this will be just more of the same 🙂

If you can do wire and steel washers, then brass will be a doddle! Brass takes solder easier than steel so your normal technique will do the job; i.e. clean, pre-tin, and then solder together.

The theoretical top speed for my SE5a using the 16x4 prop is 26mph, this gave me some concerns, however, looking at a ”typical circuit” eased those concerns somewhat. At 18% scale the speeds would be: Take off: not below 9mph Climb out: 10.8mph Level flight: 14.4mph Touchdown: 8.1mph The maximum speed is given as 123mph, it doesn’t say if this was obtainable on engine power alone but somehow I imagine this was the absolute maximum speed the airframe could withstand before the wings ripped themselves off or something equally terminal happened! At “scale” speed this equates to 22.14mph so my theoretical top speed of 26mph sounds reasonable. Of course the theoretical top speed doesn’t take into account the drag factor and models always seem to fly faster than “scale” speed but in practice it has worked out OK so I’m happy to stick with the large prop even if it does mean that the engine is somewhat “over-propped”.

On field assembly is certainly the main drawback for biplanes. However, My DB Gypsy/Cirrus Moth (as seen in my icon) is quite quick and looks quite scale in flight though nothing as detailed as Greyhead's beutiful SE5a. Boddo devised a simple method of attaching the interplane struts which I've adapted for my Flair SE5a to replace the 8 nuts and bolts which were a bit of a pain. This was the maiden flight before I fitted dummy (elastic) flying and landing wires. The interplane struts are held to the top wing with 14 gauge bike spoke fed through split cotter eyes and held in place with a rubber band - quick and simple for a sport-scale builder like me 🙂 However, biplanes remain my favourites even though they get flown less frequently than my simpler airframes.

I said in my last post “A fully enclosed installation such as the SE5a isn’t the place to bed-in a new engine “. Of course it isn’t ideal for any air-cooled engine new or old so extra care has to be taken to prevent over heating; the full sized was water-cooled. To explain how I hope I’ve overcome the problem I’ve used some old photos as well as a couple of new ones. The SE5a has some positive points; there is a hole directly in front of the cylinder head for cooling air to enter. And there is a large opening in the fuselage behind the engine for heated air to escape. However, things are not as straightforward as they seem; hot air wants to rise but the exit hole is in the bottom of the fuselage. Once the model is moving forwards the air flowing over the hole should produce a venturi effect and suck the hot air out, but this is where the SE5a designers throw another spanner in the works! Below the engine shaft there is an even bigger air entry hole, air entering here will not help with the cooling but will have the effect of “pressurising” the bottom half of the engine compartment and restricting the outflow of hot air. The easiest solution would be to mount the engine inverted but because of the position of the engine shaft this would mean either a much larger model or the cylinder head sticking out the bottom of the fuselage, so this is a non-starter. The engine plate has a hole corresponding to the one in the fuselage, so the hot air can transfer to the bottom half of the engine compartment. A template, this is where you’re glad you paid attention in all those geometry lessons, is drawn and stuck to litho plate. When cut out and bent up it produces an air scoop that forces air entering below the engine shaft upwards into the top half of the engine compartment where it can help to cool the engine. Also with little or no pressurising of the bottom half of the engine compartment the venturi effect can work and suck out the hot air; a win / win situation!

The exit pipe once again uses a 10mm copper pipefitting and in this case also some 10mm brass tube; all silver soldered. The exhaust will exit via 2 of the holes in the engine under pan, not the scale exit points but at least I’ll have 2 exhaust trails following the model. The complete exhaust system. I ordered a new Laser 70 today so it shouldn’t be too long before I can start to test everything. If all is OK then I’ll trim the ends of the exit pipe to be inline with the under pan when attached to the model so in practice they will not be seen. If the system isn’t satisfactory then it’s back to the drawing board My new Laser 70 has arrived and of course it ran flawlessly after starting “first flick”, not that you’d expect anything less from a Laser. I should point out at this juncture that I have no commercial interest in Laser engines; it’s just that they are such good engines that I can’t stop “singing their praises”! Although the excuse for getting this new engine is the SE5a, in fact I’ll use one of my older, well run, engines. This one will free up one of my other Lasers by being mounted in the AcroWot and have a good few flights, first without the cowl to ensure really efficient cooling then after a couple of hours flying time with the cowl fitted. A fully enclosed installation such as the SE5a isn’t the place to bed-in a new engine. I have modified the crankcase breather on all my Lasers to make it easier if the engine is mounted close to the firewall. A short length of brass tube is soldered to the nipple; without it the fuel tubing extension would have to make a sharp 90º bend, which has a tendency either split of restrict the breather. I make it a “T” so it’s just as good if the engine is upright or inverted, the extension tube is fitted to the appropriate side and the other is blocked off. I ran the engine both with and without the SE5a exhaust extension and the only difference I could tell was that the exhaust note sounded a bit quieter with the extension fitted. One thing that I did find out was that I’ll have to incorporate some form of strap because when I opened the throttle above about half way it blew the extension off. Before I do any more testing I’ll run a few tanks of fuel through the engine to get it settled down and fit the strap. For the next tests I will get more “scientific” results on the effect of extending the exhaust by using a rev. counter, which I don’t own, but I know a man who does! Although I’ve not yet done any “scientific” tests, I should be getting a loan of a rev. counter next week, I have carried on with the installation of the exhaust. Having run the engine both with and without the exhaust extension I applied my usual method of decision making; if it looks / feels / sounds OK then it most probably is OK! I silver soldered mounting brackets to the exhaust and squashed the ends of the pipes somewhat to fit through the holes in the under pan. 2 hardwood blocks epoxied to the fuselage sides to screw into completed the installation. I trimmed the pipes so that with the under pan fitted the exhaust doesn’t protrude and isn’t visible when viewing the model normally.

