Levanter

This is what the bell crank looked like on the underside and connected up. The snake can be seen running through the carbon tube. The white areas and the skid are painted along with the tubes. The view from the top shows the double ended ball link and the push-rods soldered into stud fittings. This is where the adjustment was is made to get the rudders central and parallel. Here is the connection to the rudder. The horn is a small piece of Tufnol glued in place. And here is the finished assembly, The little "hatch" in the middle is stuck on with double sided tape and can be popped of to get good access to the ball joint for adjustment. The angle of the photo doesn't show that the push-rods are in fact directly behind the tailplane to keep them out of the airflow and also well protected. I am pleased to say the steering works a treat. Following up on the ESC, here is the final installation. A couple of dobs of hoy melt glue has it firmly fixed in the recess. Everything else followed the plan and the excellent instructions and tips from Richard Harris. It was partly the fear of the head and rotor blades that made me put the model to one side but in the end it all worked out just as he promised. Here is my Atom finished but not yet flown. Hmmm! The Panther looks tempting in this year's Special Issue. Levanter

Steve. I get easily distracted that's the problem. Having got the steering sorted out at the servo end it was time to get connected at the rudders. Here I did do a few sketches to bash out some options and a quick look around the bits and bobs soon had the answer. A bell crank was fitted. The brass bolt goes through a short piece of a luminium tube to stop the balsa crushing. This is the underside of the tailplane which was built-up but only sheeted on the top surface.

The rest of the fuselage was according to the plan and here is one of the stages. Here the internal supports for the undercarriage are clamped in place. The two carbon tubes can just be seen sticking out the back. The fairing around the mast support is partially fixed. The rails at the top are spot glued in place as a clamping aid. The rails stop the clamps from sliding off. Another slight variation was the mounting of the ESC. It was an experiment really but worked out quite well. The three holes at the front are for the motor wires and are sufficiently large to allow the bullet connectors to pass through. The slot is big enough to pass the battery connector so everything is dismountable which is one of main aim in every build. On final assembly the ESC was fixed with double sided tape and being right in the airflow, should get plenty of cooling. Levanter

An old thread I know, but it is mine and has to restart with a confessional. I had no idea it went right back to 2015 and what's more I had the temerity to label it a "quick build". So apologies all round and I do eventually get to finish all my Mass Builds. This years Grumpy Tigercub is likely to get finished this year and there is a bit of breathing space as it looks like the 2019 build will start a bit later than previously First to answer Richard and yes it was a slim bottle but I did make a plug and shrink it a little for a good fit. The neck of the bottle did well for the cowl. To begin with everything was quite conventional with the mast support and recesses for the servos. Like many I made the mast removable in the case of breakage and the holes in the backing plate are there to take the retaining bolts. Here is the mast laminated from three strips of spruce and the two retaining bolts. The mast is quite a tight sliding fit in the channel of the mast support so the bolts are in direct sheer and not doing very much work. I chose nylon to save a bit of weight. Checking the servos fit and these are the metal geared ones recommended by Richard. After that some quite big changes were made. I had some hollow square carbon tube that I thought would do nicely for the booms. Being hollow this led me to think about running a snake through one of the booms to work the rudders. It kind of got devised as I went along but the first hurdle was to get a linkage from the servo into the hollow tube. The rudder servo had to stay where drawn because there is not a lot of room in the cockpit and I was sure that would soon be used up. The rear end of the fuselage was arranged as a sandwich to neatly fit the carbon tubes. The brass tube acts as a locating peg for the carbon and also a lead-in to the snake. This is how the arrangement works and I think I first got the idea that the connection from a servo didn't have to initially point in the right direction from a Peter Miller plan for a throttle linkage where there is not enough room for a normal linkage very tight to a firewall. It took a couple of goes to get the wire bent correctly and when everything did finally line up, the wire was soldered into a hollow stud which then screwed into the snake inner. The piano wire borrows a bit of the hole cut for the servo wires but there was enough room and the servo wires were restrained to avoid chafing. A slightly different angle. Later on the snake outer is slid over the inner and is a snug fit in the square carbon tube. The booms do not taper in towards the tail and are parallel. I did not think that would matter too much. To be continued. Levanter

Posted by Tim Chambers on 09/10/2018 12:48:18: There are an awful lot of people out there happily using their minilathes to produce nice accurate work, blissfully unaware that the machine they are using is complete garbage, according to experts on internet forums. Buy a minilathe, but get it from one of the established suppliers advertising on the ME forum. I personally bought an Amadeal 210 lathe in the end after looking at minilathes and comparing prices. Very true for most hobbyists and many successful engineers. If repeatability is not a major requirement then it is easy to make matched parts and other dimensions do not matter if they are in fresh air. Ingenuity is rampant and time is rarely that important. Fabulous turning has been done on pillar drills. Levanter

Hello Percy I have the Proxxon drill press. It was one of the first things I bought along with the smaller table saw and the disc sander. These are my three most used tools by far. I would like the larger saw sometime as the tilting blade would be very useful as well as the extra blade depth. I also have (in the Proxxon range) Router Spindle moulder Bench grinder The most useful part I have made on the lathe is a tow release mechanism made in brass which also doubles as the nose weight in a Sophisticated Lady. Levanter