Lone Modeller's Tray

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PTB11
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by PTB11 »

Wow, definitely a case of art meets engineering. Simply amazing work.
Regards, Paddy.

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JamesPerrin
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by JamesPerrin »

Not adding lots of detail he says. :grin:
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Softscience
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by Softscience »

JamesPerrin wrote:Not adding lots of detail he says. :grin:
I get the feeling that when he adds a lot of detail, the models are actually capable of flight ;)
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by Lone Modeller »

Evening All,

Thanks Iggie, SS, Paddy and James for the very kind remarks.
Softscience wrote:
JamesPerrin wrote:Not adding lots of detail he says. :grin:
I get the feeling that when he adds a lot of detail, the models are actually capable of flight ;)
I wish I had that skill!

I have been thinking about the struts for some time now. The wing is heavy and I am concerned that plastic strip, even the size that I intend to use, 120 thou x 40 thou, will bend or flex under the weight. I have worked out the construction sequence from here on and it will be make the struts and dry fit, mount the engine nacelles on the hull, fix the cabane struts and put on the wing, add the V struts to the sides, add the tail unit and other details. This means that the cabane struts must be strong enough to hold the wing in place as I simply cannot put on those and the V struts at the same time. If the cabane struts are not strong enough the wing may collapse on to the engines and I will be a little discombombulated.....! The question that I have not been able to answer is will the cabanes be able to support the wing on their own? Do the V struts also need to be reinforced? I have held the wing in the centre and it shows no sign of sag at the ends - I would be surprised if it did because it is three sheets of 60 thou card laminated and I have found from experience that by laminating card that problem is solved. However there is still the weight problem.

So! I have made a decision. I will reinforce the cabane struts and hope for the best with the V struts. I am going to reinforce the cabanes using a method that fellow modeller Limeypilot has demonstrated on another site. I measured the lengths of 120 x 40 thou Evergreen strip from the plans and cut them slightly too long, then scraped and shaped them to aerofoil section. That did not take long and gives a better shape than the preformed aftermarket materials, plus I have the size that I want. I then cut the strip lengthwise into three equal widths. The centre piece was discarded and replaced with a length of 3/64 inch (1.19mm) brass rod. The strut was re-assembled with CA and the gaps filled with standard filler and allowed to dry out. After a couple of sessions of sanding and filling small gaps, the whole was coated with Mr Surfacer to get a nice even finish and the lot was repainted:

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The top piece is the original strip which has been scraped and shaped and painted! (I know, I should not have bothered but....). The second shows the rod in place between the two parts of the strip which will form the front and rear of the strut. The lower piece is a completed strut. Can you see the joint? No? Good!

Before I start to fit the engine nacelles I must first drill the holes to take the ends of the brass rod in the hull. All three struts are angled, which means that the holes must be angled too because bending the ends of brass rod is NOT easy. So the angles of the struts were measured from the plans, a complex(!) jig was made and put into place on the hull so that I could align the drill correctly, and I held my breath 6 times as I drilled away....

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Those pieces of plastic stuck to the sides of the hull are to represent some form of structure which had to be added to the sides of the hull of the machine because the hull tapers gently to the rear. In order that the front strut is exactly in line with the two at the rear they had to put a bulge at the top of the hull in this area. It is not clear from either photos or plans how this looked exactly, so I have put two pieces on which I think are sufficiently accurate.

A dry fit of the struts was then made: they are too long I know but I intend to trim them when I put the wing on: that is why the forward pair cross over. It may look messy but when I fit the wing I can sort out any small problems: for now I just want to make sure that they are at the correct angles and line up front to rear.

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The next update will be a little delayed as I have to go on my travels again.

Thanks for looking.
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by Lone Modeller »

Evening All,

I have been away for a few days and therefore am getting behind, so I have spent longer than normal today trying to catch up, which means that other urgent tasks will have to be addressed tomorrow! Damn. Anyway I have got the engine mounts for the port (left) engine made, and I have made them so that they fit properly. A little thought when I was traveling suggested the following sequence should work - and amazingly it did!

