Nick Rees
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Posts posted by Nick Rees
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Shame thou, bit to far to go to collect.
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Not much done last night as I don’t have the ¼” balsa for the front fuselage. Rather than do nothing I worked out if there were any bits I could prep ready for later along the build. So I cut out the ½” soft balsa for the nose. I cut out a pair using my usual S&M scalpel but they were a bit rough so I though why not use my Proxxon jigsaw. Proper job!
I also cut out the intake parts and formers ready. I spent the rest of the time tiding up my workshop, it’s amazing how tools seem to spread themselves out everywhere.
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I have to confess although I'm an IT consultant I did mechanical & electrical engineering thru college before focusing on electronics during Uni. So I guess some of it stuck with me over the years. I also have a fetish for tools especially buying them and with Axminsters Tools 15 minutes down the road my wallet has taken a hammering lately!
I guess the best place to buy the cellophane cheap would be a floral warehouse. I found some 100m x 80cm online for £7.79 which is much better value. But I did find that because my board and worktop are 60cm deep the roll I bought was perfect only needing cutting along one edge. I used Stix 2 Anything Very Small Craft Dots again from Hobbycraft (again their 15 minutes away) to hold it down over the plan.
Oh and your right Peter I do have one of those Slec jigs. Although mine has inset screws and hex bolts rather than the ones offered by Slec. I just bought the grid and brackets sourcing the other stuff on eBay. I have to say the brackets are not super great and I’m already thinking of making a modified version on my 3D printer, when I get round to buying the printer. :-D
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I've split this post out from my usual ramblings as it's worth highlighting. Phil emailed me earlier today pointing out that I hadn’t inserted the captive nut into F6. Now I was aware that it needed doing but reckoned on it being done later down the line. I am so glad Phil emailed and said to do it now before I went any further. It wasn’t the easiest job to sort out as the hole is 6.8mm and my captive nut was 7.5mm. Ordinarily with a block of softwood I might pull the captive nut into the wood but I thought that was likely to cause damage to F6 with the hole about 1mm too small. So carefully I opened up the hole with a 7.7mm bit and also made four small 3mm holes to ‘pilot’ the prongs from the nut. The later might be over-kill but I wasn’t convinced that the prongs might not damage F6 when it was pulled home. I also added a dollop of super glue to the nut when I was happy to make sure it wouldn’t go AWOL on me.
My advice, get the captive nut sat in F6 before you add it to the first fuselage side. It’s gotta be much easier than what I did.
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Another evening in the workshop working on the Scooter. I did get rolling eyes of my misses before I left but she knows what I’m like. Once I get going on a new project she won’t see much of me in the evenings.
Having left the battery box half done I started by setting the other half so that it would be workable a bit later and complete the whole box. The theory of doing two halves was that if they were both square then the whole assembly would be square. Like Hannibal from the ‘A-Team’ says “I love it when a plan comes together”
In between the battery box part drying I proceeded to put the two fuselage sides together. Now for some reason F6 and F7 didn’t want to sit right, being 1mm higher. This would mean that the whole thing would be out of shape if I left it like that. Now I measured every thing from the distance from the datum to the wing seat doubler where F6 sits to even putting the fuselages sides back to back and it was all the same. There was nothing wrong with any of the formers and it should have all gone together nicely, but it was having none of it. In the end I made an executive decision to remove 1mm of the wing doubler where F6 sits. Once that was done it all lined up bang on.
With the fuselage setting against as many engineers squares I have (maybe I might get a few more :D) I moved back to the battery box and following the magazine I dry fitted F2 & F3. I dug out my ¼” to do the bottom for these to sit on and disaster! I’ve only gone and bought 3” sheet instead of 4”
I pondered my options; did I have anything in my stock pile, No; could I get away with 3”, maybe but I’ll get stuck further down the fuselage; what about biscuiting two 3” to make six and then cutting down to size, but that’s just desperation; In the end the final and winning option was to call it a day and go home for some chilled beer out of the fridge. I’ll order replacements Monday but maybe to make the postage worthwhile I’ll get the material for my next project, Andy Conway’s L39 Albatross.
