Roy Thompson

Well, we had a fun afternoon up at the field today. After a weekend of final bit's & bob's, she was ready for an outing and some pictures in the sunshine. The only outstanding thing is the new cowling, which I'll be picking up this Saturday from the BMFA Model Builders Show. I was intending to get some pictures & video, and by luck Dom & Trever from Essential RC turned up, so that was the video, taken care of and my camera was taken by my friend. We won't talk about the first couple of landings, I blame the camera's.

You know when you're approaching the end of a toy aeroplane build, when you get to the part where you put the stickers on That was yesterday's job adding the last wing decals. To add a little more detail and reflecting back to how this model was originally, we also set about it with indelible ink pens, straight edges & rulers. We not quite there yet, still some other little detail I'd like to add before we are done. The Venturi tubes I printed some time ago have been fitted after a lot of thought about which location to put them in. With the words from the Shuttleworth Engineer (you won't be wrong where ever you place them) as comfort, I've gone for the underside of the wing, between the legs. I'm hoping there is less chance of them getting damaged. One last embellishment I've been playing with is a printed fuel panel, which will be the finishing touch for the wings.

Hi Martin, Give John Bristow (Mr Deluxe Materials) a call. I'm sure he'll be happy to answer your question. 01256 883944 or 07515 704774. Tell him Roy sent you. If it turns out it is, I expect it will appear in an info add.

Following on from yesterday, the new front windscreen is on. The rollover hoop, was made up from polystyrene tubes and given a coat of satin black paint before be stock in place with Foam 2 Foam. I did consider drilling holes in the decking to allow the tube to go through to the cockpit floor, but then decided this was good enough for sports scale. The new back screen has also been added, and all that is left is adding the fairing strips along the bottom edge of the screens. For this, I'm planing on using Eze Epoxy Putty, I've not used it before so should be interesting.

After the success of the first flight, the focus is now on adding the finishing details. Over the last few days, we have cut back the yellow paint on the fuselage to remove the marks from the frog tape, however this left the paint on parts of the left-hand side too thin. So the left-hand side ended up getting another and final blow over with the yellow paint. With the painting finally out of the way, next up for the fuselage, adding the decals. These were all sourced beforehand from Pyramid Models, my go-to company for decals. I'll add the wing decals once I've finished with the fuselage. Now the bit I've been wanting to get on with fitting out the cockpits with my 3D printed panels. Before the panels could go in, I needed two shelves for the type 8 compass, here we've gone back to old school with ply and balsa. A 1-inch thick 3D printed back piece was fixed to the panels, then a smear of epoxy run around the outline before positioning the panel assemblies in place, supported with a block of foam sponge until the epoxy set. The two pilot were next. They were glued to their printed boosters and balsa blocks added inside the boosters to take fixing screws. The two pilots are then held in place with two screws from under the cockpit floor. The last little detail for now is the two laches fitted to hold the stowage shut. With all that done, next up will be fitting the two new windscreens and the rollover bar.