I started by fixing the horizontal tabs to the sides of the nacelles: I have no idea what they were for but they are very clearly present in the photographs and drawings. The exhaust covers were made from 60 thou rod which had been cut to length and then filed in half, one end rounded and the rear drilled to leave a hole before the piece was glued into place. Next I measured the lengths of the legs at the front and rear of the nacelle from the plans, and cut some 30 thou rod. One end of each piece of rod was cemented to the indents in the nacelle and the cement allowed to set slightly. When the cement was stiff I placed the ends of the legs into the holes in the hull and adjusted the angles of the legs so that the nacelle was correctly aligned horizontally, vertically and laterally. This was left to dry out overnight - no jig or support was needed as the cement was sufficiently set to hold the nacelle.

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I could then add the horizontal bracing struts between the legs: this immediately gave strength to what was otherwise a weak structure. This was allowed to set for an hour just to be sure.

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With these legs secure I could add the additional legs which make the two towers on which the front and rear of the nacelle are mounted to the hull. The horizontal cross bracing went in next, followed by the slanted pieces, all held in place with liquid cement and all measured to fit using a pair of dividers.

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When all of this was dry I could remove the nacelle and legs assembly so that I can now paint them as trying to paint these in place and not mark the hull would be beyond my ability. This means that I will now be able to put this back on to the hull and all of the legs will fit into the holes.

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Next step will be to paint the legs.

Thanks for looking.
celt
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by celt »

Amazing work yet again.A true model maker indeed.
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by Lone Modeller »

Evening All,

Thanks Celt for the kind comment.

I was supposed to iterate the procedure described in the last post for the starboard (right) nacelle and all would be fine: I would have two nearly identical engine nacelles to paint and fix to the hull. Well that was the plan....... except that it didn't quite work that way. I assembled the starboard (right) nacelle support towers as previously described and put the right and left nacelle sub-assemblies on to the model just to see how it looked. It did not look at all right. Reason? I had somehow mis-measured the height of the horizontal struts on the right nacelle towers with a result that looked awful!

At this point I would like to remind fellow modellers that if you wish to know how to make a mistake when modelling, I am the first port of call! I could write a book on the subject! How I mis-measured I do not know, but the solution was to remove all the smaller struts, leaving just the legs in place, and start again. Fortunately the legs held and I was able to replace all of the offending parts relatively quickly....but I was a tad annoyed. Painting followed for both sides, (at which point I corrected the colour for the bits on the sides of the nacelles that I had previously painted the wrong shade of grey!), and then I glued the port (left) nacelle into place on the hull, followed by the centre legs. Rigging followed using 40 SWG rolled copper wire held in place with CA as per the tail boom. This was necessary for two reasons:

1. with the cabane struts and wing in place these nacelles would be nearly impossible to get to;

2. with one nacelle in place rigging the inner part of the second one was difficult enough.

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The starboard nacelle followed, CA'd into place on the hull and rigged:

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Although I did not take a photo I did try out the cabane struts just to make sure that there is a gap between them and the nacelles and that the sticking out bits on the nacelles do not foul the struts: they do not. When scratch building these small things can go wrong, (as did the strut assembly described above), and in this case the consequences would have been pretty serious if they had because simply re-positioning the sticking out pieces would have made the whole thing look odd. There was very little room for error there.

At last this is beginning to look like the machine in the photographs. There is still a lot more to do before I can think about putting the wing on: rig the boom, add engine radiators and associated pipes and bracing, check the location slots in the wing, make the large V struts, etc. More later.

Thanks for looking.
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PTB11
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by PTB11 »

Thats an exceptional piece of rigging.
Regards, Paddy.

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gnomemeansgnome
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by gnomemeansgnome »

This project just gets better and better. Really enjoying the process of the build a lot.
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by Stuart »

That's not a plane, that's a load of scaffolding with wings!

