Californian

[Tim H]

Happy Christmas everyone!

I seem to have got into a way of living which means that 90% of my building is done during holidays, so here I am doing some building again.
I have been meaning to try a foam build for ages, and for various reasons I am doing so now. The main reason is to do with speed. I am the slowest ever builder and I seem to have loads of trouble actually finishing anything. I have trashed far more models this year than I have built so my fleet is very empty .

There is a peanut comp at Clayton Green on Jan 7th and I don't have anything flyable at the moment. Normally there is no way that I could complete a model by then but I am having a go at doing a fairly simple plane in foam. We'll see.....

The model in question is a Goodyear racer called Californian. You can see why its a good subject for foam as the fuse is quite spitfire like, all smooth curves. Colour scheme is simple (although silver, not the easiest). It has been on my list for ages so now is the time!

On the open book is the rough blank of the fuse. These racers make large models at peanut size!

[Tim H]

Not sure why that last pic is the wrong way up, but you get the idea.

I'm not going to do a detailed run through of the process. I'm sure you all know what's involved. The pics tell the story.

It is certainly quite quick, but messy. I have done two afternoons work and am close to having a complete set of parts for the airframe. There are problems which I had not anticipated and some things which I expected to find hard, which were straightforward.

[Tim H]

Here are the parts nearer completion. Fuse carved externally and then hollowed. Wing halves glued together with 1/2" dihedral each side.

[Tim H]

last for now. A better shot of the hollowed fuse halves with the peg hole reinforcements in place.

Everything so far weighs 7.6g. Still to do is the undercarriage, wheels, a noseblock and prop. Plus paint. To some of you that probably sounds heavy for a peanut but as I said before, these racers are large for this scale. The fuse is 12.5" long and is 2.5 x 1.5 in cross section behind the cockpit. My previous stick and tissue racers have been in the 15g+ range so for me this looks to be quite light.

[Monz]

Very cool Tim! How did you hollow out the fus?

[Pete Fardell]

Highly impressive work, Tim, and an ambitious choice. I doubt that one's ever been peanutted before. Look forward to seeing it in the flesh, so hope you bring it to Clayton even if it's not quite finished (not that I doubt it will be! )
I've nothing new for the January meeting at all, but will be making up the kit scale numbers with something old, tatty and possibly a bit Fairchild shaped .

[Tim H]

Thanks guys, here is today's little bit of progress.

These are the hollowing tools Monz, as recommended by Deadman, Crossley and Smart in the booklet they wrote. Dremel tools which I prefer to use in a flexi extension rather than holding the tool. The sanding drum is the main tool with the grinding stone for final shaping and then just bits of sandpaper.
Its a fairly brutal process and you have to be careful. This is the really messy part; hand sanding is mild by comparison. The odd looking piece inside the nose in the photos above is a patch which I had to put inside as that bit almost went through.

In case anyone else noticed, I did completely forget to put dummy engine and fuse base on the list of stuff still to do.

Today I made the internal parts for the noseblock and then glued the fuse halves together around them. Also fitted a base for the UC gear wire to fit on. Not much else today as I had other stuff to do and I wanted to leave the fuse to dry well before handling it.

Tim

[Tim H]

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE . Hope you have a great building and flying 2017.


Not got much done today as we went for a long walk around Monsal Head to blow away the cobwebs. I have laminated and turned a spinner and two balsa wheel hubs to which I am intending to fit foam tyres. Also done some finishing work on the flying surfaces by marking panel lines and cutting ailerons before it all gets glued together.

I should admit here that this has not all gone as smoothly as I may have made it sound. I have added some pics of my mistakes to show some of the things that have gone wrong.

I made four wings as the first two were too thin. I "caught" one with the sandpaper as I was finishing it and it folded into a Z shape .
I caught the edges of the fuse on a few occasions and had to glue in patches.
The tail end of the fuse is a very narrow cone. I caught this with the coarse sandpaper while roughing out the shape. I have cut off the last 1/2" and will make a new end after fitting the tailplane
It's very easy to catch the surface of the foam and pull a chip out of it. I did this a few times on the underside of the wings. If it is too deep you cannot sand it out.

All the above are reasons why I will not fall in love with foam models (I may soften if it flies beautifully!). Because a model like this is made up of only six pieces of foam, if you make a mistake it could mean having to start all over again. On a stick and tissue model repairs are easy as everything is in small pieces. You snap a stringer so you cut it out and slot in a new one. When I bent the wing I had almost finished it. One slip and I was back to my foam block to start cutting blanks out - very frustating.

Having said all that, I have filled all the holes and nicks with some light weight filler and they seem to have sanded down alright

Pics of the damaged tailcone, holed and poorly fitting fuse joint at the nose and the same area after filling.

[Tim H]

Some pics of the panel line effect on the flying surfaces. I have only done the wing upper surfaces.

[Tim H]

Been too busy to post anything the last couple of days. This is where I am up to.

Main airframe complete and ready for paint. Parts started for the dummy engine. Prop and noseblock complete. Wheels made. Canopy plug carved and ready to plunge a canopy.

Spraying the main colour today and hopefully No's and markings tomorrow.