World Models Pilatus Porter P6

[Stearman65]

Nothing done yesterday on the modelling front, it was quiz day, so with setting up the laptop & speakers & running the quiz, nothing done on the Pilates. The first batch of screws arrived.

Today, I screwed the flap servo mounts in place, mounted & epoxied in the horns & made up the control rods. Then the second batch of screws arrived. Next, I cleared the bench & dug out the film iron I bought last year & the Oracover in white & red. I hadn't used covering film for ages, & Solartex around 11 years ago. So I set up the iron on my cutting mat on top of my foam pad, unpacked the red Oracover, cut off a strip to make some diagonal slashes on the rudder. I have loads of colour scheme pics, but they either involve curves or very bland, so I'm designing my own as I go. The iron seemed perfect at the setting it came at, low end of hot, so I tacked on the first strip making sure I didn't cross the pre cut holes in the rudder. I then added the second strip, turned the rudder over & copied it on the other side. Then I dug out the white, cut a strip of that, which I'd allowed an overlap, then realised I should have started with the white, in case the red showed through, luckily it didn't. However, I do need to allow a wider overlap as one piece shrunk to expose the wood, mental note for next time. All in all a fairly successful day. More tomorrow.

[Stearman65]

I was determined to continue as I left off yesterday as things went better than expected, however, an early post distracted me, the BMFA mag', my Access bill, which was in credit as I double paid off an amount, & the Outlaw plan from BB finally arrived so I had too peep. Hoping it would be a better print than the one from the USA, it was & it wasn't. The actual printing was very faint, will need to go to spec savers before building this, the good thing was it showed the full wing, not just 3/4 as the US version & there is also a set of instructions on how to build it. There was also an amusing sticker from him, (see pics). The ali disc I ordered from Ebay for the scroll saw bed also arrived, so it was mid morning before I plugged in the film iron. I patched the rudder where I had managed to open an overlap, then started on the elevators. I couldn't go any further without dry fitting the tailplane & fin. I marked where the film shouldn't be then proceeded to cover it. Unfortunately I induced a warp lengthwise, so had to resort to heavy means to try to cancel it out. Left it weighted down to cool off. So that's it for today.

 

Edited By Stearman65 on 09/03/2019 15:03:37

[Former Member]

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[Stearman65]

Checked the warped tail before going to bed, all was well, warp gone.

After a depressing Andrew Marr show, I switched on the iron, then finished the TP by covering the end plates, Oracover doesn't like ply, found it a struggle to get a good finish. Then I dry fitted the rudder to the fin, unfortunately, my trim lines clashed with a couple of holes in the fin.. Eventually, I decided it would be easier to cover the white with the red than try to overlap them. After covering the fin in white, I marked out the red trim & added the first piece, I don't think Oracover likes being covered with Oracover, had a hell of a job getting the bubbles out, eventually I used a pin & was reasonably happy. I suppose this is where pre made vinyl trims seem to have taken over? Used a few on the boats I've owned, hopefully they have improved since then?

Finally finished off trimming the tailplane elevators, rudder & fin, & unplugged the iron for the day.. As I stood up to move to the PC I snagged the iron cable & knocked over the wire iron stand. Silly me picked it up, it was blistering hot so I dropped it pretty quick. Result one finger marked but no blisters, double dose of Prosecco tonight.

[Stearman65]

Slept in until 8.30am, then had to complete the laundry, left from yesterday, so another short build day.

Plugged in the iron, collected the ailerons & cut a strip of white Orafilm to cover the leading edge of the first aileron. Tacked & sealed it in place, then trimmed it. Then did the same on the ends. Cut a strip to cover one side, tacked that all round sealing it to the bits already in place, then shrunk it tight, & trimmed off the excess & re-sealed the edges. Cut the covering over the hinge slots & dry fitted them. Then repeated the operation on the other aileron. That's that for today. Oh added an extra pic of the Solarfilm "Solite" purchase from yesterday.

[Stearman65]

The day after my trip to Solarfilm, I set to trying to fit the kit supplied horns rods & links to the ailerons. This was the first real problem I've had with the kit, IMO they are rubbish & I ended up drilling into the gap between the nail & finger with a 1.5mm drill, owch!!! which could have put me off for life.

The problems with the components, the rods were like piano wire & coated with some substance which made then difficult to bend & cut. The quick links were practically impossible to thread onto the rods due to the coating & undersized holes compared to the rod thread. The horns had the same problems & I resorted to drilling them to fit. One however, broke as I was trying to thread it onto the wire peg, The 3 holes in the horns were practically impossible to align with the threaded bases, the holes again were too tight & had to be drilled to get the screws to tighten up, which is where I had the accident with the drill, which has taken 3 days to heal to allow me back to the building board.