Things are moving on this week. Monday I decided to tackle making the battery bay cover. The cowling from this model you may remember was very beaten up, and that I had spent some time making repairs, I also have an untouched, cowl from the other kit. Hopefully the reason for patching up the cowl will now become clear. As you may know, Martin has also picked up a second hand Bowman Magister to home his old Kalt 22cc petrol engine. Martin's example, I must admit, was in far better condition than mine but lacking a cowling. Martin reached out to me about finding/making a replacement cowl, and as I had already thought it would be a good idea to make a mould from my untouched example before I began cutting it apart, I offered it to martin to use as a plug. By good luck, Martin has contacts with a company who specialise in composites, and their quote to make up a handful of copies turned out to be very reasonable. My plan therefore is to use one of these new cowl to replace my old original cowl eventually, but first I'm going to use the old one to work out how to make the battery bay hatch. Once I'm happy with it, I will then start cutting the new one using the knowledge gained. With luck, I will be collecting the new ones from Martin at the BMFA Model Building Show at the end of the mouth. Getting back to Monday, I spent the day measuring and marking out the cowl panel lines for the top panel, before attacking it with the dremel and cutting disc. The idea is plywood tabs along the sides will locate the top part, and magnets fore and aft will hold it in place. I have thought about having other fixing or latches, but this seems the simplest and less visible way of fixing, and so far so good. Wednesday we had a pleasant couple of hours in the garden assembling and checking the model for CG, radio and control movements, my garage workshop being too small to fit the model assembled. The good news from this was the model wasn't nearly as tail heavy as I was expecting, allowing the removal of a lot of the lead (340g worth) I had fitted, the total weight being dead on 13lbs. With all the setting up out of the way, now we were ready to take her up the field at last. This afternoon, with my new 6s 5200mAh pack charged for the first time, loaded her up in the car and headed out for the flying field. All went fine, the range check was good, the motor run-up showed a total power of 1578 Watts spinning a 18x8 wooden prop. In a 13lb model I think this is more than enough. There came a point where there was nothing else to do but take her out on the strip and give her a go. I've been told that these models fly like a big old trainer, and I can now agree with that. The first flight was kept short, just over 2 minutes, and I only flew circuits (sorry no video). She was air bourn, very quickly with little over haft throttle, in fact I never used fall throttle during the flight. As for trim, only a couple of clicks were needed, she does fly very well and my best guesstimate control throws are about right. The only issue I had was a radio signal low warning from my transmitter. I don't know what is coursing, as I can't find anything obvious. There is no sign of any signal loss in flight the telemetry doesn't drop out, and on the ground I can get up to 50 steps before losing signal on the range test. For some reason, my Jumper TX doesn't like this Orange receiver, although it works OK with my old spektrume radio's. I will swap it out tomorrow. Now we know it fly wells, I can concentrate on finishing up all the details, but that's for another day.

Well we didn’t make it to the E Fly-In event with the Magister, besides it not being ready I don’t think I could have fitted it in the car with all the other models I wanted to take. The Great British weather did its best to put the mockers on the day, after the hottest day of the year on Saturday But nonetheless we had fun.

The Digimac III was my first radio, my big brother brought it for me. That poor radio took a lot of abuse over the years, good job we lived near their factory. I made regular visits there for repairs and to have it upgraded to four channels. Looks like a fun little project.

That’s the problem with giving perfectly serviceable aircraft to pilots, and worse still student pilots.

Thanks. I’m going to use a 6S 5000mAh pack, and if my calculations are correct it should give me a bit more horsepower than a 120 4S. Must admit I’m looking forward to powering it up to see what the performance is like.

Pictures of yesterday’s progress. We are almost at the point where I can stick a battery in it and bring it to life for the first time in who know how many years, or decades for that matter.

Yesterday I refitted the rudder using pin hinges, installed and adjusted the closed loop system. Undercarriage saddle clamps cleaned and painted, before reinstalling the gear. Motor ESC and radio installed, and tail fin insignia painted. Painted 3D printed latches for the stowage. Cut out two new windscreens. It’s starting to fill like it’s moving on a lot quicker, still lots to do but not anywhere as much as there was. The only down side is where I used frog tape for masking it has marked the yellow paint finish, so I will need to give it a going over with cutting paste before too long. This could be the first and last time I try frog tape.

Humbol aerosols for the top, Halford's car paint for the yellow. I do have an airbrush setup I could have used but, but aerosols was quick and easy.

We have some visible progress this week. I've made an effort this week to spend at least a couple of hours each day, just to get it to the point where I can start fitting out the rest of the gear on the inside. After having some issues with the primer just down one side where I was using a white primer over a coat of high build primer sanded back, the white crinkled. I don't know why it should do it just on the one side, as the other side went on OK. Anyhow, that resulted in more rubbing down on the that side and an over light coat of the high build before the yellow top coat, without the white. Strange. Next up, an evening spent masking all the yellow and the top of the fin where the insignia will go. The following day I managed to spray most of the dark earth areas ready for the dark green, I've had to wait until the wind drops to allow me to do this outside in the garden, I don't like spray-painting in my workshop even with extractor fans and a face masks, plus the dust from the overspray get everywhere. The other issue with painting inside is I can't assemble this model in the workshop, I just don't have the room. Which has meant that the dark green had to wait until Sunday afternoon, when we got home from the Popham model air show. As soon as I was happy with the camo, I couldn't wait to get the masking off and see what see looked like. It's like the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. Well, it's not perfect, but for my needs it's will do.

