Gorgeous bird. I have very much enjoyed watching your progress.

Wow, she looks really good!
jeff

Wow Gree!
I havn't checked in for awhile, but man did you ever do a nice job on that plane!!
What a great looking job

You put so much work into this, you have to be proud.... it's one of the nicest P-47 I've ever seen

good luck on the maiden! I sold my TF P-47..... but what a great flying plane. check your weight that will give you an idea of how much power you need to carry on landing

Mine was 12.5 pounds loaded, but I've seen kit built glassed TF P-47's up to 15 pound fly very well.... just don't get her to slow and you will be golden

can't wait to hear flight reports!

Hi gree, loved the photo's of the model on the floor, I know exactly what you mean by assembling it to see how it it looks. I did the same when restoring my jeep as I seemed to spend ages on the chassis etc. and it still did'nt look like I was getting anywhere, so I put the grill on the front and some wheels..instantly recognisable as a jeep, and this gave me the incentive to carry on.

Jeff.
p.s. there are only two of us in my head now, and I think I've got the other guy under control!

Hi everyone. Thanks very much for the kind words (especially you Ron, I saw your '47, and Jeff for being serious for once!) They really mean a lot, especially after realising this project has been going on for about 5 years, and a lot of you have been here almost that long! So thanks for taking the trouble to post, it is appreciated.

I am keen to get it finished, but I think the maiden will take a while as I have to find a safe place to fly first. I may have a lead on some private land with a large flat grass area I could use, but we will have to see.

Funnily enough I am more keen to finish so I can start a new one! I must be twisted!!!

Originally Posted by Gree

Funnily enough I am more keen to finish so I can start a new one! I must be twisted!!!

That's normal. I bought this P47 kit a couple of weeks before I maiden-ed my mustang to keep the building board happy

--
Mark

Originally Posted by Gree

I am Smarter Than Threadlock
I am very pleased to be able to report this. My short battle with the jammed collet/adapter on my motor shaft is over. After trying soldering irons, flame and all kinds of swearing, I suddenly thought back to using a steering wheel puller in my car days. For those who don't know it is a device you hooked up to a steering wheel on a car in order to remove it. Basically it worked by tightening a bolt thus pulling off the very tight wheel from the shaft (which is otherwise impossible believe me!).

Luckily, my shelving is built from square steel tubing. By lucky coincidence, the motor could rest on the back of the tube, while the thread of the adapter stuck out the front from a hole. I simply held the motor in place, and wound the nut on. It pulled the adapter off very nicely. It was definitely thread lock that was the problem - it was all over the inside of the collet. Lesson learned there!


Cowl is On
But I fear I will have to take it off again, because I need to shim the motor mount to point the shaft down a smidge. Bugger. The standard way of mounting the cowl is terrible, and it is a real pain to take on and off! I should have built my own mounting system, but as I keep saying, "practice plane!".

After I put the cowl on, I just couldn't help it. I put the wing on and hooked up all of the servos, pumped up the air tank and cycled the gear a few times. The tail wheel doors work perfectly, and it was very satisfying to see the plane in one piece again after so long. After that I sat it on the ground and took some photos, many of which I have posted below to bore you all to death .

I didn't have the battery hatch on because I was making it easy to remove by poking a small hole through the top, and lining the inside with thin aluminium. Basically you take an allen key and poke it through the hole and pull the hatch off. Very simple, but it works, and once I paint the inside of the hole you won't really notice it being there...

All of this preventing any major progress from happening, but it was nice to see the plane in this state

Gree, you say this is your "practice" plane??? Man, I would love to see a plane you do when you've gotten beyond the "practice" stage! lol! The detail on this plane is unbelievable ... the rivets look so authentic .... panel lines are subtle enough that you "register" them but bold enough that you WILL see them ... and the weathering is perfect. The way you did some panels a little discolored relative to the rest is just superb! FANTASTIC job!

