The Ford Flivver 1/5 scale #268 needed a more scale appearance on its instrument panel. The photo of the original plane hanging in the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., held a clue that wasn't available in the short kit from Laser Design Services based on the Dereck Woodward plans published June 1990 in RC Modeler Magazine.

One nice thing about working on a project for more than seven months is time to think, reflect, and utterly destroy your previous work in favor of something much more scale and better working, in my opinion, of course. And you don't feel so bad about what was left behind so much that way.

In a previous blog dated June 22, 2017, the instruments were described as (l-r) oil pressure gauge, Jaeger tachometer, and an on-off switch. The gauge was a penny and the tach was a quarter. These instruments were re-scaled and glued to smallish buttons that were much smaller, but much more realistic. Like the original, they stuck out rather than being behind the instrument panel. I made the gauges using PowerPoint and a printer using only the good quality, but blurry photo from the Ford Museum online.

I'm sure you can improve on the quality, but this was fun to figure out. The hatch stays on extremely well with one magnet. The cut in the cowl is so precise that the hatch only fits going straight down. It was a success and will be interesting to see if it really works when the plane is in the air and bouncing around on a landing.

The Ford Flivver 1/5 scale from plans needed some alterations to accommodate electrics.
1. Four servos were placed in new spots -- 2 on the wings driving the ailerons, one in the tail for the elevator, and one below the cockpit for rudder push pull.
2. A 7" X 4" battery tray was sunk into the middle of the hatch compartment floor. The aft end was left open to run the ESC connector to the lipo.
3. The motor required ply supports adapted from the short kit. I brought the front of the motor right to the cowl opening.

The Ford Flivver 268 has three gnome cylinders on its three part Anzani engine. It was fun to figure out how to make these realistic, if stand-off scale cylinders.

Materials used were: broom handle, electric cord (strip out the copper), 1/16” balsa strips, sucker sticks, ink pen springs, old earphone cord, and aluminum Testors enamel paint.

Cost: $0 available supplies

The Ford Flivver 268 has a very big front end. The electric conversion filled it up.

Installing the motor in advance meant things got dusty when I cut out the holes for the cylinders. I had to CA glue the 1/32” balsa “floors” to each hole.

The Rimfire .25 outrunner means that the whole “can” around the motor moves extremely fast.

The cowl can be cut out more but at this point I’m leaving the motor encased in the cowl.

The Ford Flivver 268 build from plans is to the point of needing a hatch and cowl. All the electronics are installed and tested except for the two servos underneath. I tried doing just the hatch (see previous blog), but it needed to be integrated with the cowl. I plan to cut away the hatch. I used wax paper to keep glue off the fuselage.

Note: The hatch replaces the one described in the blog posted June 22, 2017.

The photos tell the story. This took about 16 hours....Continue Reading

The Williams Bros Models Pilot figures have been around a long time. They typically have very wide eyes that look garish. This blog adds face-painting detail to my blog July 4, 2017. Some of the ideas are from other places in this forum and the Aces of Iron painting tips.

1. Sand the sides of the eyelids. They’re too wide. Ignore the outer edges and keep everything in a normal eye-shape oval.

2. Use the tip of an Xacto knife to scrape off the plastic nearest the nose, deepening the eye socket just a bit.

3. Paint the whole face with a flat paint that resembles skin tones. Keep in mind that Caucasians aren’t really white, but a sand-colored tan. I started with a raw wood color and mixed in just a bit of red and yellow to warm up the tones. I mixed everything in a white egg carton. While you have the flesh tones, mix in enough red to make it pale pink. Paint the lower lip (only) and inside the eyeballs nearest the nose.

4. Paint the eyeballs white. I mixed in a drop of gray to soften the brilliance. Stop painting the white way short of the edges outside to make them more realistic. Stop short of the pink near the nose.

5. Paint the iris blue. Some say brown doesn’t work as well. I mixed in some white and didn’t blend it thoroughly to give it streaks. Make the circles hide the top part with the eyelid. Too far up and they’ll look sleepy. Too low and they’ll look scared. Make them equal or they’ll look crazy.

6. Make a dot...Continue Reading

Formers for the Ford Flivver need to change to accommodate the Rimfire .25 motor. The hatch and cowl must be re-thought. My hobby shop recommended tearing out the battery tray, eliminating the pilot and put in a mid-size motor mount (Great Planes). But, well, I like the pilot and lipo tray. So I started at this point deviating from the plans. I already have mini servos in the wings and tail so the precedent has been set. I did buy the GP motor mount as a safety net I can always revert to if my ideas don’t work.

To make the plywood formers, I turned to the plywood jigs provided with the short kit (wingtips, rudder, and elevator laminations). I don’t have saws so I used a click knife and Xacto knife to cut out the parts and 80 grit sandpaper to finish.