Chambers R-1 build

Got 'er covered with 3 coats of clear, carbon veil tomorrow hopefully. Landing gear is done.





Tried some test graphics from Calie Graphics on my stringer test patch, came out great!


The contest is a month from tomorrow, I need to get this thing done. I don't want my official flight to be the test flight like last year

Stay the course. It looks fantastic, love the LG.

Looking good Jim , what happen about the stringers ? did you decide not to use them / I know you went to some effort to get the pieces for it . As Ron said the landing gear did come out sweet . It is looking more in proportion now . Eric

Thanks guys! The landing gear came out more complicated and heavy than planned but I can always change it.

Eric, I'm going to add the stringers after the carbon veil. I think I can get a cleaner look that way.

Jim

JPvelo wrote:Thanks guys! The landing gear came out more complicated and heavy than planned but I can always change it.

Eric, I'm going to add the stringers after the carbon veil. I think I can get a cleaner look that way.

Jim

.....

Looking great Jim! Can you give us a close-up shot of the landing-gear? I love wire-gear.. and have used it exclusively on "all" of my models. I'm always looking for more ways to build wire-gear. Yours may seem heavy now.. but I'm sure that you've figured it into the overall balance of the model. I've attempted to build "more" suspension into my wire-gear by soldering a tension-spring between the struts. I've even "tied" the front struts together with a spreader-wire; linked/soldered to a tail-strut-wire. If using small diameter wire-struts, it can help to support/spread-out the weight of the gear.. as opposed to using a rigid/heavier-wire V-gear that's unsupported.

Many modeler's (as well as kit-manufacturers..) don't think about the stresses that landing imposes upon a model having landing-gear. It's likely the most shock that a model will incur in it's life.. other than a crash. You can't always count on a "greased-landing"..  A hard-bounce is best absorbed by a gear that flexes and rebounds, as opposed to bending.. or transferring the shock to the airframe.

Is the gear in your R-1 in the scale-location?

Roddie,

Yes the gear is in the scale location. It will probably have zero flex but remember this plane might get test flown once or twice and then flown maybe twice a year after that. Here's some photos of how the whole thing goes together.

Thanks for posting those undercarriage pictures. It is much clearer for me now - from just the side view it looked over complicated - now it looks ingenious!

That's a very cool set-up Jim! Thanks for posting the close-up photos!

Carbon veil on with 3 coats of dope. Sand down and apply 2 coats of sanding sealer tomorrow, stringers on Thursday or Friday. I may have paint on this by the end of next week.

Nice ball-peen there on the table.. Hope you don't use that for resetting the Cox's ball-socket/rod-piston joint!

Stringers!

Very realistic looking Jim. Nice job!

I used a small drill in spin vise to simulate cowling fasteners.

Love the detail Jim , its coming along nicely !! i really need to put more into my models with details like that , to make it not look like a fling piece of wood

Here it is, 2nd coat of primer, ready for sanding then color. The stringer effect came out great!

Stunning Jim! Very COOL! That airplane will look awesome flying through the air .. for sure!

Should have this done tomorrow.

Hoot Hoot!! Man that is one hot looking plane !! Thank You for sharing your build with us . Jim Best of luck in the competition

It flys! I need to plumb a larger uniflow tank but here it is:

https://youtu.be/ID2WEqcKLW0

Way to go Jim! What a beautiful plane and it flies great too!

That'd one bad bird! Best one to date I'd say Jim