I mounted the bomb rack on some scrap balsa whilst I adjusted the bomb cradles. This adjustment turned out to be quite critical; a balance between having the bombs loose and able to swing about or too tight to allow the release bar to move under the spring tension. In fact it was so critical that I have had to number the bombs to ensure they are fitted in the same positions, the slight variations in the diameters of the bombs where the cradles support them was enough to cause problems. The bombs are held in position by different length pins that pass through loops on the bombs, which themselves pass through slots in the base of the bomb rack. This photo was taken before any adjustments were made; the bombs are now equally spaced! The bombs are loaded in the reverse of the order that they are released. With all the bombs released the release bar projects 20mm from the end of the bomb rack, I don’t think this will be too obvious “in flight” but if it is I’ll shorten the release bar and extend it with a length of piano wire. The first bomb is held in position and the release bar pushed in to engage the release pin through the bomb’s loop, the slot in the release cam is such that the previous indexing pin can pass back through it when the release bar is pushed in. The cam is then moved (at the moment by hand but once on the model by flicking the retract switch on the transmitter) to the other position. The release bar can then be allowed to spring back against the cam whilst the next bomb is put into position and the process repeated until all 4 bombs are in position. The bomb rack is bolted to 4 small brackets fitted between the undercarriage legs; the release arm has a ball-joint soldered to it just inside the fuselage bottom and the control rod passes forwards between the undercarriage cross members and the fuselage bottom. A mini servo to operate the bomb release is located in the engine compartment attached to the firewall by an “L” shaped servo mount. Commercial “L” servo mounts seem to me to be very expensive for what they are so I make my own from “L” shaped plastic extrusion from B&Q; I bought a 6ft length for a couple of quid years ago for a DIY job and I’ve still got half of it left.

The SE5a was developed well after the time of dropping hand grenades or bombs by hand from the cockpit or shooting at the enemy with a pistol. The load it could carry was limited so 4 bombs of 20lbs each was the maximum, either as 2 sets of 2 bombs, one under each wing or a rack of 4 under the fuselage just aft of the undercarriage legs. The bomb release, operated by the pilot, is the out of focus black lever mounted low down on the cockpit side. Pulling it back released a bomb, pushing it forwards reset the ratchet system, pulling it back again released the next bomb and so on until all 4 bombs had been dropped. The bomb release mechanism on the SE5a is very complex, no surprise there then Although of course it is a proven design there is no way I could duplicate it in miniature so I’ve had to design from scratch. To release a bomb is simple, just a pin connected to a servo. But to release bombs sequentially is not so simple. I needed something that would be both reliable and practical at this scale; the full size Cooper bomb rack design would be neither! To control the release mechanism I only have either the retract channel or, if I invest in a new 8 channel receiver, a proportional channel. A proportional channel would be the easiest to work with but I don’t like the idea, if I turned the knob a bit too far a bomb might almost but not completely release then with vibration it could release itself at an unplanned time, which could be dangerous, or at the very least loose me a bomb. Having decided that the “bang / bang” retract channel it will be, I need some way of “stepping” the release mechanism. I got my thinking cap on and came up with an idea. I took my inspiration from a pendulum clock mechanism, these have been reliably sequencing one-second releases for over 350 years; the reliability comes from the fact that the “catching” plate is in position before the cog is released, but of course this produces a rotary movement whereas I required a linear movement. The “Eureka” moment was when I realised that staggered indexing pins could give the linear movement required. I made a mock-up to see if it would work in practice. The main release bar has 5 indexing pins spaced at 5mm intervals and will eventually have 4 bomb release pins each 5mm longer than the previous. The release cam has a slot cut out from the centre; before an indexing pin is released from one end plate by passing through the slot the other end plate is in a position to "catch" the next indexing pin. This is a series of photos showing the sequence as the servo moves the release cam arm backwards and forwards from one extreme to the other; the release bar steps by 5mm with each operation. At the moment I’m using an elastic band, the spring tension will need to be worked out when it is actually releasing bombs, I hope! Here’s a schematic showing one full cycle of the servo, 2 bombs released. Don’t ask me why I did it "stepping" right to left, must have been feeling a bit Chinese!