Not a lot to report this week in the few hrs I've had, just priming, rubbing down followed by more primer and a little paint here and there. Hopefully by the end of the week we should have something worth showing.

Been very busy with the cornflakes box today. Storage box boor, cockpit doors and front instruments panel access panel all made from card, very pleased with the overall effect.

No not really it all gets very snug from that point in. There will be the large lump of lead to go back on the front of the battery box as well. If I’ve done my calculations correctly I’m hoping not to be too far off, time will tell. We all need a bit of tolerance in our lives. I let her have control of the TV remote, she lets me play with my toy planes!

Progress is happening and despite the fact I've been working on it for a few hours every day, it seems dreadfully slow progress. This hasn't been help be the strong winds every time I want to spray a coat of primer or paint. This week, however, I called a stop to rubbing down on the wing and finished it in a coat of grey primer all over. Only to remember that the yellow underside will need white primer. First job this week, trip to the car spares shop for white primer. On the subject of the yellow, I've been in two mind about matt or gloss. The pre /post ww2 all yellow A/C are gloss yellow, and the camo was only added for the war years with little regard for any standard layout. So I think I'm going with gloss on the underside. One small embellishment to the wing, I've added wing joiner capping strips, made from card. One way to recycle the cornflakes box. I will use card to simulate the cockpit & storage box doors, as when you look at them, none are flush with the skin. The same idea will be used for the refuelling panels on the wings as well at some point. The rudder has been refurbished. The covering, which wasn't done as nice as it could have been, was removed and replaced with new Solertex from an old roll I've had for years, originally brought to cover parts of the MB5. The fabric hinge is now replaced with 3 pin hinges, and it's been given a coat of matt yellow for now. Hopefully by the end of this week we will start to add some colour to the rest of her.

Continuing with the conversion, I’ve been giving the balance some thought. Assuming that this model had a 120 4 stroke originally at 1Kg plus another 620g of lead, I need to be around 1.6 to 1.7Kg hanging off the firewall. So let’s assume the battery will be around 6 to 700g the motor is 375g, and with the lead added as well, I’m hoping that this put me at around the 1.6Kg mark and not too far away from a reasonable starting point for the CG. Time will tell. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been busy with the sanders and loads of sheets of sand paper, resulting in covering everything in the workshop with a thick layer of dust! This despite the vacuum cleaner being on the go the hole time. Glad that's dune and dusted 🤣 I was wondering how many nasties I would find, but touch wood, no more than I already knew about. The main one was the dent in the left hand leading edge. With all the paint out of the way, I could see just how much the damage was. All that was needed in the end was to splice a new 3” long piece of wood in to the leading edge. The fuselage and wing have now been covered in light weight glass cloth and EZE-Kote. Before covering the wing, I've taken the time to fit servo drawstrings and tidy up the servo lead opening with new foam and thin ply. At least when the wing is off, it's going to look a lot nicer than it did. Now we are back into the process of painting on coats of EZE-Kote , primmer filler and then sanding back before repeating. This is the point where I have to stop myself thinking why don’t I just buy BNF’s

Two for the price of one. Currently, we two Bowman Magister being returned to the sky's. The restoration and conversion of my Magister has its own thread here: Plus, we have a second stock Magister being resurrected and flown:

You should know all the shortcut then! 😅 I fill your pain, sanding and more sanding is where I'm at currently. Just stay focused on, it will look wonderful when it done.

