Nihjuis Spitfire 62"

[Snaba]

John,

I see your tailwheel is about the same size as mine, so I need not to worry...is your moving or fixed?

 

Poly-c coating seems ike an option for the next time, now I've just started to cover all with silver Oracover which I want to paint later. Film is great to use but especially with silver you can see all tiny dust particles under it, kind of a bummer. I've sanded the whole plane gradually, before the last sanding with 400 paper I even applied pore filler to get real smooth surface. Well....

 

Hugh,

I think I need to stick in traditional color scheme. The puritans in my club (Iäm in germany) would roll me in tar and feathers if a Spit does't look as seen in BofB. Maybe if they decide to increase the memebership fees for young pilots I build a Me109 and make it...purple before changing the field

[John Laverick]

Thanks Hugh,

I have a great book called the modellers datafile book of the Supermarine Spitfire and it has some really great profiles of various colour schemes and the Belgian one sort of stuck out.

 

Snaba,  yes my tail wheel is fixed, if I have a working rudder on a model I tend to not bother messing about  with steerable tail wheels.

 

You still have the same problem with poly-c when it comes to sanding the model down. normally if you use glass cloth with poly-c you can hide blemishes and dents, but because I have painted straight on to the wood you need to sand it down so it is very smooth. no short cuts I'm afraid!

 

Where do live in Germany, I was a Soldier and I lived for 14 years in Germany, I was based at, Paderborn, Osnabruck, Lubbecke, Berlin and Lippstadt.

 

Regards

 

John

[Snaba]

Well, I think I don't lose anything by staying loyal to Oracover, sort of got used to that stuff over the years.

I just googled and found the web site where they have these books you mentioned, but there are quite a few of them. What is the exact title of the book, or even better with ISBN number? I think this could be interesting also besides of the color schemes?

 

I'm a Finn living in Frankfurt. Great place for a foreigner!

Edited By Snaba on 01/05/2010 16:22:29

[John Laverick]

Snaba,

There's two books, part one is about the Merlin powered Spitfires, and part two is about the Griffon Powered Spitfires.

 

the ISBN number is 0-9533465-2-8 by SAM publications, MODELLERS3DATAFILE, by Robert Humphreys, hope this helps because it is a really good book.

 

For a Finn you write really good English, better than my Finnish anyway!!!!!. As it happens I have a friend who lives in Finland, I'll find out where he lives and tell you where.

 

Regards

 

John

[Snaba]

Thanks, maybe my occupation as a brain scientist has something to do wiht that. Anyway, can I cite you next time when I get my publication back from review process with a comment 'should be read by a native speaker'....?

 

I checked the book and with a price tag of €116 the decission was quickly done: not for me before x-mas. The Griffon book one can get with €20 at Amazon but if that is good don't know..

[John Laverick]

Snaba,

 

couldn't believe that the book cost that much so I looked it up and you were right, the cheapest I could find was for £60? I bought it brand new at a model show and it cost me £11, it's a good book but I wouldn't have paid more than £20 for it. Astonishing.

 

John

[Jim Newberry - Nuviation Ltd.]

Hi All.

I'm building the Nijhuis Spitfire - just got to the stage where I am about to start sheeting the undersurface of the wing (I'll be sure to remember the wing bolt reinforcement before proceeding any further!!) For info, I have decided to model the Mk IX of the BBMF when it was in 443 Sqn colours as 2-IV (although my model won't have the clipped wings as I like the iconic wingtip shape and anyway I reckon chopping useful wing area off a model is not something I want to be doing!) I am making up scale ish rudder and elevators with ribs which will be covered in Solartex to give a fabric look before painting, and the rudder has the pointier outline of the later Mk IX, as per the BBMF model.

I am interested in John's use of Poly C on the fuselage - I have never come across this product before and am interested to hear a bit more about it - is the finish tough and lightweight? I have used glass cloth and polyester resin a lot in the past and will be using this on the wings - but you reckon Poly C just painted straight onto sealed wood will do the trick for the fuselage? It certainly sounds simpler than skinning the fuz with glass cloth.

