Gary's Brian Taylor P-47 build

[Nick Somerville]

I glued in the hinges for the aileron and flap on the other wing side yesterday and to my horror when connecting the output to the aileron horn found that the soldered clevice at the servo was loose on its rod. Now my soldering technique is somewhat iffy at times but I do stress test any joints thoroughly. What worries me is that the same piano wire which hadn’t taken the solder well runs through to the 90 degree bellcrank. In total there are three soldered clevices per side of which four are inaccessible.
The aileron horns are pretty short to keep the link all but hidden and coupled with the plastic bellcrank there is movement when pressure applied at the centre point. Once the surface is moving under servo load it is nice and tight but my worry is that there could be flutter when flying fast in level flight. If there are weakness’s in my soldered joints this would potentially cause the demise of my model.
decision made and a pair of wing servos have been ordered. I can cut the new access above the bellcrank position and thread the wire back through to the old servo well. Good job I am doing this before my colour coat as I can glue in the old hatch, fill and blend in to hide the change of position.

I should have done all this at the outset, bearing in mind that Brian would not have had the option for strong reasonably priced wing servos when he designed his model. A case of being wise to deviate from the masters plans for once!

[Gary Clark 1]

Hi Nick,

I've had models in the last where I have been unsure of they're integrity somewhere and this generally results in them never being flown. I agree with you plan, just get it sorted now and you will feel more comfortable. I'm going to go for the RDS system for ailerons and maybe flaps but not decided on them yet. This is new to me so looking forward to trying it. Danny Fenton has some great tips on the RDS if you look through his threads and videos if anyone is interested.

Good luck with the Surgery Nick!

[Nick Somerville]

Garry, the flaps as per the plan work beautifully and the control run is nicely hidden.

[Danny Fenton]

Be careful Gary, RDS will only work if the "pocket" is on the hinge-line. The hinge centreline is below the control surfaces on the Taylor P-47

Cheers

Danny

[Gary Clark 1]

Excellent spot Danny. That's not something I had even noticed yet so you've just saved me many hours of head scratching and trying to figure out why it's not worked!!

Same plan as nick for me then!

Gary

[Nick Somerville]

A bit of an update on the surgery for the aileron setup. A pair if KST 145mg servos arrived and a mount has been made up and new hatch access’s cut out. It was interesting to see that part if the issue I had was due to the flexing if the nylon bellcrank mounted on a ply plate. Had I used ply plates top and bottom this would have helped to stiffen the installation but there are other gremlins working against a good set up.

Firstly the aileron horn, made and fitted as per the plan, is just too short. It’s position/clevice hole is also behind the hinge line. Combined, this makes for very small servo travel (even with inner horn connection) and considerable stress for the servo. I have remade a longer horn that sits over the centre line and we shall see if these little 5kg servos man up to the task. I am hopeful but far from convinced. Will update soon.

[Nick Somerville]

Been working on the retract and inner door operation. I had some issues finding the correct menu on the Electron RS 200 controller to set up the gear door operation. A video call to Electron yesterday morning sorted out where I was going wrong and this is where I have got to, so still some work to do.

**LINK**

The inner door servos are connected to the controller so I am unable to adjust the servo speed using my DX9 transmitter. The tail wheel retract servo is connected to Aux 9 on my receiver and mixed to the gear switch so it was easy to slow that servo for a more scale like operation. The rather long delay for the closing of the inner doors ought to be adjustable but I don’t think I have a parameter to slow the door servos. Anyone who has used a servo slower unit with success please make suggestions on how best to go about it. The inner door servos are midi sized Hitec.

klaskote order finally arrived so just waiting on a warmer day to get spraying.

[Nick Somerville]

Spent last two afternoons spraying underside Neutral Grey and topside Olive Drab Klasskote. First time with this product and most impressed. Mixed as recommended 1 part paint: 1 part catalyst: 1 part reducer (epoxy thinner). Total quantity sprayed of the Olive was a full 275gr jam jar. Seems pretty good since 1/3 will have evaporated and quite a bit will have ended up as overspray. The grey underside used about 225gr. I plan to airbrush the insignia, numbers/letters, cowl front and cowl motif with acrylic and then the whole model will have a light coat of satin clear Klasskote to fuel proof the acrylic areas and provide the final finish.

I fitted a £10 Fusion servo slow unit to the inner gear door servos (it does 2 channels) and it has partially improved things. Nice and slow on closing but for some reason doesn’t have an effect when the open.

