The 'What did you do in your workshop tonight?' thread

[kork]

Yes, it is pretty much done! There is no retrieving that one. Ask for what happened, it went straight up the minute he left the ground and he was holding quite a bit of down elevator just to keep it flying. He believes that it was way tell heavy. I find that a little hard to believe especially since he had the three W 150 twin up front. That is no Feather by any stretch of the imagination. My belief is that it either had up thrust on the engine or the incidents on the stabs were not correct. However unfortunately we will never know. I just don't want this to happen to mine. So we need nose wait? Kolm it will be.

Yes, it is pretty much done! There is no retrieving that one. Ask for what happened, it went straight up the minute he left the ground and he was holding quite a bit of down elevator just to keep it flying. He believes that it was way tell heavy. I find that a little hard to believe especially since he had the three W 150 twin up front. That is no Feather by any stretch of the imagination. My belief is that it either had up thrust on the engine or the incidents on the stabs were not correct. However unfortunately we will never know. I just don't want this to happen to mine. So we need nose wait? Kolm it will be.

Yes, it is pretty much done! There is no retrieving that one. Ask for what happened, it went straight up the minute he left the ground and he was holding quite a bit of down elevator just to keep it flying. He believes that it was way tell heavy. I find that a little hard to believe especially since he had the three W 150 twin up front. That is no Feather by any stretch of the imagination. My belief is that it either had up thrust on the engine or the incidents on the stabs were not correct. However unfortunately we will never know. I just don't want this to happen to mine. So we need nose wait? Kolm it will be.

Well, you sold yourself on the Kolm? Awesome!!
That's a great plan you have Rob, start with some 1/5 scale warbirds before diving into a 1/4 scale. Very common to carry up to 12 pounds on the nose of these birds. No matter the power plant, always save room for lead to be attached. Most of my birds are round cowls and there's more real state to do so. We Look forward to seeing some balsa dust flying!! fall is here.
I think I will be doing a thread here also of a 102" jug with a Moki 180.
Hope your friend lifts his head and moves on to another stang.
Jason

 

[Snoopy1]

Well, you sold yourself on the Kolm? Awesome!!
That's a great plan you have Rob, start with some 1/5 scale warbirds before diving into a 1/4 scale. Very common to carry up to 12 pounds on the nose of these birds. No matter the power plant, always save room for lead to be attached. Most of my birds are round cowls and there's more real state to do so. We Look forward to seeing some balsa dust flying!! fall is here.
I think I will be doing a thread here also of a 102" jug with a Moki 180.
Hope your rfriend lifts his head and moves on to another stang.
Jason

Need to ask a couple of questions. We all agree 12 pounds of weight that is required to make the plane balance is a lot. it would be interesting to know the percentage this represents. But my question is why would you not shorten up the tail moment, or move the motor forward a little or both to eliminate that additional weight. If done correctly very few people would notice unles you enter the plane at scale contest and have a bunch of people running around with a measuring tape. Most of war birds a just flown for pure enjoyment, and if remove that amount of weight out of a plane it sure as hell will fly a lot better.

 

[acerc]

I have done exactly that with the nose on a couple Corsairs and Mustangs over the years, no one ever knew.

 

[Jetpainter]

Doug, have you considered Carbon Fiber gear? Or does anyone out there even make after market CF landing gear these days? I know of a few that have come and gone. I was just thinking how much lighter they would be yet probably much more forgiving.

They would need to be totally custom made since they sweep forward Bad designer, Bad designer.

I would consider laying up my own maybe this winter. It's something I've thought about.

 

[Jetpainter]

Need to ask a couple of questions. We all agree 12 pounds of weight that is required to make the plane balance is a lot. it would be interesting to know the percentage this represents. But my question is why would you not shorten up the tail moment, or move the motor forward a little or both to eliminate that additional weight. If done correctly very few people would notice unles you enter the plane at scale contest and have a bunch of people running around with a measuring tape. Most of war birds a just flown for pure enjoyment, and if remove that amount of weight out of a plane it sure as hell will fly a lot better.

I've measured several of my planes in the past to check length from the recommended CG point, to the front of the firewall, and from the same CG point to the stab tubes. I was changing from aluminum to carbon fiber tubes, and I wanted to calculate how much weight could be removed from the nose with the difference in the tubes. There was a 4to 1 difference in the measurements on one which meant for the right at 1.5 ounce reduction in tube weight I was able to remove a 6 ounce weight that was on the firewall and lost a total of 7.5 ounces of airplane weight.

The moral of the story is keep the tail as lite as possible, but if it needs nose weight add it. Heavy Warbirds fly, tailheavy Warbirds crash. It's just a shame I didn't follow my own advice about keeping the tail lite on Miss Moana, or I wouldn't have needed a massive weight on the firewall. Leaving the tuned pipe off would have made a huge difference as well, but I just thought it was cool to have it running inside the fuselage and the stinger poking out three feet from the engine.

 

[kork]

I would say the "up to twelve pounds" are only on the 1/4 or 1/3 scale warbirds. All the 1/5 I have seen or built are in the 1-5 lbs of lead. I know of one 1/4 scale hellcat that has a 5 inch extension on the cowl area and I will say most wouldn't know,but once removed much better. This certain plane also has a lot of unneeded weight behind CG.
The new owner is removing the extension along with all the dead weight aft CG and will have a very scale looking hellcat.
Make it question you ask at all warbird meets. You will be surprised how much these birds are carrying.

My Yellow jug has 3 lbs pounds on the nose. All up weight is 34 pounds but it fly's fantastic. Go figure..

 

[Snoopy1]

They would need to be totally custom made since they sweep forward Bad designer, Bad designer.

I would consider laying up my own maybe this winter. It's something I've thought about.

With you needing nose weight why are you contemplating making Fiberglas gear you need weight upfront. Take some nose weight out and make the aluminum landing gear thicker, would that not solve your problem or am I missing something.

 

[Jetpainter]

With you needing nose weight why are you contemplating making Fiberglas gear you need weight upfront. Take some nose weight out and make the aluminum landing gear thicker, would that not solve your problem or am I missing something.

If I did carbon fiber gear it would be more for the durability than weight.
The gear is close enough to the CG I doubt you would see much of a change.

 

[acerc]

Today I replaced the motor mounts and prop hub on the Marlboro Pitts, the bolts were loose and the hub had a hair line crack.

 

[Alky6]

Last night I pulled the Fortitude fuel tank out of Miss Moana to re attach the fill/drain line in the tank. It was fine until the first time I filled it with my new electric pump. When I took it apart, the vent line fell off too. On a Fortitude tank you CA the vent and fill/drain tube into the plastic stopper. I'm pretty sure when I assembled that one my bottle of Mercury CA had gone south. That bottle was weird, it never got hard in the bottle, it just stopped drying at all.

Today I had to work, but I think I'm finally finished with a long term restoration project. The owner still hasn't brought the trim rings and center caps for the Rally Wheels, but he says he's bringing them when he comes to get it next week.

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Whoa! Gorgeous!!!

Here’s the current state of our (my son’s and I, and grandpa too) 66 mustang project