Jim 

[John Laverick]

Hi Jim

Welcome to the post. I'm really pleased with the Poly-c, with regards to it being tough and lightweight, I think it depends on how many layers you put on, it is definitely lightweight and the more layers the tougher it will be. If you do use it don't forget to paint the Fuz with Sanding Sealer beforehand. It will take a bit longer to do than covering with the normal iron on coverings but I think the finish is much better, Certainely won't bubble up in the sun. One thing I've found by accident, if you  want to add panel lines to your plane, just press down hard with a black ball point pen and hey presto recessed panel lines just like the real thing, and they look  really good. I'll post a photo of the weathering and the panel lines I've put on tomorrow when it's daylight. (can't see the lines with the flash on the camera). Don't rush it though, make sure you don't put  too thick a layer on as it will run (ask me how I know?)

One 500ml bottle should be enough for the Spit, I've used a third of a bottle for the Fuz so I reckon a third each for the wings should do it. You can also buy the sanding sealer from the same on line shop http://www.rcworld.co.uk/polyc.htm Hope this helps,

 

Would be nice if you could post a photo of your plane.

 

ps, go the the Poly-c FAQ and it will tell you all about it.

 

Regards

 

John

Edited By John Laverick on 02/05/2010 18:42:14

[Jim Newberry - Nuviation Ltd.]

Thanks for the info John. I certainly will post some pictures once I have some pictures to post - at the moment I just have some part built components! The build is about to be slowed down considerably by the arrival of Newberry Junior!

Best wishes all,

Jim 

[Snaba]

Jim,

don't worry about a delay, from very recent experience (my son is 2.5) I can tell that the moments when you're not needed and can go to work on your built are very, very enjoyable! Just you, old classic rock or jazz from your local station, a glass of good red wine and all those little problems on the way to a great flying machine!

 

Well, I'm now at stage where I have to make the u/c work. I noted it is a hard task to manage all through a small servo-sized hole on the upper side of the wing and first I couldn't figure how on earth to connect the u/c pushrods to the servo plate. Finally, I got the idea how to do it so that I will only have a hole for a screw driver at the down side of the wing. I'm just curious: how did you guys solve this?

[Trex700e]

for me i connected up and made sure worked the retracts before i covered the underside of the wing. so all is in for good now!!!! the only thing is that there is some slop in one of the tracts. I shall have to make another hatch!

[Hugh Coleman]

Speaking of retracts, I am currently building the wing for my TN Hurricane.

I am using a seperate servo for each retract; the servo is situated between W4 and W5 immediately adjacent to the retract.

The lower skin is on and the Servo and retract will be fully operational before the top skin goes on.  I may have to fit a hatch for later access to the servo I think.

 

Cheers,

 

Hugh

[John Laverick]

I'm also having a bit bother with the retracts. I don't think the retracts themselves are of particular good quality and they have a lot of slop in them. I've tried solving the problem by using individual servos on each retract so I can adjust them individually for servo movement but now I find I don't have long enough servo arms for the servos that I'm using. I can get them to lock down for instance but then there is not enough movement to lock them up and they hang down from the wings. I've tried using proper retract servos but the retracts are so sloppy that but I have the same problem of being only able to lock them either up or down!!

 

Is a longer servo arm the answer or am I looking for problems?

 

John

 

PS Snaba, fitting a hatch seems to be your answer, I've sealed mine up thinking I've got it sussed but I've had to cut away material from around the retracts on two occasions because of problems.

 

John

[Paul Jarvis 1]

Hi,

 

I have just retro-fitted flaps to my 62 Spit and I cant beleive the difference it makes !

 

In calm conditions when it flies at its best, it used to barrel in at a rate off knots and bounce way past me up the runway invariably buckling the retracts.

 

So I cut a quick-access hatch in the underside to allow release of the retracts and constant re-bending of the legs (I even wedged a suitable allen key in the air intakes).  

 

But now with 50 or 60 deg of flap it floats in for a gentle landing (or take off) at my feet and no more buckled u/c. 

