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The Annual Dark Nights Fix-up.


MattyB
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  • 3 months later...

Well, serendipitously, today I started re-covering my SFM SE5, following its latest rebuild.  This was the plane that was in this thread in 2020.....

 

Adding some puncture resistance, this will be lam film, then doped on heavyweight tissue, then paint, with decals courtesy of self adhesive vinyl and my ancient inkjet printer.

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    After a failed Fifty year old anniversary flight for my Mercury Matador in the Autume. I got around sorting the problem. As suspected a fuel tank issue of split pipe. Had to remove engine to remove tank so decided to check what was going on in the very castor encrusted engine bay expecting to find problems under the gunge.

Matador fix 1.JPG

PAW castor crust.JPG

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 It would appear that all those years ago my weapon of no other choice to fuel proof the engine bay was car body filler!  Even then the nearest model shop to me was 20mls away. [ 120mls today ]

  The filler has done a grand job of protecting the model and she is now tided and sorted ready to go again.:classic_biggrin:

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  • 4 weeks later...

My SE5 has now been covered in lam film; the fuselage has been covered in tissue (some of which was found in my wife's 'odds and ends' drawer), given a light sanding to remove wrinkles, and is ready for paint.  I have enough cream for the bottom of the fuselage but not enough for the wings, so I'll need to visit B&Q........

 

I'm aiming to be airworthy by 31/1/2023.

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Finally repaired the tail end of my Magatilla yesterday, which had suffered badly in a heavy arrival after I neglected to connect the ailerpn extension lead following a successful maiden flight last year. The whole tail was off, so the model had been lying feeling sorry for itself in a corner of the model store. On examination though, all of the bits fitted back together nicely and lines up. I added a few bits of reinforcement where stringers had broken and been repaired and she just needs part of the rear fuselage recovering, of I can find the right shade of blue 'tex.

 

So with that done I started a new fix-up project today, fettling my Flair Beaufighter. The model is largely built, but it had been built many years ago by a very good modeller for brushed Sp600 motors, though they hadn't been fitted yet. However the wiring loom was in and the nacelles all closed out. No problems I thought, I'll use the old trick of attaching two wires to one of the double wires and use that as a pull through, so ending up with three motor wires to each nacelle.

 

Nope.

The holes in the ribs were way too small to take these wires at the same time and after much fruitless pulling on the wire it needed more drastic surgery, carefully cutting into the wing skins to run the extra wire. Anyway all done now and just needs the thin strip of wing skin replacing.

I toyed with the idea of fitting retracts, but the model is so beautifully light I don't really want to butcher the wing, so I'll compromise by making the rudder functional and using my dolly instead. I'd also prefer to have two mini servos for the ailerons, but that would definitely require major wing surgery, as the model is set up for pull-pull ailerons from a central servo. So I'll give that a go and see if it works okay.

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4 hours ago, J D 8 said:

          I three older models that were built with one central wing servo and all have worked fine and still do.

My Balsacraft funfighters all have a central aileron servo, with nylon snakes, or upgraded to Bowden cables and, though the servo mounting takes extra care to avoid any slop at all, they all work fine. I haven't got any models that use this sort of pull-pull system with fishing trace, rather than more substantial cables. Prepared to give it a go though, as to get aileron extensions out to a suitable position would need making holes through the doubled ribs at the dihedral break.

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More progress on the Beaufighter. Looking at the motors I had in stock, I quickly decided that a brushless inrunner, like a Mega 22/30-3 would mean a small 8x4" prop, similar to the original prop size for the Sp600s. I guess that might be at least partly why the nacelles are so slim - 100mm in diameter. Anyway, I wanted larger props than that and there's sufficient clearance for at least a 12" diameter prop. It was academic anyway as the Mega 22/30-3 didn;t fit in the mounting tube.

I settled for an AXI 2820/12 as the optimal solution -with the ability to turn a larger prop on a 3s1p set up and the right diameter to sit nicely in the tube. I've used the AXI 28/20-10 with a 10"x7" APC-E prop on some of my Balsacraft funfighters and it just works. Having a brand NIB 2820/12 meant only shelling out for a single motor - they aren't that cheap these days.

Luckily I had two of Fellside's really nice CNC cut motor mounting discs, which fit the nosering of the mounting tubes perfectly and the two motor mount holes fit the AXI. I needed to add a couple more holes and fitted the disc to the motor with M3x8mm csk bolts. The nosering needed a small cut out to allow the motor leads to be routed outside the tube, then the assembly was mated together. A ring of M3 bolts, washers and nyloc nuts holds it all together, whilst allowing for maintenance, rather than permanently gluing the assembly together.IMG_0981.thumb.jpg.499945cc1a48dcdc75ba0faf09c8d877.jpg

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Next job was to rework the battery access. Yesterday I'd weighed up the internal structure of the nose area and figured out that my proposed batteries wouldn't fit in the wee battery box so some surgery was required. First of all removing the ABS nose moulding, then removing the parts of the liteply crutch which carried the small battery box, designed for a single 7 cell sub-C NiCad pack. 

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That left me able to create a large enough opening to fit the two 3s1p 3300mah batteries in place. So I built up a liteply battery tray, which ties the structure together, allowing me to remove the cockpit floor, to change batteries through the removable canopy.

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The battery tray needs it's front fitting, prior to refitting the nose moulding. That's for another day.

 

Then I moved on to that pesky aileron control system. I was going to give the central servo a go, but in the end decided to do the surgery to fit a couple of aileron servos instead. There's no full size plan and a lot of ribs, that I didn't want to cut into, but I roughly worked out where there was probably some space, from the end of the aileron and gingerly cut out a servo hatch in the skin. That worked out fine and I could then see inside the wing structure.

Some probing with a thin CF rod showed that there was indeed access through the ribs from both sides, up to the solid pair of ribs at the dihedral break. I knew where those ribs were and so cut two small 25mmx15mm access holes - just big enough to get a drill bit obliquely through the centre of the ribs, big enough to fit a servo plug through. Unfortunately the existing push pull fishing traces were no use in bringing the servo cable through as they went through very small holes in the dihedral break solid ribs and I had no idea where they were routed beyond the plastic tubes where they exited the top and bottom surface of the wing and the original aileron servo bay..

 

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There then followed an hour of frustrating internal keyhole surgery trying to get the servo lead through the wing. I managed a few time to get a Kevlar thread with a nut on it through, then the CF rod and then a piece of cord. On each occasion though the servo lead caught up on a rib.

I'll try again tomorrow and will get there, even if I have to take the servo plug off and heatshrink the lead to the pull through.

All in all though a reasonable day's progress - which I'm pleased with. 

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Mine too - marvellous motors, but yes, quite pricy. £95-ish for the 2820/12. They have also changed the design to a V2, so I'm hoping that, as a twin, the two motors will be reasonably matched - they are both AXI Goldline and neither have been run, but the one I had in stock had the familiar tapered front, whilst the new one has a fretted out front case. Specs look the same.

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                                                                                                                    Swinger fix-up v5.0 (probably)

So here we go again with the rebuild of the plane that has never flown but has been in more mishaps than those of mine that have!

 

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lucky the tailplane is a foam/veneer so once the  covering was removed it's just a case of removing the damaged part and adding suitable lump of wood and the same with the elevators 

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probably need to trim that back a bit 😄

 

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there you go, now nibble free

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nose filled and fuselage sanded down ready for paint (no white just black) and clearcoat 

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