Scale Soaring UK

Today the retract servo from Mick Reeves was installed under the pilot seat.
Due to the forces that come on the arm, pulling and pushing, all was made a bit stronger.
A M4 threaded rod was used with the good connectors and as a bonus a steel tube will prevent any bending of the rod.
A 6 mm ply base plate was cut to fit the seat and landing gear box.
Test running was done several times without any problem.
Noël

Today the servo gear box was opened to see why some play was on the disk that controlled the arm to the retract wheel.
I remember that on the K16 I had to Ag weld the outgoing gear wheel to the outgoing shaft.
This I have done again, so it will go without slipping over the knurled shaft...
After cleaning, greasing and putting it back together, it looked better when pulling in and out. Due to the big force needed an elastic from TC was installed so the wheel is hanging half way now, without the control arm connected. This way the sound the gear box makes is much nicer...no stress noise...
The small control servo with two switches for the retract servo was fitted too as well as the rudder servo.
The power box will be for later on.
Now the construction of the fuselage can be finished, finally!!!

Noël

Blimey Noel, A retract servo from the Arc ???????????????



BC

...the servo later...
The finishing of the fuselage started now.
First the rear top and bottom part needed extra reinforcements. I have build in triangles to make it more stronger.
The rood rib needed to get a straight strip on so the gap to the fuselage could be filled. The spruce strip will be removed later when all is glued on.
The wheel bay doors have a kind of special hinges. These needed extra wood by gluing in 6x4 mm spruce parts.
Also to get to the retractable gear lower bolds, I decided to make a hatch at the bottom.
To be able to fit this in, one needs also hard wood strips glued in.
The bay behind the wing rood rib TE was filled with balsa block, sanded to shape and it looks OK for now.
Noël

...and more...

Hi all,
Ken, indeed this is a very powerful servo. The mechanical way of controlling it is simple with 4 switches. It is also small to build in. See the MR site for more info.
Due to more important works that had to be taken care of first, the Milan was still close but untouched...
The gardens, new henhouse roof and a few other works are finished now, just a lot of leaves...container by container will be filled, but these will be solved in due time.
Back to the Milan at last!!!
The bottom of the fuselage is taken care of now. A 10 mm balsa block cut to shape was glued in to have a wider edge to glue the bottom sheeting panel onto.
My thinking was that this way when lifting and carrying the fuselage around, the ply would hold more firmly to the first former.
This would more or less be the point to put your hand for lifting under the fuselage...
Noël

With the back bottom part covered the front is on now.
The two side removable covers must be made as well as the doors for the landing gear.
I know the covers, just fill the up with balsa, shape them and covering finish...done...
However, I will make a mould of both covers, the lh, rh and gear doors, in this way epoxy parts can be made.
See the pictures as usual,

Noël

...and yes, working on two models now...
The bottom of the fuselage needs to be finished first to be able to make proper moulds for the bottom side pieces and the doors.
All had to be reworked a bit but looks now what I want it to be.
The bottom is now completely sheeted and needs now a finishing touch to sand it down the last time, I hope.

But before I could filler the bottom sides and the rear, I had to put sheeting on the fuselage sides.
More to come...

Noël

...the bottom part covered with 0.6 mm ply...
I had to take the plastic strips off again due to not high enough.
I needed to add another layer of ply to get level with the rest of the bottom.

The thing is, after the mould will be made most of the front bottom covering has to go to allow the epoxy parts, scaled, to go in.
This will be for later to show what and how...

...with the sheeting done the fillering could start...
...and the grinding, fillering, grind....etc...
Not done yet...

Noël