Steve Houghton

Very interesting, Skip; thanks for finding that video, and thanks to Paul Stewart for making it. The running commentary about the CAC Sabre's history is fascinating, and the tail end pics look almost as good as my model!! I've not yet decided how to model the tail lights, but I am noting carefully how other builders have done it.

Chris, Many thanks for the reminder of your link. I have already downloaded your orignal Ballerina posts about the sauce, to save as a reference document. If anyone wants references to the glassing technique (after reading the excellent blogs on this forum, of course): RCM&E Special Issue 2019, article by Danny Fenton. RCM&E June 2018 Workshop Supplement, article by Tony Nijhuis. I ordered some materials from Phil Clark at Fighteraces, and he also sent a helpful article of his own. Skip, glad my struggles are helping. It will be great to see some photos on your Avon Sabre blog in due course - I hope the shoulder is clearing up to allow you to proceed. You have some useful photos, especially of the tail end, which I have only just spotted.

Thanks Gents, Chris, I did draw inspiration from your roll. It all helps us to develop new ideas and techniques. I am seriously contemplating my first glassfibre covering for this build, so may be coming back for advice on the Sauce. I've read your's and Phil's blogs on the matter, so I think I understand the principles and ingredients. I'm still hoping to meet the September deadline, but progress needs to be significantly faster than last year!

Chris, I love your attention to detail. It really makes a model stand out from the crowd.

Roll Your Own Following a similar principle to my Jet Provost tailpipe, and a few ideas borrowed from Chris McG, I made the tailpipe by rolling a ring of 1/32" ply around the best sized former I could find (other body cleaning products are available), and then added a few layers of 1/16" balsa to thicken it up. This was all wetted with water and left to dry: After overnight drying it was all laminated with aliphatic glue, the top flattened off, and a location tab added to the top to fit between the tailplane fairings. This allowed dry-fitting to the fuselage and rough shaping: Put Another Ring On It I wanted the ply ring to be as near to the fuselage skin as possible. However, my fuselage was not an accurate round shape and with the initial ring size it would have been too high up the fuselage to allow enough meat for carving the streamlined duct shape. Hence I added two more inner rings of 1/16" balsa and another 1/32" ply ring. This seemed to be adequate to carve a nice shape, albeit giving much thicker side walls than I wanted: With the duct still dry fitted I could remove it to carve the initial shape onto the tailplane fairings: Mistaken Identity Further study of the Avon Sabre's duct showed that it needed a different shape to that which I originally carved, which was based on other F86 marks. After gluing it all together, with a top ply plate as used by other builders and a further 1/32" ply liner inside the top of the duct, I ended up with this: The taper on the tailplane fairings extends further forwards and higher up: Here's One We Made Earlier It should have ended up with something like this, from a different Avon Sabre, but the shape is the same for mine: ... and this is how it turned out - final shaping and sanding still needed: The inner lining will be smoothed down in due course. The side walls of the duct can be thinned a little, but I can't get them down to the thickness of one layer of metal. It will definitely be 'stand well off' scale. However, I'm fairly pleased with the overall effect.

In a word, Phil....STUNNING! You're showing us all the way to go about scale modelling again. I reckon you should let someone else judge this MB, so that you can be in the running for a prize at last. How about inviting a modelling celebrity to help with the judging - Mr. D.Fenton, for example (other celebrities are available!).

Thanks Martin, I think it was your recommendation that I was recalling.

Hi Danny, It's pure friction holding them on. I'm told a wipe of Pritt Stik on the rods is also an added insurance for those of a worrying nature, as recommended by Martin and Gordon. I can certainly confirm that mine are tight, due to a slight misalignment of the rods (woops!), so that the rods on one side need spreading slightly to line up with the tubes, thus putting the other side under tension against their tubes. Time will tell, but I'm assured it will be fine. Thanks for your comment.

Pitchy Binders I encountered a problem with mounting the tailplane halves, due to me having them removable. While assembling the tailplanes onto the rods I found that the front rod slid sideways in its bearing tube, and the bend in the rod would then bind into the end of the bearing tube, causing the servo to stall. Without disconnecting the pushrod each time the tailplanes are slid into place, it was impossible to tell if they were free to move or jammed until the servo complained! Here's my solution to stop this happening and causing a crash due to a binding linkage: I carefully sawed a 3mm 'washer' off each side of the bearing tube, smoothed the cut edges with a small file and then glued the washers onto the rod with JB Weld epoxy leaving approx 1mm gap between the washers and bearing. Now it's impossible for the rod to slide sideways. Even if the glue does not hold, the bend in the rod will now bind into a movable washer instead of the fixed tube, and there should be no linkage binding. The washers were carefully spaced so as not to lie outside the edges of the tail fairings. This has made it much easier to slide everything together, and should prevent that feared binding: The inner bearing tube will be glued into the slots in F15, as per plan, but the washers must be free to rotate with the rod.

Hi all, Thanks for your kind comments. I have a few household chores to clear before I press on with the tailplane bearing issue.

Still Here! No, I've not given up - just short of time. The wing fillets have now been in-filled with balsa and sanded down - not much to show after all the work: The step at the front of the fillet is lined with thin ply for protection: Pitch and Yaw The HS225MG elevator and rudder servos have been mounted as far forward as I could, using 1/8" ply plates mounted on top of F4 and F5, and a gap between them for my sliding RX mounting plate on top of the battery box. Balsa pushrod for the elevator, but rudder connection still undecided, although I'm still hoping to use a closed loop. Using the outer hole on the elevator crank and the second hole on the servo, the elevator throw is too much, so I may need to move to the inner hole. I prefer mechanical reduction to using throw reduction on the radio: I needed a 15mm deep balsa filler on F5 to raise the rear ends of the plates to be parallel to the fuselage centre line: The front ends sit on the remnants of the F4 cross piece that was left after I cut it away in the middle for the RX slide-in plate. No need for any additional supports underneath the plate, as the rear mount holds it level: Fairing well I have finally tackled the awkward tailplane fillets, placing the outside edges 60mm apart at the front and 42mm apart at the rear: The top edges ended up lower than the F15 saddle, so I added a layer of 1/8" balsa to the top of each one, then sanded them down to be flush with F15. One side needed a shaving off F15 as well, to level the sides up: I'm quite please with the fit, which needed a tiny sliver of balsa to fill a couple of gaps between the fillets and the fuselage: Tailplane Tubes Since my tailplanes are going to be removable, I fitted tubes into slots in the lower laminations of the tailplanes. Brass at the front and aluminium at the rear, as that's what I had in stock. They sweep forward slightly to accommodate the taper in the fuselage fairings, becoming parallel when the planes are spread slightly at the front: The top laminations were then slapped on with aliphatic and left for two days to endure the glue in the middle had dried: I'm considering a mod to the front tailplane pivot bushing, which I'll expand on later. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode.