Nick Somerville

Still too cold to paint in my unheated spray area/shed so spent a bit of time working on the ETC 501 rack. A bit more fiddly than I had expected but hopefully a near enough rendition. It will be removable for transport as it bridges across the lower wing and onto the fuselage behind and in any case with the drop tank in place it will be an easy casualty of hangar rash. Phil at Fighteraces is supplying the 300l drop tank and when that arrives I can finalise it’s fixings on the rack.

Looking very good indeed, David. I guess if you have plenty of channels available on your receiver and transmitter then its just a matter of individually fine tuning each flap servo. For my Sea Fury I had just 9 channels available on my old DX9, so used just one for all 4 flap servos through a JR Matchbox. Takes a bit of fiddling to get them all synchronised and reminded me of adjusting servo travel on my old Fleet radio gear a rather long time ago.

Rivets all completed so whilst awaiting some decent weather to start laying the final Luftwaffe RLM colours down I have started to make sense of the wiring and airlines. I have 11 servos operating over 10 channels (the little cooling flap servos are on a y lead) plus two more channels required for the ignition and on board starter. A Powerbox Pioneer is being used to manage the twin Li ion power packs and servo distribution and this will have a pair of receivers connected each with dual receiver circuits for added redundancy. The four flap and aileron leads from the wing run into a single female plug with the male very securely fixed to the side frame to mitigate against any disturbance to the receiver connections. The air setup is pretty straight forward with a simple UP-8 valve feeding air to the tail and main retracts. Air fill valve and switches (radio & ignition isolator) are located under the gun hood.

Well almost there, just the flaps and the wheel covers left to add rivets to. My Aldi soldering iron died halfway through the process, so popped into Screwfix for a £10.99 one. That lasted 2 hours so took it back for a replacement and that one has lasted the course.

I have a preference for hand crank pumps as it’s one less battery to charge. However I am on my third in four and a half years back modelling. Perkins, Prolux and a Hangar 9 one. Tbh they all look the same and certainly they all leak the same! Do others experience the same leaking issues or do the pumps have a grudge against my winding technique?

Takes as long to count them as to burn them so, as that would mean twice the work, I am not counting. There are a lot though. Actually the time consuming work is calculating the position of the lines from the Bentley drawings that I have for reference. Those with the rivets shown are all 5.23 x smaller than my model, so I spend fair bit of time punching numbers onto my phone calculator before transferring to the model. Once done, the rivets burn in fairly quickly by eye and it is a surprisingly therapeutic task.

The riveting begins. My pilot ‘Gunther Raal’ looks on to make sure I keep the lines on track. 2mm sharpened brass tube set into a cheap Aldi soldering iron.

Thanks Arto, yes if Jon had a radial 90 I would have chosen it for sure. Second choice was the Saito FG 90 but someone had the new Valach for sale at a reasonable price so went for it. The fan is scale and moves a lot of air. I shall only partially baffle as I want to avoid back pressure from the fan, which I have read can actually reduce peak rpm. There is a lot of exit area for the cooling so I don’t anticipate any overheating issues.

Vallach 85. swinging a 26 x 12 prop. With a fan.

I know it’s got a petrol twin to power the model hut there are no less than four batteries required. Two for the receiver/ servos, one for the ignition and one for the on board starter. Here we have a pair of 4300ma Li Ion Molicel packs on top of the engine box. Another of the same sits inside the box along with an 1100ma 4s lipo for the starter. Hopefully the oversized batteries should mitigate against having to use too much lead to balance the model.

With all the surface detailing completed, finally time to commit to the primer coats. It’s good to see it all one colour again as I have been getting a bit tired of endless weeks at the scruffy stage. Back on the model bench with a pile of peeled panel line tape. I do like peeling that away to reveal the lines. Wings up next.

Great. Thanks very much David, good to know such a narrow attachment works ok. No photo needed as I can easily redo my arrangement to hide it. On the job list for tomorrow. Old habits die hard for me from my large sailplane days, so I still use a little coordinating of rudder with aileron when commencing turns, unless at full chat.