 

I would defo recommend flaps on this Spit !

 

John... I would suggest Unitract sport retacts with their Oleos are the way to go. 

 

Paul

[Snaba]

Paul,

I'm really glad to hear this as I've built the flaps from the beginning...

 

John, the slop from Unitract retracks have a screw that allows you to fix the down position to no slop, for the upü position I glued a piece of soft rubber between the mount and oleo, now they sit nicely. For the retract servo I found a suitable big round servo plate I installed to my Graupner 667 servo, this plate has enough dimension for any kind of installations. Maybe this works for you as well.

Edited By Snaba on 06/05/2010 09:18:13

[Snaba]

Paul,

how did you make the flaps?

Edited By Snaba on 06/05/2010 17:12:39

[Trex700e]

I have now stuck the underside of the wing on how should i go about fitting flaps now?

[Paul Jarvis 1]

Hi,

 

Simples...

I cut away the rear underside balsa (from the fuse fairing point almost to the aileron), and to just rear of the rear beam / strut thingy. I replaced this with 2mm lightply backed with some uprights on the top side for rigidity.

 

cut out a hole between the rear side of the wheel housing and rad intake and placed a Hitec HS81 in each wing with external push rod on each wing and after feeding a wire thru, pulled the servo wires thru alongside the existing aileron servo wires (bit fiddly).

 

It would be neater to place the servos under the air intakes and push rod internally, but I was too lazy. Easier during the wing build admitedly, but not too much hassle and well worth the effort !

[Snaba]

Sounds very familiar. Did you use special flap hinges or mount the flaps to the ribs with bolts, like I did?

[Hugh Coleman]

Will, carefully remove the section of skinning that you want to be flap.

Either that, or make a new wing... Which is what I am contemplating doing.

 

Cheers,

 

Hugh

[John Laverick]

Sorted the retracts out, just needed an adjustable servo arm and it works a treat now, no slop whatsoever.

 

Paul, on the flaps, I presume you've just stuck a piece of wood on the inside of wing skin to stick the hinges into?

 

Not done this before but, is it possible to slave the flap servos from the retract servos, so that when the wheels go down/up the flaps come down/up with them?

 

regards

 

John

[Jim Newberry - Nuviation Ltd.]

It seems the general opinion is that flaps are all but essential on this model, so I will be incorporating them on my wing. I am going to try and keep the pushrods internal if I can. So far I am undecided about whether to use the wing lower rear spar as the starting point for the flaps or to let in another spar further aft - the existing one would result in unnecessarily large flaps.

Has anyone established the pitch couple on lowering the flaps in flight?

John it should be entirely possible to have flaps moving with the gear - either with the mixing facility on a computer radio or with a Y-lead on the retract servo. However, I was thinking of having three positions for my flaps - up, take-off / approach and landing and using the three position flap switch on my transmitter.

Jim 

[Jim Newberry - Nuviation Ltd.]

Has anyone tried using a computer radio to make the ailerons work as flapperons? Highly non-scale of course but might save the hassle of hacking into a wing to retrofit flaps. Jim

[Snaba]

Jim,

I tried this with my CAP232. The result was rather unsatisfactory and that trick made CAP quite unpredictable. Well, with that wingload CAP was such a peach to land anyway, so I just dropped the idea. Maybe this would work better with a scale model, though...

 

Main reason why flaps have turned out to be useful is that the plane is a bit on a heavy side and you need high speed to produce enough lift, as seen this can be a problem in landings. By having flaps you change the airfoil thicker at the root of the wing, which is anyway responsible of producing most of the lift. Thus, here having even little flaps produces more uplift with less speed. This being the case I can not directly imagine how flaperons would really help in producing a change in the airfoil by a) being at the tips of the wing where the lift in total is not as much as at the root of the wing, and b) being actually pretty small. But, hey, why don't you try this and let us know?

[Jim Newberry - Nuviation Ltd.]

I have used flapperons on previous models with mixed results. They make an acceptable compromise if the only alternative is major wing surgery but I won't be using them this time - just curious to see if anyone has given it a go. Jim