Scale Plans built P-51

[Red Raider]

Building the wing fillets. Will post a couple of pics along the way and show the results.

The €%#¥£ radiator was a real challenge. I'll take some pics of that too.

 

[Red Raider]

I cut and dry fit 25 pieces of triangle stock. Some of it was cut from a 1 x 3 balsa plank.

 

[Red Raider]

Finished the fillets and they turned out ok. For those of you who remember some of the older kits from the late 70's and 80's (before laser cutting was even thought of) there was a lot of "carve and cut to shape". Well, I guess that I'm stuck with that mentality. I piled wood onto the plywood base and cut and sanded and cut and sanded and then pookied it until I wa reasonably happy with it. I'll post some pics tomorrow after I have a chance to clean it up a little more.

 

[Red Raider]

A friend of mine came into possession of an old fiberclassics P-51 that had a J'Tec "scale" exhaust system on it. He bought a Keleo system, and gave me the old stuff. I couldn't make it work the way it was originally designed, so I did a little work, drilled it out and hammered in some brass tubing. A little more work and I think it'll look pretty good. As a plus, even though they won't actually be hooked to the engine exhaust, they will provide quite a bit of outlet area for hot air that might otherwise cause a problem with heating.

 

[BalsaDust]

I think you should plumb it in to work as the actual exhaust. I have plans to build a large T-6 Texan at some point and plan to do a custom factory exhaust exit setup.

 

[Red Raider]

I think you should plumb it in to work as the actual exhaust. I have plans to build a large T-6 Texan at some point and plan to do a custom factory exhaust exit setup.

That was my plan. I even bought some gas line to hook it up, but I just don't see a way to make this work. The outlets on the muffler are larger than the inlet on the exhaust. I haven't given up yet, but this plane just wasn't designed with that in mind. I'd have to cut significantly into the plywood inner walls that are very much part of the support for the firewall, and I'm afraid that I would compromise the structural integrity of the front of the plane.

 

[Red Raider]

Have your exhaust system on hand when you start building the T-6. The Keleo setup has a LARGE dump tank attached to the engine, and that in turn is plumbed to the exhaust manifold. Putting one of these in is not as easy as I thought. It's not as simple as changing mufflers.

 

[Red Raider]

The last time I checked the Keleo website, they weren't taking any new orders, and the prices were OUTRAGEOUS.

 

[BalsaDust]

When I do the T-6 I plan to build my own custom exhaust out of some aluminum tubing and sheet metal. Got a guy I work with that is an aweome Tig welder so if I fab up the parts I can get him to weld it all up for me.

 

[Red Raider]

Now that's what I'm talking about! I have neither the imagination nor the skill to pull that off. I'm so glad to know guys that can do that sort of thing. When you do, I hope you'll share with us.