Joe M
Member
With the annual float fly coming up in a few weeks and Timber floats out of stock everywhere until the end of the month I figured I'd take some time off of the flying car project to make up some simple custom floats for my Timber X, as it's become my go-to plane over the past few months.
To keep things simple I figured I'd go with a set of polystyrene foam floats that were given to me a few weeks ago along with 3D printed adapters to fit them to the existing undercarriage. I know there are special float mounting holes built into the fuselage for the factory float set, but this keeps the build a whole lot simpler. It's actually very similar to the custom floats I made for my Escapade a few years ago. I'll try them out without water rudders first, but they may be added on later if deemed necessary.
Depending on how well it performs on the water I might eventually scratch-build some new foam floats (these ones are a bit heavy) with built-in wheels and water rudders to make an amphibious Timber X. Or I might save that idea for its own whole project over the winter (I'm tempted to do an amphibious Macchi M52)
A little bit of CAD and about 2 hours of print time and here they are. The 3D printed adapters are sunk into the 32" foam floats by about 3 millimeters and glued in place with gorrilla glue. They're very solid and if anyone out there with a 3D printer wants to try making these for their own Timber I've attached the .stl file for the adapters to this post. I've also included the .stl for the 5.5mm 3D printed socket wrench for installing them.
I'll post an update once the paint job is finished and they've been float tested and maidened.
-Joe
To keep things simple I figured I'd go with a set of polystyrene foam floats that were given to me a few weeks ago along with 3D printed adapters to fit them to the existing undercarriage. I know there are special float mounting holes built into the fuselage for the factory float set, but this keeps the build a whole lot simpler. It's actually very similar to the custom floats I made for my Escapade a few years ago. I'll try them out without water rudders first, but they may be added on later if deemed necessary.
Depending on how well it performs on the water I might eventually scratch-build some new foam floats (these ones are a bit heavy) with built-in wheels and water rudders to make an amphibious Timber X. Or I might save that idea for its own whole project over the winter (I'm tempted to do an amphibious Macchi M52)
A little bit of CAD and about 2 hours of print time and here they are. The 3D printed adapters are sunk into the 32" foam floats by about 3 millimeters and glued in place with gorrilla glue. They're very solid and if anyone out there with a 3D printer wants to try making these for their own Timber I've attached the .stl file for the adapters to this post. I've also included the .stl for the 5.5mm 3D printed socket wrench for installing them.
I'll post an update once the paint job is finished and they've been float tested and maidened.
-Joe