[Gary Clark 1]

Hi Nick,

Sorry for the lack of response, a mix of work, a cold workshop and general "can't be arsed"ness has meant I haven't been doing much, not even on here much recently.

The paint has gone on well and a lovely finish you get from klaskote. makes it worth the long wait for delivery.

Looks like tou will be ready for a maiden as soon as the rules ease up! Good job.

Gary

[Nick Somerville]

A few more photos of progress. Wings for weathering next and then hopefully my stencils will arrive from Fliteline Graphics and I can finish her off.

[Danny Fenton]

That looks lovely well done. Looks magic.

Cheers

Danny

[Nick Somerville]

Finalised the hingeing of the rudder and elevators today. The lower position of the rudder hinge as shown on the plan was very close to the elevator horn tip and clevice attachment and so I decided to modify a little. I didn’t want to lower the hinge by more than a few millimetres as it would have taken it below the cut out area of the rudder leading edge that is neatly shrouded with litho covers so, opted to make a simple flat hinge pivoting on a 3mm bolt glued into the rudder. I lined the hole with a short length of brass tube as the loading will be quite high on account of the closed loop rudder actuation. It’s good to have all moving surfaces in place now with no binding, full movement available and tight linkages operated by full servo travel to end points.

[Danny Fenton]

Very nicely done Nick

[Nick Somerville]

At last my stencils have arrived for the insignia, registration numbers and nose art (a rather sweet looking penguin) so airbrushing can commence tomorrow.  Boleslaw Gladych, who piloted the P47 I have modelled, named each of the four Thunderbolts he flew Pengie I through to Pengie IV. Pengie was his nickname  for his girlfriend.

I know of one modeller who painted a penguin on each side of the cowl for his model but do not have any imagery that shows the full size from both sides. Was it usual practice to paint the nose art on both sides? 
 

[Nick Somerville]

A day in the workshop yesterday airbrushing the insignia etc. Decided to pop Pengie on both sides of the cowl. 

[Nick Somerville]

Now complete and awaiting the end of lockdown and a maiden. 7.7 kg / 17 lbs AUW. No additional lead needed to achieve the correct C of G thankfully. Huge thanks to Garry for his encouragement through the build.

[Tim Flyer]

Great looking plane! Well done! 

[Geoff Gardiner]

Very nice.

[Nigel R]

very nice work

[Trevor]

Well done Nick - it looks fantastic! Good luck with the maiden.

[GrumpyGnome]

Lovely!

GG

[Gary Clark 1]

When did the website change?!!! Haha shows how much time I've had recently but it's also stopped sendinge emails about posts so I've missed all of this! 

 

Excellent work Nick, genuinely impressed with your work. I've barely been in the garage so no progress for me but I'm pleased to see another BT aircraft completed. 

 

Hopefully anyone else will see how the forum can help get you through builds, especially when you hit hurdles and run out of enthusiasm. Having others eager to see how you are getting on can push you through. 

 

Again, top job Nick.

 

Gary

[Nick Somerville]

Thanks Garry, you copious encouragement and advice played a big part in my build. I have taxied it around the garden, joined a club with a good sized field and await governing bodies say so to get out and maiden it. All the best when you get back to your build. As you say the advice available on this site is invaluable. BTW I have Bates plans for a 1/5.5 Sea Fury and am gathering parts ?

[Gary Clark 1]

Haha no wasted time Nick, get straight on with the next one! Bates Sea Fury looks great and several build blogs on RSCB but mainly the bigger version.

 

Jerry Bates is a good friend of a good friend of mine (does that even make sense?) and gave me lots of advice and help when building his Moth Minor so let me know if you need anything from him. He is a gent and very willing to help out despite being one of the legends in the designing game. 

 

Hopefully you will do a blog on here and I can follow whilst deployed...and cause me to buy another parts set....?

 

Gary

[Nick Somerville]

Went for the maiden on a lovely day. here in Somerset. Taxiing out to the strip it was clear she wants to nose over as I had already noted taxiing around my lawn last week. Lined her up and went for a gradual power increase and held in a good amount of up elevator. After 10 metres I was starting to open her up and she nosed and prop tip split. so as I had no spare had to abandon maiden. In hindsight I am thinking full elevator and faster application of power would have helped. The patch is pretty soft still and I don’t think that helped.

So reason for posting is to ask if anyone else has difficulty with this model nosing over or advice on best way to keep the prop out of the dirt.  C of G has been very well checked and on the ground the tail sits down fine. Any advice welcome.