Warbirds Replicas Hawker Tempest V -Mass Build 2024(part two) .

[Ron Gray]

Did you stand on the table to get enough height over the Temp to get it all in frame? Or were your shoes just drying in the sun following an early morning romp through the wet grass.

 

Now Elf and Safety this end have (has - you know who it is) pointed out that a man of your calibre should have known that you could have placed the model on the ground to get the same effect. However I did add that you were probably also practicing for the 'plunge of faith into the small round tin' Guinness World Record attempt.

[John Britton 1]

Looks good, richard can u add me to the list when you make the batch?

[Goose is the real hero]

Hi Richard, looks like the Tempest is going great. 
Could I ask how you got the motor fitted to the mount and then screwed the mount to the airframe? I have the same motor and mount for your FW190 (may make this off-topic!) and have made a right mess of it so far. The problem I have is that with the motor attached to the mount, I cannot access the screws that then attach the whole thing to the airframe. With the motor not attached I can fix the mount but then can’t access the motor from behind to attach. Don’t think I have explained this very well and also think you have addressed this above but I am still none the wiser so apologies… 

[RICHARD WILLS]

Goose , you have explained it fine . The X mount provided with some motors simply dont have enough "span " to clear the motor "Can".

You can attach the mount to back of the motor so that bit is easy. You will note that the holes for that are countersunk . 

So what I did is countersink the other the outer holes on the other side . That gives you a little wiggle room . 

But what gives you even more wiggle room is to simply drill the outer holes a bit bigger . That means you can push the screw holes out a bit further . 

Eric a achieved the same thing with a needle file and he elongated the holes outward . 

If you have wrecked your X mount , would you like me to send you another that is modified as prescribed ?

For every one else I would say this . 

The X mounts seems vital and the motor mount holes are all different so we get hung up on them . 

But here is a thought . If you just get a 50mm square of 3mm ply or even thick plastic sheet , you could easily mark and drill the holes that go into the back of the motor then just screw the plate to bulk head with self tappers . 

X mounts appear to be more important than they really are !

[Lipo Man]

33 minutes ago, RICHARD WILLS said:

Goose , you have explained it fine . The X mount provided with some motors simply dont have enough "span " to clear the motor "Can".

You can attach the mount to back of the motor so that bit is easy. You will note that the holes for that are countersunk . 

So what I did is countersink the other the outer holes on the other side . That gives you a little wiggle room . 

But what gives you even more wiggle room is to simply drill the outer holes a bit bigger . That means you can push the screw holes out a bit further . 

Eric a achieved the same thing with a needle file and he elongated the holes outward . 

If you have wrecked your X mount , would you like me to send you another that is modified as prescribed ?

For every one else I would say this . 

The X mounts seems vital and the motor mount holes are all different so we get hung up on them . 

But here is a thought . If you just get a 50mm square of 3mm ply or even thick plastic sheet , you could easily mark and drill the holes that go into the back of the motor then just screw the plate to bulk head with self tappers . 

X mounts appear to be more important than they really are !

Another (potentially easier?) solution. I made a spacer from an old credit card to sit between the motor and the X mount. The slight increase in spacing was enough for me to get pan head screws into the X mount before then fastening the mount to the motor.

[Goose is the real hero]

Thanks Richard and Lipo Man - I am the kind of builder that makes good progress then gets stymied by a niggle like this so hopefully this will get me on my way again!

Richard - do you use captive nuts on the other side of the hardwood motor mount? I guess you must - I assume you don’t pre-install them and allow the tightening of the x-mount screws to bring them into place?

Thanks,

Rob

[Chris Walby]

IMO better to fit and glue the captive nuts in rather than trying to pull them through as there is always a chance of stripping the thread or the captive nut falling out the hole (been there and got both prizes!).

 

I have even resorted to gluing a piece of balsa over the top of the captive nut where it will be near totally inaccessible.

[RICHARD WILLS]

All good engineering practice Chris . 

My personal preference is simply self tappers . One , they are easy to fit . Two you can add more wood to the back of the former to give them more to bite into . 

Three , in the event of an "incident " they usually rip out and sometimes you can just fit the next size up .

When you think about it , retracts into a ply mount plate , dont have captive nuts . They would never pull out if you had a really bad landing and if so, they may take a chunk of the wing . We no longer have the vibration of an I/C motor so my philosophy is "look how feeble the Chinese mounts and screws /servos are, then come back a tad ". 

Ive got models that have done 500+ flights following this procedure . Seems to work . 

Oh , and I can build quicker . 

Also , you can get a massive box of self tappers form B and Q for a few quid !

 

[RICHARD WILLS]

Ok , so a bit more done today . I'm going to nip about form wing to Fuselage in order to firm things up . 

My plan is to get the model flying and modify the plan with little mods to make yours a smooth build . 

I will do the covering (well most of it ) after and paint it later . 

So here is the beefing up the front bit . 

You will need these five balsa pieces which come in the plastic bag . The is also a ply tongue which I forgot to show but there is an obvious indent in the bottom of F2 which takes the ply piece referred to as "motor support " .

The idea with all the balsa is to fill in the gaps between the main formers in the chin area so that any impact there is dissipated . 

The cowl should be a tight fit over F2 and the main fuselage has a hard step to stop it going back .