Colin

Motor Aligned
I removed the cowl and shimmed the motor mount to get the motor shaft pointing the right direction and centred in the cowl. Previously it was pointing towards the sky a little too much, but all seems good now. So, the cowl is screwed on for what I hope is the last time. I also painted the aluminium of the motor the same grey as the dummy engine to minimise how obvious is was. The painting is rough, but it has that weathered look, and once the prop is on it should serve to hide the motor a little...


Working on the Inside of the Lower Gear Doors
This is where scale goes right out the window! Since I bought the wrong type of gear struts for this plane (I was advised they would not fit, so I got straight instead of those curved offset ones the real P47 has), I can't make the inside of the lower gear doors look like they should. A compromise had to be made. This means that the insides are not as thick as they should be (for clearance of the strut and scissors), and the recess in the centre of the door is a whacky shape. Oh well!

I measured up where the inner parts should be on the inside of the gear door, and temporarily mounted them to the strut to gauge where the clearances had to be. Then some baking paper was used to trace the shapes, and transfer them onto some thin balsa. This was cut out and glassed before being epoxied in place. Then a final flow coat was applied over the weave. Once this sets, it'll get a sanding, then high fill primer, then sanding, etc etc. Then rivets, paint, and stencils...


Problem!
I hope you all remember my gear door sequencer working nicely a couple of years ago. Just as a reminder, here's the video (from September 2009! Yikes! )...

P47 Gear door test 2 (0 min 46 sec)

Well, I was mounting my inner gear doors today, so I needed to reset the door servo positions to attached the linkage. So I fire up the electronics, and the door servos move immediately to the open position and then jus stay there. Ah I thought, 'the magnetic sensor needs to be tripped so the doors will close'. You may remember I went for the sensor option, so that the inner gear doors will automatically close, only when the gear is fully retracted - eliminates the possibility of any nasty accident from bad delay timing.

Well I manually retracted the gear, and - nothing. No matter what I tried the damn servos won't move! There is power to the sequencer unit, and the servos are being held in the open position. OK, I got out the manual and decided to check the programming of the unit, only to find that the two programming buttons seem non-responsive. So basically either I am a total idiot and have forgotten some major step here (which let's face it, is entirely likely), or the sequencer unit has gone bung!

Does anyone have any experience with the Thomson Automation sequencer? You will be my new hero if you can get me out of this jam!



Sigh... Just when things seemed to be going well!

Originally Posted by wollins

Gree, you say this is your "practice" plane??? Man, I would love to see a plane you do when you've gotten beyond the "practice" stage! lol! The detail on this plane is unbelievable ... the rivets look so authentic .... panel lines are subtle enough that you "register" them but bold enough that you WILL see them ... and the weathering is perfect. The way you did some panels a little discolored relative to the rest is just superb! FANTASTIC job!

Colin

Thanks very much Colin. I didn't see this until after I posted. You made me feel a little better. Although the problem won't go away by itself, I can enjoy an inflated ego until I dare to face it!

Just discovered this interesting base coat technique for getting different shades of silver...

http://www.rcscalebuilder.com/forum/...TID=19327&PN=1

I like it, except I think it is a little overdone in this example - but I'll definitely remember it for the future.

Originally Posted by Gree

This is where scale goes right out the window! Since I bought the wrong type of gear struts for this plane (I was advised they would not fit, so I got straight instead of those curved offset ones the real P47 has)

The problem with the P-47 strut is that, while they are inddeed offset, the offset is very shallow. It's really something about half way between an offset strut and a straight one. I'm not sure anybody makes one like it for a .60 size P-47 and the "normal" offset struts like Robart offers are much deeper and might cause as many or more problems. All speculation on my part though as I've not built this particular Jug. Scale or not Gree the airplane looks fantastic.

So damned if you do and damned if you don't in this case eh Chad?

Originally Posted by Gree

So damned if you do and damned if you don't in this case eh Chad?

Well, chances are one or the other option is the better of the two but, for sure, neither is going to be truly scale. The units by RCSKYLITE look like they might be a bit closer than the Robarts though.

Yeah they look good. Wish I'd known about them before, but I'm not spending any more on this one at this stage...

i think they are the ones hobbyking sell and they are to short . allso i think you can only get a 3" wheel on them . iv looked at them. you could use a longer pin though i guess