John Rickett 102

Remove the screw completely, its a long pin which goes through the pivot. Once that's removed the pivot should slide out easily.

Does anyone know if the (spare) rpm sensor on a RCxel ignition module can be connected directly to a Futaba receiver for telemetry, instead of having to use the Futaba SBS-01RO sensor? Thanks

Thanks Chaps for the compliments, it makes it all worthwhile. Richard, I'm going tomorrow to set up, its too far for me now get up early, drive there, stand all day and then drive home. I'll ask if its possible put them in the same room as I think they try to group in categories - no guarantees though.

It took much longer than expected to assemble all the bits, however, next stop - Gaydon on Sunday.

Ben's son Colin took over the supply of the kits and plans. The website is still active: https://www.benbucklevintage.com/index.php?main_page=contact_us The Radio Queen is also still shown as being produced

Ok Richard, congratulations on having flown the Gull 4, presumably it all ended well even if the aileron response was lacking? Thanks for the reassurance that bowed gaps are not just the province of models. Yes, they can be found on quite a lot of old wooden aircraft, sometimes worse than this, I wonder though if those aircraft started out with bowed edges or if they’ve crept in over the years. As a new build I’m a bit disappointed when I’d hoped to make everything as true as I could, only to realise I’ve made the silly mistake of not building in the prevention – such is the joy of modelling! Sealing the aileron gap is a good idea, I’ll note that and add some tape after its painted, even if not strictly needed it will be better to be able to fly with reduced aileron movement.

I should also have said, after applying the first coat heat up the area with a heat gun, this will make the epoxy penetrate the wood. Nothing will get through after that.

Epoxy resin is very good as a fuel proofer on ply. Make sure that the ambient temperature does not drop below about 18C when applying and for the duration of the cure and you'd be ok after 2 or 3 days. Two coats is better than one, so if you can rub it down without seeing any balling on the glass paper you will know that you left the first coat long enough.

Outside, the drizzle had set in so might as well do something productive in the workroom, even if mundane, the jobs have to be done. A small milestone reached with the rib stitching being completed on one wing. Using micopore tape is a much better option, it will follow the curves and provide, to my mind, a more realistic result. A couple of cross braces had been built in for the wing rib at the root of the aileron to prevent the starved horse effect when shrinking the covering, but overlooked to do the same with the flap box. There are a thousand little errors that can be made when building but I never seem to learn!

The vac-formed windows have now been returned by Sarik and glued into the doors. After a bit of careful trimming it was satisfying to know they dropped into the recesses without inducing stresses into the wooden surrounds. Sarik advised that the best tool to trim PETG is a pair of sharp tin snips, which Mr Amazon had in stock and delivered the next day. The method of making simulated rib stitches wasn’t consistent. In some places the top strip of Koverall wouldn’t stay adhered between stitches giving a bulky look to the effect. The rudder is the worst but its painted now and while its not as good as I’d like, I’m reluctant to strip off the covering and start again, but thought there could be a better method. For the wings I’ll use micropore surgical tape as the top covering. The tape appears to be the same as the (now unobtainable) 3M hair set tape but without the pinked edge, and its not tinted pink, apart from that it seems to be the same stuff so well worth a try. It has a light adhesive on one side and being porous will accept dope. Pictured here is a photo of an aileron showing the promising result, the wings and flap boxes will be finished using this method. So far just the bottom of one wing has been done and all is well. If the tape is the same as the hair set tape, which I’ve used many times in the past, there should be no problems…….he says confidently.

Ok Paul, Thanks for the information. Making the plugs from ply and skinning them with Isopon P38 wasn't particularly difficult, it was the moulding that was the hold-up as I don't have any vac forming equipment. I've now been told by Sarik that three windows have been formed on the supplied plugs and are being returned, they are willing to do more if required once these have been checked.

I had bought a vinyl cutter about three years ago although up to now had only cut paint masks and vinyl lettering, having read that Richard Crapp had cut shapes in plasticard for his current project, I thought I’d try the same. A simple bit of design and hey presto, the machine will cut the acetate landing light cover and the plasticard rim, both of these are for the right-hand lamp. The cutter also produced little rims for the wing steps, these would have been a real challenge if tried with litho, which I would have done prior to getting the cutter One of the practices observed from aircraft restorers is that when covering a large area, any projections are best covered using scraps of material prior to laying on the main piece. The practice can be applied at our scale - control snake outlets, rigging attachments, a canopy surround, nav lights or the like are easier to go round if working with small pieces of material leaving a wide margin. Holes in the main piece of material can then be cut larger and do not have to be so precise to still form a tidy finish. With that concept in mind, I thought I’d try covering the landing light surrounds with scraps pre-cut using the vinyl cutter. A piece of fabric was laid on a flat surface to which parcel tape (wonderful stuff for our purposes) had been stuck. The fabric was given a coat of dope to lock the weave and then allowed to dry. Here a scrap piece of fabric has been given a single coat of dope. The shiny side (which was face down) will attach itself readily to the tacky surface of the cutting board. Using the previously designed shape of the landing light and a little bit of manipulation of the cutter software, an outline was then cut out, leaving a margin of about ¾”. A coat of fabric cement had been applied to the area, so once placed on the wing another coat of well thinned fabric cement sealed the patch in position. When it comes to covering the wing, it should now be much easier to cut an oversized hole around the landing light rim yet still have a neat edge against the rim. The result is not perfect as the fabric will distort slightly as soon as the dope is softened, but its probably much better than trying to cut round the light surround from a large piece of cloth. Here the covered wing with the covering cut around the light, I believe that after a couple of coats of dope and some primer/filler the edge should look acceptable Both outer panels have now been covered so its on to the rather tedious task of simulated rib stitching

Its looking good Steve. The design is sound and will fly well, there’s not much point in reducing wood thicknesses, though being careful with the finish will pay dividends. You could certainly save weight with modern servos, a Futaba S148 which would have been a standard fit at the time has a torque of 3.0 kg-cm (at 6v). The current Hitec HS-81 has a similar torque and weighs 16.6 gm compared to the Futaba at 45.4 gm. I’d advise not to skimp on cheap servos but if you look for ones rated at 3.0 kg-cm, they will do the job and save a considerable amount of weight. Just make sure when fitting out that everything is as far forward as possible, you’re unlikely to end up with a model with a too-far-forward cg.

If you want to be exact, this is what the CAA currently require. By 'main body' presumably they mean the fuselage but not the wings or tailplane. How to label your drone or model aircraft Your operator ID must be: visible from the outside, or within a compartment that can easily be accessed without using a tool clear and in block capitals taller than 3mm secure and safe from damage on the main body of the aircraft

A decent day for spraying eventually arrived so the window plugs were each given three wet coats of paint, to get as high gloss as possible, and have now been sent to Sarik for vac forming. All the tail end now has the ribs tapes applied. As wetting out the cotton thread with fabric cement was a messy process, I thought another approach might work. This time a piece of tissue was given a coat of shrinking dope followed by a coat of fabric cement. When dry, thread straight off a reel, was wound round the nails on top of the tissue. A couple of liberal coats of fabric cement were then brushed onto the thread to stick this to the tissue. It worked ok, so same result as before but less messy. Here, the dried tissue has started to be cut into ¼” strips. The tissue doesn't adhere to the parcel tape so little chance of damage when lifting each strip from the board. A closer view of a prepared strip. Here, a strip pasted onto the covering and another with the top strip overlaid. Apart from a couple of sealing coats of non-shrinking dope, there's nothing more to do to this part now prior to painting.