I'm going to saw off some of the balsa block. Its pretty soft , so easy to do . Then on with sanding .

[RICHARD WILLS]

Back to the wing . 

The ailerons can now be detached from the main wing . Its easy to do as the ply core that keeps them together is very thing and partially cut already .

I sanded an angle on the front face of the aileron which allows the ailerons to pivot down . 

I've set in three mylar hinges on each aileron . They will be pinned with a wooden cocktail stick .

My usual method for installing the servos is shown below . Its quick and effective . 

Start by wrapping each servo in masking tape , then simply hot glue (or epoxy ) the servo to the wooden servo box lid . 

If you need to change the servo at a later date , you just cut through the masking tape and out it pops .

There is a little silicon ring keeper on each kwik link . Its made from fuel tubing. 

Finally you can screw the lid down . When you do the other side , position the servo in a mirror image of this one to ensure that the ailerons work opposite rathe than together. 

 

[Keith Billinge]

Thanks for all the replies to my question. Maybe I'll do a FW190 first. Then worry about a sea fury

 

[RICHARD WILLS]

I haven't glued the battery tray in yet as I wanted you to see this bit . 

The Tempest shares similar dimensions with the Fw190 . But because there is more wood behind the Cof G (thanks to the big tail and wooden trailing edges) , we will need some ballast in the nose . 

I wanted to keep the side profile close to scale so the adding a little ballast to a light airframe is fine if the goal is to stay at the scale nose length .

The battery tray can be slid around a bit . So Ideally, get the largest battery you are likely to use in this model and slide the battery pack down and forward till the end of the tray meets the inside of the cowl chin. This will get you ballast as far forward as possible .

You can see in the two pictures below , there is a better ballast advantage in the first  picture .

[RICHARD WILLS]

I want to fly the model before covering and painting in order that I can get your kits out a bit quicker . 

However , covering " the waggly bits " whilst on the model is too time consuming , so I have covered them today and will fit them tomorrow . 

I put almost no water in the PVA and although it is harder work trying to "stretch " out the glue with a brush , there was absolutely no sign of bubbles or other blemishes . 

My advice , is go as near to "neat glue" as you can . The extra time that it takes to apply the thick non diluted PVA , is offset by the fact that you just do the job once . 

Just hold one end of each piece of brown paper and paste away from you only .

[RICHARD WILLS]

Ive made up the pushrods as I did in the Fw190 . These 5mm dowels are light . So its the best thing we can do with a short nosed model . They are friction free too . 

Note the use of heatshrink (supplied ) to retain the metal rods in the dowels grooved ends .

I will mark the pushrod exits on the plan. 

I left the bottom of the fuselage open so that you and I could see how the pushrods fit inside the model .

You wont need to do that . Its easier to seal up the bottom of the fuselage earlier on (before fitting the wing fairings ) . At that time , its much easier to shape and sand the lower fuselage .

[RICHARD WILLS]

The rear underside of the fuselage is sheeted with 3/32 balsa . 

Next job is to sand the bottom as round as I can without going too far and through the corners. You can see that the wing fairings are in the way of the sanding block . As I said above it would be better to round the underside before fitting the wing fairings . 

Edited March 22 by RICHARD WILLS

[RICHARD WILLS]

Ive rounded off the lower fuselage side /bottom corner . You can take off a bit more than this if you want.

The main thing is to sand at least 10mm from the bottom upward . That way , your eye see's the side rolling under and makes the assumption that its an oval section . 

So the flat bottom doesn't really matter much . Got a little bit more to do , but you get the picture .

Edited March 23 by RICHARD WILLS

[RICHARD WILLS]

Back to the inside again to mount the elevator and rudder servos . 

Because the pushrods come through a window in F3 , they end up a bit higher than the central crutch . 

No problem though as we can quickly knock up a little mount from scraps left in the box.

In the first picture you can see I have cut two ply servo bearers from off cut in the kit .

Plus , I made two spacers 20mmx60mm (roughly ) from scrap , to bring the servo bearers up a bit . 

[RICHARD WILLS]

As mentioned before , I've covered the tail feathers and so decided to mount the tailplane using golden Gorrila glue . 

To make things easier to align , I drilled two 5mm holes on the centre line of the tailplane, then pushed a 20mm length of the 5mm dowel wood into the hole as  location pegs.

This means that I can test and check alignment without glue then add the glue without having to clamp it . Seems like a good idea . 

[RICHARD WILLS]

Tail feathers on nice and straight , plus provisional canopy fitted (yours and mine will be clear ) 

 

[Murat Kece 1]

looking very good..............

[Tosh McCaber]

Very well documented Richard!

[RICHARD WILLS]

I haven't dozed off . The Tempest is ready to test fly . 

Unfortunately , the weather is not playing ball . 

Neither is the grass patch . Hopefully after Sunday the weather will improve . 

I probably wont do any more finishing till I can report on the flight .

[Ron Gray]

Our grass is looking rather good, your maintenance team are slipping!

 

 

 

[Murat Kece 1]

What a lovely field Ron..  Plenty of space to take a long slow approach for landing..

[Ron Gray]

It is a lovely strip Murat and very well drained too. It does take between 2 and 3 hours to cut the grass though!