More Cox Tee Dee 010 and Avenger

Thanks Robert, I had not seen that.  Coming from Ken Willard you know it's bankable.  The prop is a perfect fit for this model but I had to cut down a new one inch 2/56 prop screw a bit as the two blade prop screw is too short with the spinner.  

Another time capsule, I have done this on a few of my builds.  Taking George for a little ride along with Levent's CEF logo.  Got to roll George into a tube to clear the wing and reposition.  

I received the new .010 cast intake and fuel tank from CI.  To say that these are beautiful would be underselling them, they are flat out gorgeous!



But I'm not putting them on this engine, rather I have plastic replacements coming from MECOA.  They will go on another engine.

Slow progress:










Kind of like a profile hollow log.

Looks like Bob, you have a candidate for the next Cox Engine of the Month photo op.

Really neat design work Bob…. Engine/Front end is nice…. I had an old carpenter tell me once they used put pennies in the corners of houses they were building for good luck before closing the walls…. I’ve found a few wheat backs on remodels ….

Is your Guillows kit from the 900 series?…. I have the 905 Mustang to do something with one of these days…

rdw777 wrote:Really neat design work Bob…. Engine/Front end is nice…. I had an old carpenter tell me once they used put pennies in the corners of houses they were building for good luck before closing the walls…. I’ve found a few wheat backs on remodels ….

Is your Guillows kit from the 900 series?…. I have the 905 Mustang to do something with one of these days…

Kit 509 Robert 16 1/2" wing.  Nice kit, quality.

When I was a kid, 10 or 11 maybe I was flying my first rubber band powered Guillows - a French Spad in a field when an old guy, maybe 18 or 19 saw me and stopped to talk.  Turns out he was the older brother of the sister that my brother was dating (later married).   He was an avid builder and he shared with me many building secrets.  A couple of years later he gave me most of his models built and unbuilt.  Large scale Guillows.  As stupid kids do, a friend of mine and I doused them in lighter fluid and set them to flight.  Huge fun, but I regret it now.

Scientifically set the horizontal stab..    Wing flat on the vice, draw a line.

 


I had snapped the 1/16" fin off so I doubled it on each side.  Added a nose cap and sealed the engine bay.



When I cut the wing on a diagonal (per original) it left the tip and outer trailing edge rather thick.  I just laid each half (about 1/4" dihedral off center) on the belt sander and let it rip.  It's amazing that I didn't ruin it right there......

I could not figure out the best way to cut the intersection of the folding wing (notice all the witness marks) so I just cut it where I saw fit.  Yes, nothing scientific about it, the pleasures of scratch building.  

Old George, keeps slipping down.

Bob, your build develops very nice and fast..do I correctly understand that you set the dihedral by cutting a notch into the upper face of the wing and cracked it a bit to the required angle? Or, you just sanded the dihedral into the thick block of wing? Either way, congrats to the results..I normally struggle a lot when sanding the dihedral by hand into the half wing center, fit the two halves just to see it has nothing to do with the angle it was supposed to be...

Way to go, I cannot wait seeing it with the TeeDee screaming in the nose!

Very interesting build , the way its holled out to lose some weight ? and the wing put in with dihedral not to mention the treasure inside I like the way the engine is built into the models nose bulk . Good Fun on the build my friend !

balogh wrote:Bob, your build develops very nice and fast..do I correctly understand that you set the dihedral by cutting a notch into the upper face of the wing and cracked it a bit to the required angle? Or, you just sanded the dihedral into the thick block of wing? Either way, congrats to the results..I normally struggle a lot when sanding the dihedral by hand into the half wing center, fit the two halves just to see it has nothing to do with the angle it was supposed to be...

Way to go, I cannot wait seeing it with the TeeDee screaming in the nose!

Yes, I cut the sweep-back on a diagonal and the dihedral on an angle according to the diagram.  I came close but no cigar.  Platforms are for maintaining gluing angle.

You can see the complicated angles for folding the wings, I did not do that!  Way beyond my ablity to calculate and execute.





Eric, yes to save weight, but more of a confidence builder than anything else.  Besides, I needed a compartment for our first presidents airplane ride.

I'm looking at your work Bob, it looks great...
I would like to see it in action in the air!!...
I appreciate all your work dear Bob!

I have been having a problem laying out the horizontal stabilator and elevator trying to get it scale like and true in form to the full-sized Avenger and without much luck, so I made a sacrificial (test) example.  

The elevator is the split end type, that must have a name but I can't find it.  It's selection must have something to do with the Avengers mission, but it's used in light airplanes too.  



This .010 model is tiny and I don't want to use cloth hinges, but I have little choice.  So I experimented with this type of under-elevator hinge which was also used on the Goldberg Cub.  It works, but it's a little sloppy in operation, but at least it's not visible from the top.  I dotted the perimeter with CA to hold it then painted with sanding sealer which striffens and  glues it to the balsa.   Anyone have experience with this type hinge?  





Still thinking but I'll probably wind up with conventional over/under cloth hinges.

And I agree Mauricio and Andras.  This thing is light as a feather, with the Cox .010 Tee Dee screaming, it should be a rocket hand launched with no landing gear.

Bob,

the further your build advances, the more cute (or cuter?)  the bird becomes, I really love it!!

As to the hinges, other than trying to split with Exacto knife - and ruin -  the thin stabilizer and elevator balsa sheets of tiny planes, I resort to either one of the following:

1. When covering the tail section, I do not split the Oracover film between the stabilizer and elevator flap, but let the Oracover cover both and act as a hinge in between (The Tigercat has been built like that)  . I provisionally insert a few pieces of toothpick or similar pins  between the stab and elevator before applying heat to the cover material in order to prevent extra shrink and too tight hinge connection, that would make the life of elevator servo - or that of the bell-crank - harder.

