Bayboos
Active member
@Widkin: That's the beauty of creating something new. It almost never comes up perfect for the first time, but then you can work your way towards the perfection and actually seeing the progress in the meantime. That's exactly me: I don't have enough patience to create something 100% new simply because I don't see the process; but I love to work on existing things to change/improve them as much as I can towards a specific goal. And no, Depron is not "the way to go"; it's just a material like any other. It has some advantages and disadvantages, like everything else. In my case it's just a material I know and have easy/cheap(-ish?) access to; but I'd love to work with different types of materials as well.
@Frits: thanks for the reminder. I did re-watch the video. David does in fact use thick paper for the thrust tube; but the tube in FT Viggen is much shorter that in the plane we are working on. I would not trust it in this particular application.
And back to the build/fix log: it turned out that the nozzle needs to be cut open; in fact, I did remove half of it completely to gain enough access to the "internals":
This allowed not only inserting the tube, but also actually seeing what's going on around the EDF unit itself.
At this point, the tricky part was to make the tube surround the EDF shroud completely and rest flat against the EDF mounting frame. Since I didn't have access to this spot from the outside, I had to use a trick involving special tool I had from my old career as the actual airplane mechanic: a mirror on the stick.
Even though I originally cut the tube around 1cm longer than needed, It turned out that after all the adjustments it was exactly the required length, with literally no excess to trim later (and even a tiny bit cut out too deep by accident):
I also tapered the front end of the tube to make it easier to install it exactly where it's supposed to be:
After that, I put a solid amount of 15min epoxy on the tapered surface and pushed the tube in place. I also put the entire plane nose down until the resin cured; that way if the excess of the glue would flow anywhere, it will seal the tube-EDF gap even more rather than going in any other direction.
Next step was to glue the half of the nozzle to the tube, to further solidify it's position:
And after the glue cured, I test-fitted the remaining parts of the nozzle to their place. I have to admit, it looked pretty cool, reminding me of the open engine panels on the real plane (once again, a flashback from my previous career):
The final step was to put some glue in the right spots, put the parts together and hold them in place long enough until the glue cured.
Yes, I know, I put a little to much glue in some places; but that can easily be cleaned up after the curing is done (never try to do that DURING the curing process, it will just make the mess much worse) and/or covered with the paint (if/when the plane will actually be painted).
And that's it, the thrust tube is in place, the exhaust diameter is reduced, the plane is put back together and the fingers crossed for the next flight. Also, having the entire week of time before the next weekend, I'll think about some other "fixes" I have to make to complete the plane (closing the cheater holes and re-positioning the canards for higher AoA). Stay tuned
@Frits: thanks for the reminder. I did re-watch the video. David does in fact use thick paper for the thrust tube; but the tube in FT Viggen is much shorter that in the plane we are working on. I would not trust it in this particular application.
And back to the build/fix log: it turned out that the nozzle needs to be cut open; in fact, I did remove half of it completely to gain enough access to the "internals":
This allowed not only inserting the tube, but also actually seeing what's going on around the EDF unit itself.
At this point, the tricky part was to make the tube surround the EDF shroud completely and rest flat against the EDF mounting frame. Since I didn't have access to this spot from the outside, I had to use a trick involving special tool I had from my old career as the actual airplane mechanic: a mirror on the stick.
Even though I originally cut the tube around 1cm longer than needed, It turned out that after all the adjustments it was exactly the required length, with literally no excess to trim later (and even a tiny bit cut out too deep by accident):
I also tapered the front end of the tube to make it easier to install it exactly where it's supposed to be:
After that, I put a solid amount of 15min epoxy on the tapered surface and pushed the tube in place. I also put the entire plane nose down until the resin cured; that way if the excess of the glue would flow anywhere, it will seal the tube-EDF gap even more rather than going in any other direction.
Next step was to glue the half of the nozzle to the tube, to further solidify it's position:
And after the glue cured, I test-fitted the remaining parts of the nozzle to their place. I have to admit, it looked pretty cool, reminding me of the open engine panels on the real plane (once again, a flashback from my previous career):
The final step was to put some glue in the right spots, put the parts together and hold them in place long enough until the glue cured.
Yes, I know, I put a little to much glue in some places; but that can easily be cleaned up after the curing is done (never try to do that DURING the curing process, it will just make the mess much worse) and/or covered with the paint (if/when the plane will actually be painted).
And that's it, the thrust tube is in place, the exhaust diameter is reduced, the plane is put back together and the fingers crossed for the next flight. Also, having the entire week of time before the next weekend, I'll think about some other "fixes" I have to make to complete the plane (closing the cheater holes and re-positioning the canards for higher AoA). Stay tuned
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