On the bright side, the substitute woodpecker arrived & looks ok, have only tried it on paper but it is really sharp. The screws & wing nuts I am substituting for the suggested method of holding the wings on arrived, unfortunately I ordered M5 & looking at them in the flesh, they should be M3 which I've re-ordered.

On another matter, since I re took up modelling. I sold my & my wife's top of the range video & still cameras & have been using two bottom of the range substitutes. I've been heavily into digital photography since 2007 & had a digital camera since 1993 & I've missed the quality images I used to produce. So after doing some research on current Panasonic bridge cameras, of which I've previously owned 2, the FZ150, which allowed my to keep more of my images than any of the more expensive Nikon & Canon DSLR's I've owned, & latterly when the FZ150 started to wear out, the FZ1000, which I found almost as heavy as a DSLR & soon lost interest & went over to solely video with a VXF990, which I used twice preferring my wife's Sony CX405. However none of those take decent still images. I had some credit with Wex so I used it on a Canon Ixus 185, which I've been using on my blogs as it's handy to wear in a belt pouch, but again misses out on the quality images I've been used to & I'm having to edit them extensively to get something decent.

After all that, I've crashed the rest of what I got for the Ka8b, plus a bit more on another bridge camera, the Panasonic FZ330, which has a similar spec to my previous FZ1000, without the massive zoom which I rarely used, plus lots of bells & whistles. So hopefully, that will arrive Monday & I can improve my blog images.

[Stearman65]

Sunday's supposed to be a day of rest? Not for us, after a cooked breakfast, the Andrew Marr show, followed by the highlights of the Australian GP, I managed to fit in some gentle modelling.

I had some useable strips of white Oratex left, so I decided to cover the wing struts. After clearing the bench, I assembled the parts & tools, plugged in the iron & cut the first strip. The wing struts are made from some sort of hardwood & after the problems I'd had with seams opening on the ailerons, I decided to turn down the heat on the iron a few degrees before starting.. I tacked a cut strip at each end of the strut, then sealed each side. Finally, smoothing down the centre, "seamed ok", (pun intended). I then repeated the process on the other side, but one of the overlaps shrunk too much & opened the seam. So I turned the iron down a tad more, & tackled the second strut, better this time. It appears the balsa absorbs the heat better than ply & hardwood, so in future, I'll use two separate settings. Finally, I tried the TF woodpecker substitute, found the wheel too loose & couldn't do a straight line. Luckily, the wheel was mounted with a nut & bolt & I was able to tighten it & get the pressure I wanted. One problem, the sock on the iron has developed a hole, possibly a sign I had it too hot. Will have to get my resident seamstress to knock up a couple more, that reminds me, she hasn't done the lipo straps yet

An hour to go before the GP & I've managed to avoid seeing the result, go for it Lewis

[Stearman65]

Laundry & new camera & helping the wife make a couple of iron socks took up most of yesterday. This morning waiting for a delivery, so it was after lunch when I got around to some proper modelling.

I decided to try the red Orafilm for a change & cut a piece to fit the bottom of the fuselage as per the manual. Removed the reinforcing metal band on the front bulkhead, fired up the iron with a new sock & tacked around the edges, sliced off the excess film with a scalpel blade, smoothed down the cut edge then shrunk between the edges. All in all a success with the iron at a lower setting, couple of ripples where ply & hardwood were covered, may need extra heat on those. Not sure this is as good as the Solarfilm I remember? More tomorrow.

[Stearman65]

Doesn't time fly when you aren't up to scratch.

Had other things on my mind for a few days, with health problems, sorting the new camera & preparing for our "Les Mis' " night this Saturday. I was going to fit the revised wing fixings I'd devised, but when I put the parts together, I'd miscalculated the screw length, too short, so I need to order replacements after finishing this blog.

Didn't really feel like adding more Orafilm but couldn't think of anything else so I've covered one of the sides, the one without to infamous door seemed easiest, so after cutting a length of the red Orafilm (still prefer Solarfilm) I tacked around the edges, then shrunk over the balsa side. Next the fiddly bit, the window openings. With a new scalpel blade, I sliced off the excess, leaving enough to cover the bare wood in the openings. Then made slits around the radius & gradually eased the film into place with the iron. The second window went better (sods law), but not the best I've done before. In retrospect, it may have looked better if I'd filmed the openings first. Running out of red film, may have to make a trip to Steve Webb's in Frodsham shortly.

[Stearman65]

As I've virtually run out of red film I've been planning a trip to Steve Webb's my LMS to pick up some red Orastick, which is the self adhesive version of Oracover. I've just had a look on Oracover's web site & was a little concerned at one of the warnings on the various types of Orastick. They don't recommend using the metallic colours where the receiver aerial is below. I've heard this mentioned before when using silver or aluminium coloured film, but not on antique or normal metallic colours. That's why I flagged this up. You can read their words using the attached link.

**LINK**