2. Oracover applied to stab and elevator separately, then pulling a scotch tape line over the facing edges of stab and elevator, on top and bottom surfaces both, as a full length hinge...make sure that when applying the scotch tape on the top surface, you flip the elevator slightly down so as to leave the Scotch tape slack in neutral position, and vice versa when applying the Scotch tape on the bottom..

I trust the above will work.

I assume you want to fly your bird as a CL, where the bell-crank will transfer only a limited force to the elevator horn (proportional with the centripetal forces acting through the control lines on the CL model), so you want to make sure the elevator hinges are built not too tight...so exert caution when using method No1 above..No2 can always be corrected if too tight, by removing and re-applying the Scotch tape...just tilt the elevator a bit up and down when applying the tape on the bottom and top, respectively...


Both of the above are aerodynamically more  efficient than separate hinges, because the gap between the stab and elevator are fully covered, and unwanted tail drag is minimized .

Thanks Andras.  It is cute, cuter in real life than in pictures.  Maintains the Silver Lining theme.  

I'm still struggling with the elevator/stab assembly.  I'm no good at free-hand drawing so I bought a couple of 1/48" plastic model kits hoping that I could use one as an example.  Turns out 1/48 is a near perfect fit.  I could if I was really rogue just use the plastic assembly on the airplane, but I will trace it onto balsa and be finished with it.  

In all my life I don't believe I have ever put together a plastic kit of anything, plane, train, or automobile.  But whomever assembled this Lindberg Avenger did a great job.  He painted the ribbing on the canopy, the pilot, and turret and waste gunners then airbrushed the model and added the decals.  Nice detail mostly snap together kit with bomb-bay torpedo, working landing gear, alierons, and rudder.  




.049 powered Testors Fly-em, .010 powered Avenger.







I also found this parts plane,  I can use the decals, the ball turret, perhaps the landing gear strengthened with music wire and other parts.

Neat idea on using the plastic model for parts Bob….I was trying to brain storm with you on the ball turret but couldn’t come up with anything…. Kind of like your plastic models missing parts getting wood substitutes but in reverse…. I like that concept too… Do what it takes to get it done…..Military kind of thinking

rdw777 wrote:Do what it takes to get it done…..Military kind of thinking

Si no te importa, no importa. If you don't mind, it don't matter.

Very good ideas here to combine plastic and balsa...

Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead.....................Nothing to it but to do it.

Got the Monogram kit, not near the quality of the Lindberg kit, but perhaps a better fit for my purposes. I might be able to adapt the rear turret to my existing model, but could cut the balsaa canopy off altogether and replace with the Monograms canopy/turret.




Might even put the kit back together.



Wheels are ok, not hollow plastic. I could drill holes for the landing gear for display then remove if it ever gets flown. Never tried to intergrate balsa and plastic kits before.



Doing the landing gear farings for the Cub at the saame time. Two more coats to go.

Plane is looking good Bob , I understood you were just going to use the elv.to trace out for balsa / guess i read it wrong I was doing something else and reading . I have seen people do the hinge in question before but was thicker wood where it would bevel on a pin ? I think I havent done one myself >.

That's what I did Eric, just traced it out in balsa, but the plastic assembly is a perfect fit.  I'm thinking about drilling holes in the wing for the plastic landing gear and bushing with brass tubing making them removable for flight.  Fun project.



Big question is what to do with the canopy, slice off the balsa and blend in the plastic canopy and turret or leave it and find a ball of some sort.  But I may want to rebuild the Monogram Avenger.



Pretty close to 1/48" scale.



Finished the Cub.  A favorite.

It’s nearly asking for that canopy Bob…. But I get that you may want to build the plastic kit….I haven’t looked but I’m curious if you can get just random plastic model parts from the bay?….. Might even spur some new design ideas if you could…

rdw777 wrote:It’s nearly asking for that canopy Bob…. But I get that you may want to build the plastic kit….I haven’t looked but I’m curious if you can get just random plastic model parts from the bay?….. Might even spur some new design ideas if you could…

Yes, and it's tearing me up as I don't know what to do.  Unusual for me.  Damn the torpedos etc.  

Plastic parts I would use/substitute: Canopy, ball turret, landing gear, tail wheel, decals.  Leaves the Monogram kit wanting.  Ha! Make balsa substitues for the Monogram.  Doesn't make sense.  

But, I know I could blend in those parts enhancing the over-all look in a very positive way.  Paint with that beautiful Corsair blue and touch the bottom fuselarge with a light gray.  




I think it's really going to look good with that red .010 TD sticking up there and I don't want to ruin it.



I know in the end that I will build another one using those parts.  But, it's a heck of a lot of work.  This one is taking, double/triple the time that it did the others. And, and now that I have examples there are those folding wings begging........................

If it were me I would use the raised part that looks like a canopy and print a decal from the drawing you shows put it on after some color ? and put a half ping pong ball or facsimile there of with some guns out it ....

getback wrote:If it were me I would use the raised part that looks like a canopy and print a decal from the drawing you shows put it on after some color ? and put a half ping pong ball or facsimile there of with some guns out it ....  

Sending it your way for finishing touches Eric...........

Actually I solved my problem by making an offer (accepted) for another Monogram kit.




But, I'm going to keep this one all balsa and build another using the parts as a guide by tracking them on balsa. It should come out about the same but more accurate.

What I need is a one inch ball, thinking some sort of Christmas tree trim.