Colin Leighfield

I've just had a look at the original thread on Nigel Hawes's Can Doo and mine is in there, most of it on pages 8 and 9, but on others as well including several in the air. I was thinking that the "tucking down" was servo blow back on the foreplanes, but later concluded the c of g was a bit too far back. There's a photo of it shortly before I hit the tree.

Hi Ron, my apologies, I've only just seen this! I did a build thread on this here years ago. Can't remember all the details, I'll look it up. The plane is in the garage loft after I did some damage when I flew it into a tree, although not much. I need to dig it out. I didn't have any reflex on any of the surfaces. I recall that the c of g was best slightly forward of designed for best longitudinal stability, if it was a bit rearward the trim you needed for level flight caused the nose to tuck down in manoeuvres and that could be tricky.

Here's mine. Inspired by Let's See What "Tou-Can-Doo". Full mixing on fore-planes and ailerons, flew very well. I still have it, some slight damage done by flying it through a tree on the edge of the flying field one day! I must get it out one of these days.

Thank you Martian and Bas! Today I have sorted out the dummy "scale" elevator linkage. I was puzzling how to create the tiny dummy pulley wheel for the elevator cables, only about 4mm diameter. I used some plastic tube and filled it with 5 minute epoxy. When it was set, I cut a length off and hey presto! The colour is unfortunate, but easily corrected! Then onto the bottom fairings for the undercarriage legs. I thought that would be tricky, but using soft 10mm. balsa, it wasn't. Just some sanding and then covering with tissue and dope to finish off. When that is done, the painting can start.

This is how it looks now with rib tapes completed.

There are many different interpretations of the camouflage patterns on the Spanish Hawker Furies in Republican service, further complicated by one of them that was captured by the Nationalists and repainted in their scheme. These pictures taken from the FB Spanish Civil War modellers group are just an indication, there are other references that I also have. There is no way of being certain about scale accuracy, it will be a case of choosing one and going for it. While thinking about that, the remaining jobs are the dummy reproduction of the elevator linkage and the curved fairings at the bottom of the Dowty undercarriage legs. I wasn't going to bother about the latter, but in for a penny - - - as they say.

Rib tapes are a tedious affair, but all that's left now is the upper wing centre-section. Nearly there.

Plodding on with rib tapes. I don’t regret deciding not to do the knots! One daft thing was dropping the iron and not noticing that it had turned the temperature up! I blithely carried on, not noticing that the fabric was getting discoloured! Fortunately it appears to be unharmed.

Thank you Danny. Slow job, but it’s coming along. Wings tapes done, started on the tail, using your photos as references! When I’ve finished there, I will go back and put in the extra “riblet” tapes. I’m itching to get onto the painting.

I have built the wings exactly to the plan. However, looking at the second photo taken from Danny's thread, there are short nose ribs between each main rib, behind the leading edge, so something is different. I need to ask him about this, if necessary I can simulate the effect by adding short rib tapes.

After being away for two weeks and taking more than a week to catch up with everything, I finally got back in the shed and continued with the tedious job of sticking on rib-tapes. Three wing panels done. I want to get on with the painting as soon as possible. There's still a question though, but I can't get the photos to load. I'll try another post.

May I add my sincere condolences. I had the greatest respect for Chris and read his articles in Q&EFI avidly. So very sad that he is no longer with us.

Thanks Chris, that’s worth knowing.

Thanks Danny. It would be worth finding out more about that. Diagonal joints are normally associated with bias cutting, I’ve seen it done where the cloth is pulled continuously across a knife at 45 degrees in rotation and the cut edges continually stitched into a tube, or a continuous “bag”. Looking at the photos in your build thread, you seem to have short, intermediate “nose ribs” between each pair of full ribs, which made me think I’d missed something out in the build. However, I’ve taken another look at the plan and I can’t see anything I have missed. Any ideas? The photo shows where I am, are the diagonal tapes repeated underneath? I assume they should be. I’m running out of tape, need to order some more. Also, these tapes have a slightly “pinked” edge, you can just about see it.

Thanks Danny. I can see that fraying the edges of the rib tapes is sensible, they will stick down better. You can’t fray a bias cut edge though, they must be plain strips along the weft. However, bias cutting on the wing fabric would give a much stronger stitched join than one on parallel longitudinal threads, which can pull apart under tension. Something I’ve never thought about before. I think the Fury is looking pretty good in the Spanish style. I’m going to see what with I can do with my air-brush.