Awesome work thus far - I really can't wait to see the finished model!
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by Lone Modeller »

Evening All,

Thanks Paddy, GMG and Stuart for you wonderful comments. I really like the model being dubbed "scaffolding with wings" as it describes it fairly accurately. BTW another modeller has called this my "Pokemon"!

On to the build as time is beginning to run short and I will be away for some of the holiday period and am aware that days can slip by with little being achieved. I have still to work out precisely how the wing is going to be fitted: I am trying to think of a jig which will not be more complicated than the model...............

I am also concerned about the strength of the cabane struts, which as shown earlier I have reinforced with brass rod, but still cannot make up my mind whether to reinforce some of the V struts. The problem with the latter would be how to fix them to the attachment points on the hull because if I do it would require drilling holes at awkward angles in a very small piece of plastic. The V struts are also long and inserting rod and keeping the strut even would not be simple. I have a feeling that I am going to just use thick wide strip and hope it works: if it does not.....dammit it will!!!

Before the wing can be fitted however I had to put on the radiators above the engines. They were scraped and shaped from plastic card with grilles scribed with a sharp knife. The filler caps were from two thicknesses of rod. The bracing, supports and radiator pipes were also rod.

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I have tested the cabane struts again as part of the planning for placing the top wing: I keep having different ideas about how to do this and none of them seem to be practical. This is what the struts look like minus the wing:

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You can see in these photos that there is not a great deal of attachment between the tops of those struts and a large and heavy wing. Araldite will be the bonding of choice because it will give me wriggle time but will be strong. The question is still how to fix the struts and the wing in a single operation.... I need some form of jig but not one which is too complicated: I think that I may have one and hope to be able to report in the next few days. If I do not then you can reasonably assume that it did not work and I may be on the way to giving up on this one for a while because there is a real risk of damaging the engine installations and radiators which are a bit precarious up there.

More in due course I hope.
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by celt »

Words fail me,awesome seems too small a word. :wanw
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mjatx
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by mjatx »

Simply amazing work! Keep it up.
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by Lone Modeller »

Evening All,

Thank you Celt and Mjatx for your kind remarks - they are very helpful when I am not certain what to do.

I have managed to solve some tricky problems on builds in the past, but I have also learned (and forgotten!) that the more I think and worry about a problem, the more difficult I imagine it will be....... Then when I actually bite the bullet, it is not nearly half as difficult as I imagine. This was so in this case.

Yes gentlemen I have managed to fix the top wing into place ........... at the third attempt! I will not distract you with too many details but just a few notes to anyone else who wants to attempt this sort of thing in future, here were my mistakes:

Attempt 1. I measured the struts and shortened the tops by a couple of mm: this was intentional as I have found from experience that trying to cut pieces such as these directly from plans is a recipe for failure as there are always tiny discrepancies on models (or at least there are on mine). Having cut the struts so that the front pair joined at the top I proceeded to apply the araldite, put the lower ends of the struts into the holes in the hull and put araldite into the holes on the underside of the wing. The wing was placed upside down on a sheet of expanded styrene so that I could clearly see the top ends of the struts, and I gently lowered the inverted hull assembly on to the wing, easing the struts into the holes. The rear of the booms were rested on a support on the styrene. This is the jig support:

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And here is the model inverted and supported on the support:

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In the meantime I checked for alignment using a large set square that I used to use for drawing maps: this made sure that the wing leading edge was at 90 degrees to the thrust line of the hull. All was left overnight to set and in the morning I found that the wing was not level - ie it was about 1cm down on one side and the same amount up on the other! It took about 10 minutes to find out why: the N strut junction on the port (left side) was not sitting as it should. I had not shortened the angled strut enough and so it was holding up the wing at that point, and because the wing is so big, the distortion was magnified at the tips.

Attempt 2. By carefully cutting and prising the offending araldite joint with a new scalpel blade I was able to release the wing from the struts, and then using the same procedure I was able to extract the strut from the hole in the hull. This took about 15 minutes of nerve stretching activity but I managed it without damaging the other joints. The strut was shortened and re-inserted, again with some difficulty, and the model put back on to the jig and left to dry out. Next day I checked again and this time I found that the wing was misaligned so that the leading edge was not at 90 degrees to the thrust line - I had forgotten to put a support in to stop distortion while the new joint dried out!

