Fairey Firefly MK5 from Vance Mosher plan

As promised I have done a bit more on the Firefly and to get get the thread back on track here are the wing radiators.

There is a 5mm balsa box frame to support the radiator mesh. For the mesh I have used some speaker grill covering. With a bit of silver applied with a dry brush it will look like a radiator.





Then it was skinning to top and bottom of the fairing.







Still need to make some adjustments to the grill opening and fair the top surface to the wing skin. On the full size it wasn't faired in completely but sat proud of the wing skin by a few millimetres.

Excellent! Go Ralphy boy.........Looking forward to seeing this.

Looking goood

Btw, you shouldn't happen to have some of those flap arms to spare?

Kjell

Sorry Kjell used the last of my brass stock making mine.

Well managed to get the tail feathers fixed in. What a PITA. Levelled off the fuse, set incidence with packing or sanding, set the tail level by sanding and packing, check, adjust, check, adjust, check, OK, glue the rear keel to the underside of the tailplane! Took a couple of hours to get this sorted. Vance shows on the plan the tail feathers held in place by screw at the rear and two dowels at the front into the bulkhead. This is to get access to the elevator and rudder servos and also for transport. As I will probably transport the plane with the tail feathers on so do not need to remove the tail feathers very often I replaced the screw with a tight fitting dowel. To get this to work I got the incidences sorted then drilled through the fuselage sides through the keel glued to the underside of the tailplane. Used some thin CA to strengthen the holes then reamed them out to take the dowel. Got a good tight fit. The red and black wire is for the rear formation lights on the rudder.





I need to know roughly where the batteries are going to sit so that I know how to cut the cowl to get the batteries in and out. I will be running a 10S set up, that adds about 1150g to the AUW. So I set up the Jennifer rig in the garage and did a mock up with all the bits in place to see roughly where the batteries would go. They sit pretty close to the middle of the motor box to give the approximate CofG. Decision is do I cut the top of the cowl or the bottom to get the batteries in? (The fuselage is actually level but looks nose down in the picture)

Looking very nice Ralph. As far as the batteries are concerned, personally I would always prefer top access. It is a real pain to have to turn the plane over to get the batteries in, more so with a large one. Just saying.

Thanks Crash. I am leaning to a top cover. My concern is that it is a scale model and large gaps around panels detract from the scale look and annoy the hell out of me. As the cover is on the top everyone looking at the model will see it. But as you say from a practical point of view its so easy too install and remove the batteries.

Ralph
With your excellent wood working skills I would have thought "large gaps around panels" would not have been a problem.

Thanks for the kind words Q. Writing a build log certainly makes me pay attention to detail and workmanship, especially when you have master builders like yourself and Paul looking in.

I slept on the battery access issue overnight and decided to take Crashes advice, no pressure Crash :woohoo: , and make a hatch in the top of the cowl. There is a panel line on the full size around where the model cowl butts onto the fuselage at the bulkhead and also around the top of the cowl. So it makes sense to make that the removable cowl. Took a little courage to cut the cowl as it took nearly 2 years to get it from the USA. Anyway, I used a fine razor saw and cut along the panel lines.





Then I cut the top off the motor box and I built a floor into the front fuselage motor box to sit the batteries on. I will also mount the ESC on the underside of this floor as there is plenty of intake air to keep it cool.





Now I need to make some bulkheads to support the cowl and hatch so it keeps its shape. Quite pleased with progress.

I'd put a few holes in that front bulkhead of the battery box, for cooling airflow over the battery. And don't forget to provide somewhere for the air to get out again, further aft!

Phew ! You are a braver man than I Gungadin. Relieved that it turned out so nice. I think it will be worth the effort in the long run. Have you got some good straps to hold the batteries in position ?

I know what you mean Crash. I had my heart in my mouth when I was sawing it. Yes, I have velcro straps that I use on my F3A models and they are pretty secure.

A quick update. Spent a frustrating weekend trying to get the flaps to retract properly. Funny how they were ok when I assembled them but now I've installed the servos and linkages the rear of the flap hangs below the trailing edge of the wing. Still not 100% sorted. More thinking required.

I did epoxy the wood supporting frame to the top cowl battery hatch. Used Hysol epoxy, really excellent for gluing wood to fiberglass. Sorry no photos.

Still fed up with the flaps so decided to attack the wing fillets instead.

Had some nice flexible 1mm ply. Put some polythene between the wing and the fuse. Cut the ply to shape and laid that between the wing and the fuse on top of the polythene then bolted the wing up to the fuse trapping the ply. A little bit of glue and a now have a nice base for the fillet. Aft of the fuselage was a bit different. The template shown on the plans is too short. On the full size the fillet goes over the arrestor hook hinge point. The one from the plans stops short. So I cut my own which took some time making cardboard templates and trial and error. Got there in the end.



The next decision was how to create the fillet skin. Thought about planking it or 1/16th sheet soaked in water or cardboard then glass over the top. Wasn't happy with any of those ideas, especially planking. Don't know how you have the patience Q to plank and in depron!

So decided to lay up a 50g / 200g / 50g fibre glass sheet. I laid some polythene sheet on the kitchen worktop, laid the fibreglass cloth onto that, then poured resin and worked it into the cloth with a squeegie. When all the air was out I laid another sheet of polythene over the top then a sheet of glass and weighed it down. Gave a nice thin sheet of pliable fibreglass.



It forms well on the ply fillets. Just got to trim it up and glue it into place. Should work, fingers crossed.

outstanding Ralph! I've recently laid up.some thin epoxy/ glass sheet, lovely stuff to work with.
I agree planking is a pain, I've never managed to do it without at least one gap.
looking ahead a bit but are you going to use a scale ( ish!) prop?

Ralph
Those fairings were aluminium sheet on the full size so your flexible glass fibre sheet should be able emulate it pretty well.
Where you get into trouble is when the fairing are moulded glass fibre on the full size!