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Last nights session although productive was a bit of a rocky road. I made a few errors that needed to be resolved but shouldn’t make a difference in the long run. I’m concluding that this is all down to my inexperience at scratch building and having more of a follow instructions step by step mentality. The good thing, it’s all knowledge to dump in the memory bank.
Having cut out all the triangular section I glued these down. As it turns out I misinterpreted the plan and cut the section over the wing too short and not following thru to the front of F4. Also despite pictures in the magazine I also cut short the section that intersects with F3. It’s not the end of the world and some fillets will fill those gaps.
Now I didn’t notice the F4 issue until I got to the gluing it in F4 and so a little MacGyver was required. It was also at this point I discovered that my ½” triangular section is 9/16th on one side so I’m going to have to watch my joints and any affect it has on the interface of with fuselage formers.
With formers F4 thru F7 glued I moved onto the mini puzzle that is the battery box. It seems Traplet made the centre tab ‘off-centre’ so you’ll have to shuffle things until it all lines up. With time getting late and a beer in the fridge waiting for me I set one half of the battery box and called it a day.
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Thanks Phil for the info however it was a little late for me by the time I read it. I used the tracing paper method that I found on other forum threads. Although your method might have saved me time and the £1 for the tracing paper.
I got my sides cut out and started on the triangle sections. I did notice that you have to watch the cut angles when fliping sides but the old addage, measure twice cut once.
I've also cut and tidied all my formers and made up F3 and F6.
Good progress so far, hopefully more tonight and maybe even a end of week beer.
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Only manged a little work this evening due to getting home late from work. Started by covering the plan in some clear cellophane floral wrap I picked up earlier from Hobbycraft. Hopefully it will keep my plan in good nick during the build and at just £4 for 20 meters it's pretty cheap. So I can replace it several times if need be.
So with only an hour or so available I managed to get the fuz sides sorted. After much deliberation in my head I think I've got it right. Being a noob at building from plan I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to transpose the fuz side shape to the balsa.
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Hey Tony, I can't comment on how balsa ages but for the cost of the material I would say if in doubt swap it out. Your kit part becomes a cutting template for the new stuff.
I actively support my local model shop but Balsa Cabin's wood quality is superb. Their website is a little cumbersome but their great to deal with. I've also bought of Slec and got consistent good quality material.
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I've started and created my build blog PSS A-4 'Thunderbirds' Skyhawk Early days and who knows what mess I'll get myself into
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OK, so what's the Thunderbirds thing all about? Well I appreciate 1:1 scale stuff but with my models I like to have a bit of fun with the livery. Most of the time it’s simply vinyls printed and added to stock ARTF airframes. However the Skyhawk is a build from plan and having not covered a balsa plane for over 25 years I didn’t want to stretch myself too much. So with a good big of Googling I found the gallery of Clavework Graphics on Deviant Art and decided his Thunderbird 1 inspired Bae Hawk was a great target. Three simple colours and some stock vinyl’s should pose an achievable target on this Scooter build.
Edited By Nick Rees on 01/03/2016 23:34:41
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So it's St Davids day here in Wales but also the start of the Skyhawk mass build project. Thankfully my 'Set' turned up from Traplet yesterday and with a clear work bench I decided to make a start. Well I didn't so much as get started building but spent most of the evening laying out the battlefield for the next couple of months.
Now having just turned forty I'm very much a metric man so all this old school imperial measurements isn't that natural so it taking time to get used to holding the rule the wrong way round! So i decided I'd label up all my sheets to spend less time measuring. So I've cleared the bench popped on my styrofoam building board and got my timber sorted.
Hopefully with a bit of luck I can really get stuck in tomorrow.
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I've not seen the plan yet as I'm waiting for my set to come through but the tops of Morrisons spices are 44mm OD. Bit cheaper than a tube of Liz Earle, unless your misses like that stuff i guess.
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Windex is pretty hard to get in the UK. Also Windolene's current formula doesn't have Ammonia in it and the key ingredient is 5% ammonia, so the cheapo supermarket own brand window cleaner is usually a better bet. The scale modellers love their Windex from using it as a thinner for acrylic paint to simple paint stripper! If the usual discount outlets don't have anything suitable try the smaller discounts shops on the high street. They frequently have older stock with the 'better' chemical mixes
Edited By Nick Rees on 18/02/2016 15:10:07
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Well that's my order for the set done. Having just got off the phone to them, sounds like Traplet are backed up with these kits. Quoted 10-14 days on delivery so fingers crossed for 1st March.