The Electric Conversion. From the outset, this was always going to be a conversion from glow to electric power. As standard, this model would have had a 61 two-stroke or 120 Four stroke, giving around 2 bhp of power for a weight of around 1Kg in a model of 4.5 to 5 Kg. So this gives me a starting point for the conversion. First thing to consider was where the battery going to go, and how are we going to access it. Then how many cells 4, 5 or 6 or even 8!, and finally what motor. Starting with where to fit the battery, well the oblivious place is in the tank bay of course. Next is how to get at it, well my first bad thought was from under an opening engine cowl side panel. The reason being that, I could chop out the cutup side of the cowl and replace it with a new aluminium panel. This doesn’t take in to account the new cowl (or the other new I have on new cowls for this model) I have available, or the fuse structure. Anyway the sensible way to access the battery is from the top of course no grovelling on the ground, no trying to flip a large model over etc.. Just lift off the top part of the cowling, easy. As it happens, the top deck of the tank bay was one area where there was oil damage and I wanted to remove it to inspect the tank bay properly. Separating the thin ply deck was easily done, plus one 1/8 balsa side part that was also in need of replacing. These were both used as templates for the new parts. Having a good look in the fuel tank bay, I can’t see any contamination, just lots of epoxy painted on all sides. Here after this makes fitting a battery box and ESC fitting a lot easier. Cutting the whole top of the cowl off and making it removable should be reasonably straightforward (I say that Now!) and in keeping with the removable cowling on the full-size. To give room to adjust the CG and to make sure I can get as much useful mass as far forward as I can, the battery tray will pass through the firewall into the engine bay. I think the biggest issues is going to be getting the CG far enough forward, the large lump of lead that came with the firewall suggest this was an issue in its glow days as well. The motor I’ve chosen is 5065-07 435KV out runner with a suggested power rating of 1750 Watts, well that’s 2.3bhp so hopefully that should be enough for what we need using a 6S pack and a 16 or 17 inch prop. The mounting for the motor is using plate on studs, picking up on the original T-Nut for the engine mount. It’s a little snug, but once setup, I shouldn’t have to touch it again.

That’s some excellent balsa bashing 👍

There was an area on the wing leading edge that had some cracking around what look like a lump of car body filler. To be on the safe side, with some persuasion this was taken off, to revile what it's hiding. To be honest, the damage was not too bad, just a crushed balsa leading edge. It didn’t take long to splice in new wood. Putting the wing to one side, I made a start on the fuselage, by removing the old windscreens, they both need replacing with new. The other kit still has the plastic sheet for them; unfortunately it’s starting to turn yellow also. As I can't get hold of a fresh copy of the plans, it not too hard to use these old ones as patents. One of the Small areas that needed attention, on the fuselage, is I assume a latter badly done radio switch - charging connection fitment. Whatever it was, it's gone now. Another small area that needed attention is an old repair on the anti-spin fairings, a gentle sanding and recovering was all that was needed. On the subject of sanding, I had an Idea about retaining as much of the original patina as possible, as I liked seeing the hand painted insignia. Well, that idea went out the window, the more I looked, the more unrealistic it became. So no turning back, I took the sander to the tissue covering. It's surprisingly tough to sand. The last little bit for now that makes me think, that this model was originally made by a very good scale modeller, are the stitched fabric hinges on all the control surfaces, so I was hoping to retain them all. However, the rudder hinge fabric has started to pull away, giving slop in the rudder movement, also, the rudder covering would benefit from redoing. So after a lot of shall, I, won't I, I've taken a knife to it and it's off!

The elephant in the room is the wing veneer, how to tackle it was the first issue to deal with. Repair or replace the obeche veneer with new were the two options. I’d been looking around for obeche, but the largest I could find was only 4" wide sheets. There is an alternative however, Poplar, and you can buy this in large sheets. Not a veneer I'd heard of before so asked around and apparently, poplar is of a similar density to obeche and also slightly stronger but, is softer and more porous, so it will most likely soak up more paint/glue. In the end, I started experimenting with a repair scheme, and touch wood it seems to be working OK, and it goes like this. 1/ Open up the crack. 2/ Wick in glue. 3/ Clean up. 4/ Pull the split together with tape. 5/ Lay packing on top to add pressure to the split area. 6/ Use what's at hand to apply weight. 7/ Leave it a day to go off. To finish I've sanded it back to the veneer then glassed over the wing. It’s time-consuming, but seems to be working even on the larger ones just need to make sure you get all the voids are filled with glue.