So who thought they were going to reach ripe old age before seeing this take shape?

This project was originally begun back in 2005. I'd had an old Guillows Rufe hanging from my ceiling for a long long time. The shape of it inspired me, even more than its wheeled cousin! So I knew I had to have one. The GWS Zero appeared to be the starting point I required

Originally I'd had this kookie idea to make my own central float out of balsa formers, CF stringers, skinned with balsa and glassed. Apparently I have no patience! While I'd originally made some progress on this, the sheer 'ugh' of this and the much hated process of fiber-glassing the fuselage (I'd already glassed the much easier wings using polycrylic) just made things less fun and the project languished on the shelf for many many moons.

The absolutely excellent handmade aluminum double-stator brushless motor made by Art Newland went on to power other birds in my fleet such as my StarMAX Hurricane, then my E-Flite SeaFury before I upgraded its powerplant. I simply couldn't accept that my Great Planes Fokker D.VII could blow the doors off my Fury. The beautiful and indestructable motor (a work of "Art" so to speak) had to return to its original (and much lighter!) project.

About a year ago, I thought I might just investigate the GWS float set. Turns out they're EXACTLY the right size! I'm wondering if this might be more than coincidence! Anyhoo, a couple of sticks of 1/8" CF rod, some wheel collars, some streamlined aluminum tube and we were back in the races!

Other things like reducing the excessive wing incidence, removing the headrest and adding the full height rudder and ventral strake came next. But more on that later...

Cheers!

Kitty

Looks good Kitty! When is the maiden?

Hi Kitty,

Very nice job ! It'll be a great Nakajima float fighter !

Chen

Hi Bob! Hi Chen! Long time no speak guys!

Hopefully I'll be maidening soon Bob! Usually I get my birds all painted up and pretty before first flight, but I think I'll see if she actually does fly before I get the rather interesting scheme I have in mind on there!

Need to get more work done on the float. Primarily sealing the main float better. After watching it float around in mom's bathtub for a bit I noticed she was sitting in a decidedly more "stately" fashion and when I came to lift her from "the drink" I realized why! The plastic bottom (of COURSE!) was completely filled with water! haha!

Now that I have a good height for the tip floats I'll go ahead and glue those on and then I think I can pretty much chuck launch her into her primary habitat and see how things go

Oh, and if anyone wants a trip down nostalgia lane, I locate my first thread for this bird here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=295412 Apparently the reason why I was trying to build my own float is that I wanted a working water rudder with servo concealed in the float! Wow... far cry from the KISS approach I tend to prefer now

I also wanted to post some pics of the truly truly excellent motor I mentioned in the first post. Made by the truly excellent Art Newland who in turn was introduced to me by my equally truly excellent friend Jeff Franchini, aka Sonic1. That motor has A LOT of airtime on it and still going strong!

Anyhoo, more pics and stuff to come

Cheers!

K.

Originally Posted by LedKitty

Hi Bob! Hi Chen! Long time no speak guys!

Hopefully I'll be maidening soon Bob! Usually I get my birds all painted up and pretty before first flight, but I think I'll see if she actually does fly before I get the rather interesting scheme I have in mind on there!

Need to get more work done on the float. Primarily sealing the main float better. After watching it float around in mom's bathtub for a bit I noticed she was sitting in a decidedly more "stately" fashion and when I came to lift her from "the drink" I realized why! The plastic bottom (of COURSE!) was completely filled with water! haha!

Now that I have a good height for the tip floats I'll go ahead and glue those on and then I think I can pretty much chuck launch her into her primary habitat and see how things go

Oh, and if anyone wants a trip down nostalgia lane, I locate my first thread for this bird here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=295412 Apparently the reason why I was trying to build my own float is that I wanted a working water rudder with servo concealed in the float! Wow... far cry from the KISS approach I tend to prefer now

I also wanted to post some pics of the truly truly excellent motor I mentioned in the first post. Made by the truly excellent Art Newland who in turn was introduced to me by my equally truly excellent friend Jeff Franchini, aka Sonic1. That motor has A LOT of airtime on it and still going strong!

Anyhoo, more pics and stuff to come

Cheers!

K.

Kitty!! I knew if I mentioned your name you'd pop up here again. So good to see you posting again. Don't be such a stranger! Re: the buck for the cowlings, Wes tried it with the heat gun.... and torched all the hair off his arm!
I think he modified the buck.... but he's been so tied up putting on fly ins for the MS Society... I doubt he's had time to try it again. He's put together 3 fly ins to raise money for MS and he's handed them a big check on every event.