Time to sort out the other bits...shopping yipee!
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I don't see the point of registration. This is something that the US has been debating for months now and the same arguments against registration are valid here. Like others have said it’s the reckless few that will ignore the rules, ignorant or not. I don't think we can entirely blame the CAA or EASA for this storm and is down to the media. They started to highlight the less than good flying and then branded them as drones. Now it seems we all fly drones and not just the RAF. So the tar brush has already been slapped on all of us.
The recent article in the BMFA news (you know, that thing you usually put straight in the bin) page 6. Seems to indicate that the EASA are not interested in getting involved with the control of RC flying in the UK and are leaving it to the CAA which in turn are happy with how the BMFA are managing RC flying. This also seemed to be the case in the December CAA / BMFA meeting minutes. That they see no issue with how were doing things now and see no reason to change.
From the recent Mill Hill incident report it appears that regular civil pilots are more reckless than us and they are registered! My interpretation of the report shows that the pilot had no idea of his altitude and also failed to research local airfield information about recommended approach patterns and the mention of RC gliding at that point. If you take some of the altitudes in the report and do some maths the pilot was barley 100ft of the deck. Sounds like showboating to me.
Hypothetically if we did end up with some sort of pilot registration like the FAA, who is going to enforce it? The CAA probably doesn’t have time or resources to do it and not everybody is a member of a club. As a ‘country’ flyer I have no desire to get caught up in the politics of a club.
Right I’ll put my soap box to bed now.
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It's good that I'm not fixed to a 'real' livery. The Red Bull is on the list but other energy drinks are available
Haven't ordered my wood pack yet (waiting for traplet to send me a voucher) I did however get something in the post to inspire and for 3D reference during the build.
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As I’ve just posted on the Skyhawk thread I’m new to this whole PSS stuff but digging into it I’d like to get my hands on a plane asap. The Scooter is going to take up most of my time come March and I have a 3m Pilatus B4 just about finished on the bench. So I’m wondering if anybody has something their looking to pass on that’s pretty much RTF? I’d want a jet based plane and optionally something that is a good all-rounder.
Thanks, Nick
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Just wanted to say hello to everybody and stick my head above the bunker to say I'm getting involved with the Scooter build this year. Phil has had my email about PSSA membership and I’m hoping to get the set ordered this coming week.
I’m new to PSS but love my semi-scale gliders. So I’ve been trawling the web for PSS related stuff and vids which has only added to my desire for this side of sloping. However, having looked at pictures of other PSS events I’m a bit worried that anything I produce might not be up to scratch. I haven’t done a traditional built up plane since I was a teenager and although I should be able to build something that resembles a Scooter I like to add a twist to all my RC builds. So I’d like to go with a non-prototypical livery for my Scooter like a Red Bull sort of thing such as this;
I’m worried that this might be frowned upon but the established PSS community. Am I worried over nothing or do I need to pick a more ‘real’ livery?
Btw, I don’t add pilots to my planes. Only time I’ve done it resulted in a 10 second maiden and the whole thing going in the bin. So it’s just a bad omen for me
PSS A-4 'Thunderbirds' Skyhawk
in PSSA Mass Build 2016 - A4 Skyhawk
Posted
I’ve not been able to do much on my Scooter build in the last week because I’ve been waiting for my order from Balsa Cabin with the 4” x ¼” sheet. Even today the order has yet to materialise and in the end Friday I drove the 40 minutes to Western Valley Models and bought a sheet of ¼”. That cost me more than just the sheet balsa as I walked out with a PA Addiction 3D plane!
With the weather being so good the last few days I’ve been banging the packs thru my existing 3D plane, an E-flight Extra 330SC BP, and also maidening my Pilatus B4 that I recently finished. So workshop time has been limited. However tonight I managed to get on with the build and make some progress. I’ve made up the front bottom, cutting oversize as Phil suggested in his build and pretty much following the suggested method of build.
Hopefully I can get back on track and get some serious hours in the workshop this coming week. Maybe my balsa order will show up as well!