Andy G.

Nice neat work there, as always, Chris! Keep the details coming,,

Delivery charges are frustrating, but try living on the Isle of Wight if you want real delivery frustration! Lots of sellers won't post to us. I even tried to buy something from a seller in Portsmouth who flatly refused to deliver to the island even though you can see my town from Portsmouth!!

Hi Chris... Finally got around to checking out the pilatus porter on the VQ site.. Stunning, but way way beyond my painting skills, something approaching a 'Jackson Pollack' would be more my style. Been fairly busy with some other builds and repairs recently, so not too much done on the BN2, but I do have a few pics that I will upload soon and show the slow progress..

And don't forget Gorilla glue!

Paul.... That looks nice.. Pretty sure I'm going to go with the Fly My Sky scheme, despite Chris's protestations.. Chris.... I'm afraid you will struggle with obtaining Solartex.. Solarfilm and all of it's products are apparently closing this month, There is a thread about it on the forum.. My Grotte is at the back of the house, so.. no travelling to get there and close enough for a constant supply of hot coffee from SWMBO!!! .. LOL..

Hi Chris..... The tissue is considerably lighter than 40g/m2 ! I just went out to my version of le Grotte and weighed a sheet.. It weighs in at 12g/m2.... over 60% lighter, and that is the ''heavy'' grade of Modelspan. Sadly Modelspan tissue is no longer available, but when it was it came in 2 grades, Light and Heavy.. Obviously It isn't as strong as brown paper but does still add considerably to the strength and to the surface finish of the balsa, and of course it can be used on open structures, the Sharkface wing in an earlier picture is covered in the same material and finished with PU.. No more 'Dope' for me..

As far as I remember, it just unscrews. But I think you have to unscrew the red bit from the crankcase as I'm sure the metal hexagonal head with the C02 feed pipe is fixed to the red bit and doesn't come off. Be very wary of damaging that tiny and fragile pipe!!

Hi Chris.. Good to know there's some one out there watching.. The covering is ''Heavyweight'' modelspan tissue. I apply several coats of PU varnish to the wood surface first to seal it and enable better sanding, then coat again, lay the dry tissue in place on the wet surface and brush more PU through it, smoothing out any wrinkles ( well... most of them!) with a mixture of.... old credit card,... fingertip.. or the paint brush. Once dry another light rub over with very smooth sandpaper before following coats are applied.. I find tissue quite easy to work with, far more so then film coverings, but then I was brought up on it! The next finishing stage will be a high build primer then top coats, all from ''Rattle cans'' as I have no spray equipment..

Hi All.... Been a couple of weeks or more since I posted on here, still making progress, albeit slowly. the two new ESC's arrived yesterday but I was busy, finally managed to catch up and do a little more today and to download and edit the last batch of photos.. The ESC's are going out in the nacelles, a bit of a tight squeeze, but they will fit, I'll just have to make some angled ply mount plates for them.. Also been thinking about the door hinges, not altogether pleased with the attempts so far and been rethinking it, may use 'flat' hinges and fair them in to look like the ones I have tried so far.. Fitted the servos into their mountings and centered them up before installing, they stand slightly proud of the wing in the lowest corner so I have started to make up some cover plates to conceal this and to protect the linkages. Finally managed to order some servo extension leads which were the RIGHT length! Only 3 attempts to get this right, not bad huh? So I was finally able to get all the wiring run through the wing, tested and then refill the slots I had cut. This allowed me to complete the covering of the wing.. Next job I think will be to hinge and mount the moving surfaces onto the wing. here comes the photos.. .. Motor mount boxes going in to the nacelles. Mounted. Servo install. Servo cover plates being made up. Spaghetti junction at the wing centre section! Starting to cover the underside of the wing. Underside covering all on and being second coated with PU varnish. Hope it's still interesting! More updates soon..

As far as the fins go then it seems you pays your money and you takes your choice then..

Iris... maybe you should show us some pictures of your chicken soup!

Hi all. One of these little beauties is on my build list! Looking at the pictures of the completed ones, and now having looked over the plan can I ask question? Have any of you bothered to cant the fins over the 15 degrees that plan shows or have you taken the simpler route and kept them vertical?? Thanks.

Well..... The weather has certainly stopped any flying ambitions, so no excuse to not crack on with the refurb.. First... I posted a wrong picture in the last posting, I said.. Here's the servo boxes built into the wing, when actually is was a pic I had already posted of the route out to the boxes.. so.. here's the boxes! First job in this session was to fill and rub down the wing top surface and give it 3 coats of PU varnish, then to cover it in heavyweight tissue, First half done.. since this pic was taken I have covered the other half and given the flaps and ailerons several coats of PU ready for covering. The cylinder and needle valves holes in the nacelles ( upper and lower halves) were filled in, using 1/32 ply inside the nacelle for strength and flex and with soft balsa outside for a better finish then they were rubbed down, filled where needed and PU coated. Next job was to work out a hinging system for the door. Eventually decided on using pin type hinges set into small bore aluminium tube, which would then be faired over with balsa to provide sort of scale looking external hinges. Mounting the hinge pins into the tube went easily, creating the fairing pieces wasn't quite so easy. 3 attempts later I was fairly happy with the results. My big bananna hands don't take to kindly to such real fiddly small bits of balsa.. Whilst I had the door on the work bench I decided to reinforce the edge of it, and of the door opening, to add strength and minimise wear and tear. I did this by fitting a thin strip of 1/32 ply around the edge of the door and the door opening, after first sanding a similar amount off the door and the opening. Hinges and fairings... Mk1 nearest the camera, running up to the Mk3 at the top. Ply framing around the door. Top section awaiting trimming back flush. I ordered some more servo extension leads, to replace the ones that i ordered that were too short. Stupidly...... I ordered more of the same length! so.. now I have LOTS of too short leads! More to follow.... especially if this weather keeps up!..