Attempt 3. This time I dismantled the whole of the struts assembly - not intentionally but by degrees as I tried unsuccessfully to correct the misalignment by juggling with different positions of struts. It was easier in the end to start again, cleaning out all of the old araldite from the holes in the wing, scraping a tiny bit more from a couple of struts and re-assembling the structure. This time I intended to make sure that horizontal alignment would be correct AND that the wing leading edge would also be at the correct angle. This meant that the wing had to be on top this time so that I could hold the hull and wing at the correct angles. I abandoned the styrene jig and used other materials instead viz a pile of books, a paint pot, graph paper and a pair of my late mother's hair grips.

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This time it worked! I know that some of you write/talk about kits "fighting you" - this is not a kit but I certainly have had a battle with this particular assembly. I have checked both the alignment of the wing to hull - correct, and the height of the wing tips from the desk top - there is about a 2mm discrepancy and as I cannot see it by eye I can live with it. So here is the model as of this evening, ready for me to start putting the large under-wing V struts into place. I am breathing normally again and I think that I should be able to complete this before the January deadline, provided that I do not drop it or run into another unforseen problem.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/CZsHgx]Image


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Thanks for looking.
Lone Modeller
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Re: Lone Modeller's Tray

Post by Lone Modeller »

Evening All,

I am aware that time is pressing and that I will be away for part of the holiday break - specifically New Year so I want if possible to have this finished before I go because I will not then be thinking about it all the time. Of course there is still plenty of time for me to make more mistakes, as I found out today - details to follow, and I do need to allow some time for the possibilities of these happening again! The deadline for the GB is 7th January 2018.

I had cut the underwing V struts from 40 x 120 thou Evergreen strip - 2 pairs per side - and scraped and shaped them into aerofoil section a little while ago. I had also painted them and drilled holes to take the angled braces between the struts and the upper V and the wing. I drilled two holes on the upper side of the lower struts to take a pair of generators later. I had measured the lengths from the plans and thought that I had allowed a little extra for trimming to the actual required size.

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In fact I had not! Do not ask how....... as stated in an earlier post if you need advice on how to get things wrong, just ask me! The struts on the port (left) side were just 1mm too long, but on the starboard (right) side they were 2.5mm too short! So I proceeded to put the port side struts on and am in the process of making new longer ones for upper V the right side: I have cut down the existing longer ones to make new short ones if that makes sense! Fitting them was much easier than I anticipated. The photos show that I had already cut the ends which will attach to the small lugs on the sides of the hull and it was a simple job to just file the last few microns to be able to get a near perfect fit. The the top of the lower V and bottom of the upper V ends were filed flat where they are attached to the hull to remove the paint and improve the junction between the pairs as the originals seem to have been welded together. The ends which attach to the wing had also been filed so that they would fit snugly into the slots which I had drilled and cut to receive them. I glued the upper pair at the V joint first, and when this had dried for about 15 minutes I made the final adjustment to length and glued it into place. The lower V was fitted in the same way. Finally I measured the gaps between the struts on the model using dividers and cut lengths of 40 thou rod to make up the bracing both between the struts and the struts and the wing: the ends of the rod were fixed into the holes in the wing and struts which had been made earlier.

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The jig that I had prepared earlier to support the model while I put the wing on came into its own for this operation, and I shall use it again when I attach the remaining struts and add the rigging in this area. And before anyone asks what ids the hole doing in the hull, it was not a drain on the original aircraft! This is a large model for me and I therefore intend to display it on a covered base: I want to try to represent the turntable outside the hangar at Seemoos where the machine was built which can be seen in the photographs referred to at the start of this thread, and I have had suggestions from two people that I should motorise the turntable! I have bought a railway turntable motor and the hole in the hull was drilled to take the drive shaft from the motor. I will start a new thread to describe this when I start to make the base in January, and will post it in the relevant section.

Thanks for looking..
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