Oh, one more thing. That center float is supposed to keep water out....not let it in!

Buzz

Hi Kitty,

Yes, been a long time indeed.

I'd recommend using silicon glue or hot glue to seal the float tightly. Silicon glue works better,
it is available at almost every hardware store here, it's normally used for sealing water pipes, glass tanks (for fishes) and roofs. I'm sure you could find it out from hardware or kitchenware dept. Good luck !

Chen

I'm following in your footsteps... having started a build blog myself, a couple of days ago.

The work you've done is beautiful. I hope I can do as well.

I noted the wing incidence as well, and have had it explained to me as a legacy of using brushed/geared motors and NiCad batteries. It looks like you dropped the incidence to about zero. Were you planning any right or down thrust?

David

Hi guys!

Yes Chen, that was my plan! I'm going to give the foam on top of the float a couple of coats of polycrylic and then go around the joint with some silicone to seal her up It's a good thing I just happen to have some around from having re-sealed the base of my bathtub and toilet recently!

David, very pleased to see someone on the same highway! I'll be following your build as well to see if we can cross inspire each other The thrust angle is whatever is built into the kit. I simply cut down the stock motorstick to fit the brushless in the cowl, so whatever the stock angle was, that's what I've got. I haven't actually measured the wing incidence, but I think it's still at least 1 or 2deg positive. Might have to double-check that.

Anyhoo, I remember my buddy Eric's Zero with his ridiculously overpowered BL unit in there doing it's loop of death on takeoff On my own brushed 350 powered Zero I'd simply adjusted the elevator "neutral" to 3 degrees down and that did the trick beautifully although this could have been considerably aerodynamically cleaner! ;D

I've attached the following pics to demonstrate how my main float strut came about. In fact, the principle is exactly the same as I had for my built up balsa and CF float! The attachment point for the streamlined "V strut" behind this came about when peaking into the HW bag that came with the GWS floats

Anyhoo, my head is splitting and I NEED to run away from this office for the day, so I'll catch y'all later!

K.

Hi Kitty,

Ha Ha your build desk is cleaner than mine !
I'm sure you could seal up the joint well.

Chen

K you have to work your magic on my girlfriend and get her into RC she needs another woman to get her into this hobby . . .Because I have TOTALLY failed at getting her to pick up a radio, your Rufe is Hot!

Thanks Demon!

Yeah, there aren't many women in RC, and most of the ones I know tend to be pilots of 1:1 scale birds as well. I would have been were it not for pesky Type1 diabetes complicating things, but there you have it. I had an ex gf that I *almost* got into ornithopters (she preferred those over fixed wing birds), but never quite got around to it.

You'll have far more luck with gearheads, geeks and tinkerers. Luckily us geeks seem to be on the rise. What's that saying again? "The geeks shall inherit the Earth" or something?

At any rate, keep pushing, maybe try an old GWS pico TM if you can find one. The definitive word from anyone who has seen mine fly is "lovely" If you're going to turn anyone onto RC flying (and repairs, gluing things back together, etc) it's going to be with one of those.

Alas, real life keeps getting in the way of my hobbies, so not a heck of a lot of progress, but I keep playing my "slow and steady" wins the race card, possibly stretching this to ridiculous extents!

Cheers!

Kitty

p.s. I need to go peek at David's thread to see how his lovely Rufe is coming along!

Originally Posted by LedKitty

Thanks Demon!

Yeah, there aren't many women in RC, and most of the ones I know tend to be pilots of 1:1 scale birds as well. I would have been were it not for pesky Type1 diabetes complicating things, but there you have it. I had an ex gf that I *almost* got into ornithopters (she preferred those over fixed wing birds), but never quite got around to it.

You'll have far more luck with gearheads, geeks and tinkerers. Luckily us geeks seem to be on the rise. What's that saying again? "The geeks shall inherit the Earth" or something?

At any rate, keep pushing, maybe try an old GWS pico TM if you can find one. The definitive word from anyone who has seen mine fly is "lovely" If you're going to turn anyone onto RC flying (and repairs, gluing things back together, etc) it's going to be with one of those.

Alas, real life keeps getting in the way of my hobbies, so not a heck of a lot of progress, but I keep playing my "slow and steady" wins the race card, possibly stretching this to ridiculous extents!

Cheers!

Kitty

p.s. I need to go peek at David's thread to see how his lovely Rufe is coming along!

Thanks for your advice Kitty. . . .I will show Shannon your work & your cool website with your hot little female pilots . . .ill try and shannon to buy some.