G' day gang,
I received the servos, for the rudders, from Desert Aircraft in Brisbane last Tuesday after only ordering them the day before. That is great service and even Australia Post played the game in what can often be, a wait of several days for post out of Brisbane.
While the servos are not the ones I was looking for, they run a very close second but it still needs a slight revision to my original plan. The ones that I wanted are not available in Australia and I did not to go o/s unless there was no other option.
Basically it means that I will have to place the servos into the tail plane rather then the fin as I had first planned to do. It will not change the geometry at all and it might even be for the better in the run as it will put the control rods very close to the positions shown on the plans.
Today [26th August] saw the floor blocks of the front turrent made up and fitted to the front of the F1 former. As an extra piece of security to this structure, I also installed a four millimetre by ten millimetre long dowel into F1 and then into the blind holes that I drilled into the floor blocks.
I made the floor blocks square and will shape them when it is all dry and ready to be cut and shaped.
these floor blocks took a little bit of time to get right as they are not square to the F1 former but at a slight upwards angle of three millimetres over the length of the eighty six and a half millimetere floor block.
So the angles had to be cut to allow this this to happen and the front had to square to fuselage. Once the concept of what was needed was understood, it became a quick job to finish as I cut the wood to size.
The top floor block was slightly harder as the front had to be cut at a different, steeper angle. I messed this up by one millimetre but this can be fixed with a shim at the F1 former.
These were all fitted this afternoon and I will see the result in the morning. That is when I will draw the shape out and start cutting the balsa to the shape of the nose.
I also faced a bit of a problem with what will be the bottom of the side fuselage as the wood needs to be thirty one millimetres wide with a forty five degree angle [in the same axis] forming the outer part of flat section. This makes it look like a rectangle pushed to one side. The section fits on the forty five degree angles on the bottom side of the fuselage while the forty five degree angle fits up and under the existing fuselage side. The side fuselage is five millimetres and the bottom side is made out of nine and a half. This allows for the sanding to shape of the curves of the bottom of the fuselage.
The problem was, how the cut the angles.
I mulled it over for a while and even gave Bob T a call for advice and was going at the angle with a wood plane when the penny dropped into what some may call a , sometimes empty, piggy bank.
I was thinking of ways of tilting the saw table to cut the forty five. Then the light bulb moment. If i can not tilt the table, why not tilt the job.
I then cut some forty five degree blocks and placed them under the 9.5 mm sheet and simply ripped then through the band saw and I had my forty fives.
The surface was a bit rough but a couple of licks with some sand paper soon had a smooth surface to work with.
I simply measured the required 31 mm and ripped the timber though, again, on the 45* block. It was so simple in the long run.
The other side will be much quicker as it tends to be as one is problem solving on the run!
It must be remembered that this is not a plans issue but the fact that I did not buy the wood pack with the kit as it would have doubled the price.
I will say this, however, I am enjoying the problem solving as part of what I did know I would have to do as part of being a cheapskate in the first place.
Not long until I start on the wings.
Regards and respect
Daryl