Glad you posted this Dave as I am interested in how you plan to operate the rudder. When I constructed mine I looked at/measured the fin post and rudder leading edge (22mm) and considered it too narrow for a reliable hidden closed loop to operate. So I fitted a small external horn and minimalistic shrouds for the exiting pull pull wires. I note however, unsurprisingly for F4C this will loose static points. Have you hidden a closed loop for rudder actuation before with such a narrow distance between the wire attachment points? Tape on the elevators and rudder looks great.

Great video Chris and a lovely colour scheme. I guess this must be a later version of the Kite as it has a wheel. The one I built in 1988 from the John Watkins plan just had a sprung skid.

Thanks Thomas. Nearly there with this stage of detailing so hopefully next week I can lay down the final primer coats and set to some rivets. I may be a while!

Looks brilliant David. Great photo of the front end too that really shows just how long it is up front. You won’t be needing any lead up there for sure.

Good observation on the curve there David. Might just go check on mine; though they are done and dusted with stitches and pinked tape, so won’t be starting them over. What covering material are you using. I used some Oratex but wasn’t convinced it is as light as some other options might have been.

Interested to hear about opinions on this as have ordered 3 packs of 2s Molicel Li Ion’s. 2 for dual battery setup and one for the ignition on my Fw 190. All 4200ma, which is more capacity than I need in reality but I am going to need ballast up front in any case.

Work continues laying panel lines and adding access hatches on the fuselage. The large lower access panel has been simulated with thin tape to accentuate the edge, but no litho added as I am low on the really thin stuff and I am trying to avoid adding any weight aft. The raised blimp behind for the loop antenna which will be removable for transport. For now I have simply cut a strip of 1.5mm plasticard which seems to work well enough. Fixings are 2m csk machine screws. The port side hinged large hatch I have added with litho as it makes simulating the latches easier. The piano hinge is brass rod sanded flat on one side, so it doesn’t sit too proud, and slots cut with a razor saw. This cold spell of weather has been helpful as there is still quite a bit of surface detail still to add. Hopefully all will be ticked off by the time it warms up and I can then lay the final few primer coats ready for adding rivets

Here’s the completed lower outer gun cover fitted with the cartridge exit chute. The front outer corner has been separated and glued to the servo hatch.

I saw it Bert. I like the scarf on the pilot flowing in the airstream. Looks great!

Moving onto the lower wing the first job is to fabricate the outer lower gun covers. Pity these weren’t included with the other vacuum moulded abs parts from Vailly Aviation as they are a bit tricky. To keep weight down I have started out with 1/16 balsa and some shaped block. I shall glass cloth these and then add the spent cartridge chute made from formed Lithoplate afterwards along with the latches. The cover overlaps the aileron servo hatch so I will have to decide whether to fix them in place with screws or separate them along the servo cover line and glue in place.

With most if the primer now rubbed out I have been working on the detailing of the wing. Top surface first I marked out the panel lines and applied a double layer of pvc insulating tape cut to 1.5mm width. My previous warbirds at a slightly smaller scale used 1mm chart tape but by the time the top coat was applied the impression was somewhat slight. With the tape in place I have brushed two layers of undiluted grey primer filler either side and when dry sanded back to blend out the brush stokes. The wing will have two coats if diluted primer sprayed on before removing the tapes and then some silver/aluminium applied along the panel lines and other high wear areas. I had considered a whole coat of silver/aluminium but Luftwaffe aircraft tend not to show much wear or oaint flaking due to the use if quality etch primer undercoating. Unlike Japanese fighters and some American examples. Also added are the gun and ammo covers. These came as vacuum mouldings so not too much work involved.

On the hunt again for a four servo connection between wing and fuselage. Found these after some googling https://www.3waycomponents.co.uk/12-Way-Universal-TE-AMP-MATE-N-LOK-Wiring-Connector-Kit-With-Seals?search=Mate-n-lok&page=4 cheap and robust looking but the blurb says for 18-20 gauge wire. Given that heavier duty servo wire is 22 gauge the unit may be a tad robust. The model will have twin 3200ma li ion receiver batteries on HV servos. Any electrical gurus who can comment please. They do look somewhat easier to solder up than some others discussed here, which will suit my less than perfect soldering skills.

Nest solution and material choice for the high wear wing mount area. That’s going to be very satisfying when you come to assemble at the field. The greater the span the harder it is to be precise when mounting.