Landing-gear tips

roddie Today at 1:58 pm

Feel free to post "yours".. Smile

I keep an assortment of K & S alloy tubing on hand for a variety of uses.. and one of those uses is for axle-bushings. Having telescoping-pieces on-hand, allows the use of a wheel having a larger hub-diameter; to be fitted to an axle having a smaller diameter.

Some K & S from my stock..

A cut-off assortment; mostly Aluminum and Brass.. but some Copper and thick-wall random pcs. VERY handy to have.

Recently sourced telescopic Aluminum tubes; 12" length.

Cutting short pieces of the tubing is best done using a Dremel-type rotary-tool with a cut-off wheel/mandrel. Do the cutting inside of a cardboard (4-gallon) box, open at the top.. with holes cut in the sides for your hands/forearms to fit through loosely. This helps prevent loosing the piece that you're cutting. Don't forget to use safety-glasses.. as a matter of fact; store a pair inside the box for whenever you use it.

I know.. it's one more thing to take-up space in your shop.. but it could double as a "photo-platform" if flipped-over and draped with a piece of cloth.. or maybe even an air-brush spray-booth.. Laughing

and yes; we're still on Landing-gear tips.. tongue

roddie Today at 2:52 pm

I came up with this arrangement for my P-38 Lightning.. I replaced a double-coil/.045" dia. music-wire strut with a beefier single-coil/.062" dia. one. A short inverted "L-bend" at the top of the strut; locks it from rotating L/R.

A hardwood block "insert" was made.. which retains the L-bend with a single steel strap with wood-screws.

I used a similar L-bend retention system for "mains" on my current twin-engine project.. which will be a tail-dragger.

The strut lays in a slot and gets sandwiched between two plywood discs which are glued with epoxy.

roddie Today at 4:22 pm

When I designed my Rare Bear for the 1st CEF Reed Speed contest (2014) I wanted a more scale/wider-stance on the mains; than what a standard inverted-V gear would provide... but I knew that my 1/8" balsa sheet-wing would need to support the two separate struts. What I did was to construct my sheet-wing with a 1/2-span strip-spar made of hardwood, for gear-blocks to tie-into.

The gear-blocks were also made from hardwood. I used some 3/8" (10mm) square-stock to make them. The block is first drilled-through and slotted to accept the music-wire. Once inserted into the block; the music wire can then be bent 90 degrees to lay in the slot. This will lock the strut in place when mounted to the spar.

The "mains" on my P38 had very similar hardwood gear-blocks.. except that they were "epoxied" into the 90 degree intersection of the sheet-wing and profile-fuse.

I'll admit; it's the fabricating/building that I enjoy the most! Smile

rdw777 Today at 4:49 pm

Roddie wrote:I'll admit; it's the fabricating/building that I enjoy the most! Smile

I like the building and fab part too Roddie….. Sometimes, Well maybe most of time, A part doesn’t exist to what we have envisioned ….With model building much of it tends to be mechanically oriented…..Fabbing the individual parts makes finished “whole “ seem very satisfying Very Happy

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Landing-gear tips

Landing-gear tips

A sprung tricycle nose-gear for profile fuse

Gear-blocks

Re: Landing-gear tips

Re: Landing-gear tips