Disappointing! What's the 'control unit'? We (well a club mate) gave a new member his first successful flights today - he'd only come along to watch having damaged his own model 'having a go'...... quickly realised there's more to it than meets the eye. He had 3 flights buddy-boxed on an electric Junior 60 and left with renewed mojo.

Hello Graham Thanks for the reply, glad you're enjoying the thread. Grahame There must be more “recommended” ways to attach Litho plate than there are ways to skin a cat, they’ve all got their pros and cons, and I’ve tried them all! Purely by accident I’ve found what I consider to be the perfect adhesive for the job. At work we needed some glue that dried clear for a project the students were working on, as I had some Pacer “canopy” glue in the car we tried that and it worked fine but some got onto the table which in turn got covered by a small tin foil container used to mix paint in. When it came to tidying up time the tin foil was stuck fast to the table, the old grey matter started to work overtime. This glue is just the job for Litho plate, it’s like a mixture of PVA and Copydex; it’s thin enough to be spread thinly and evenly over the plate, which can be easily moved to position it accurately but within a short time it has good “grab” to hold everything in place. The icing on the cake is that it’s water based so a quick wipe over with a damp cloth before it’s really set gets rid of any sticky fingerprints etc. The top panel has 3 distinctive parts; there’s a bulge over the fuel cap, the fuel cap itself and something that looks like a submarine conning tower. Where the plates will overlap the edge of the under plate needs feathering in, even the thickness of the Litho plate would leave a noticeable step. For filling very thin depths such as this I think the best material is cellulose stopper as sold by automotive paint suppliers. The bulge is first modelled in balsa and glued to the ply decking and given a coat of silver Solalac for both appearance and fuel proofing. It is quite difficult to work Litho plate from a male mould so I cut an appropriate sized square in an off cut of 1/8th balsa and started to form the bulge from the inside working it into the cut out, when it was approximately the correct depth I transferred it to the actual model to finish it off. A small ring of Litho plate and some rivets completes the top plate itself. It is impractical to make this part from metal so I’ve used spruce and painted it with silver Solalac, when weathered it’ll look OK. When making small parts such as this it’s useful to keep them attached to the wood until they are as near to finished as possible. Sorry for the blurred photo! The fuel cap is made from brass soldered together. The result when the parts are assembled. The gun trough was no problem; so that’s the tank cover finished and I must say it’s been an enjoyable few days. The fuselage front section is now as complete as I want it; in a perfect world I would be able to work on the cowl and dummy engine, but before I do I want to fit the engine to ensure I don’t make things unnecessarily awkward for myself later, but in this non-perfect world I don’t have a spare Laser 70! So it’s time to start on the rear framework.

Hello Geoff Bending up cabane struts (or equivalent!) is never easy if at all possible I try to make them "adjustable". In the case of the SE5a they are made in two parts but with my Parnall Elf I made them truly adjustable as per the full size. They look a lot better as well! It all depends how the full size was made. Grahame

The front section is bent around the hinge wire and then the completed top cover glued to the axle fairing. With the cover closed...... and open. With the axle fairing fixed in place the metal work and bracing wires can be fitted then a coat of etch primer applied to the litho plate ready for a coat of PC10. The tops of the legs need to be made an exact fit when the fuselage is made and the brackets bent to fit the formers.

With all the silver soldering complete (the large brackets are for fixing the undercarriage to the formers and will be bent to accurately fit when the formers have been made) it’s time to add the wood cladding. The legs on some SE5a’s were wrapped with linen so hard balsa could be used for the cladding but the particular aircraft I’m modelling didn’t have wrapped legs, they were left as natural wood, so spruce is the material of choice. As is sadly often the case these days my local model shop could supply me with an ARTF cloned SE5a but a sheet of 1/8 " spruce is another matter! The next best option was a length of “strip wood pine” from B&Q. All the blanks are fret sawed out, the fronts routed to take the piano wire then clamped and glued using slow epoxy before the rears are routed so ensuring a good join. I've got a couple of Black & Decker routers but the best way I’ve found to rout the blanks is to use an appropriate sized “ball ended“ router bit fitted to an electric drill in a vertical drill stand, adjust the height to cut half depth of the piano wire. Hold the blank in place and draw round the piano wire then rout down the middle of the lines. The bit doesn’t have to be exact size, once the router has done it’s job a piece of the correct gauge piano wire dragged down the groove will soon make for a good fit. What better on a rainy Sunday afternoon than spending a couple of hours in the modelling room happily “Dremelling” away at the SE5a’s undercarriage? The first coat of stain has shown up a few areas that require extra work so it’ll be out with the sand paper before the next coat. Then light sanding between coats to build up the “depth” of colour to represent the original hardwood.