Topic: ATS Mayneline Spitfire online build.

As long as the mods have no objection i thought I'd share my latest build with you.
This is my backup Spitfire to join my FW190, current plan is to cover with Easycote then Prymol and spray. Our other models are either glass/epoxy, brown paper/ PVA, Poly-c/dope/ tissue or plain iron on coverings so this is a bit of test.

Power will come from a JE 37 which will also be part of this build/review.

Any questions just ask, but so far I've only got the lid off

ATS Mayneline. http://www.atsmayneline.com/
Funfighters website. http://www.hangarspace.co.uk/funfighters/index.html

Hi Cactus.

As you offered I've got a couple of questions. 

A while ago i built a Cambrian Mustang. Once its up it fly's fine, but hand launching can be a bit dicey as it seems underpowered on a 25.
What do the guys on the ATS team put on the front of their models ?.

I've also bought a Cambrian FW190 for my next build. I was planning to use poly c to cover it do you think this will make it too heavy ?.

Thanks

Pat. 

i used to fly the mustang on an old( it WAS a long time ago!) os25max, with the strap on silencer,  it had a full painted finish, granted, when the engine cut, it had the homing insticnts of an anvil,  but, what a flyer!   and how did i launch it?  inverted, with a touch of down---just took bottle

OS MAX! we had FP25's 

Barry's Mustang can also be a pain to launch, it dives for the ground but in the air is a gem, we dunno why and only his does it, the fix has been to throw it hard and up.

we use 37's, the club felt the need for speed a few years ago and Jamie fitted a OS32 to his Reno Mustang. At Woodsprings a few guys brought Mikes newly released kits and he saw Jamie's Mustang tearing around.
by the next year we had a 4 man team flying for ATS. We used the Leo's because the planes go like hell, with the crowd so far back this makes the planes look quick and impressive again, the cheap price tag also helped.
in reality you can use anything from a 15 with mini gear to 30's, anything bigger will require a bit of balsa added to the nose ring.

we have flown a funfighter on a West 36 with mini pipe, it was easily 30mph faster than ours but didn't last the day after hitting the floor.

Poly-C would be fine, some are already done that way. see my first post for current covering meathods.

with the 37's and glass coverings our glides are still easy and long, our stall speed is raised, but not by much.

if you like the Spit you'll love the 190, it flys like a pattern ship.

heres the first build pics...

kit contents.
and look at this, no more die crunching here.

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Hi Cactus

Will follow the build with interest.

Whenever I read of the funfighters their speed always seems to be admired. I'm rather tempted by one but zooming around at high speed isn't really my thing - don't think my reactions are up to it!

Are the funfighters amenable to stooging around more slowly or are they inappropriate for a more relaxed style of flying do you think?

Steve

Cactus,

What is the estimated AUW?

Are the funfighters amenable to stooging around more slowly or are they inappropriate for a more relaxed style of flying do you think?

very much so, even with our 37's we can still go fairly slowly
my current Spitfire was brought second hand and was only built for a 20-25 size. I've fitted mini servos and it flys very well and can be slowed right up with no stall.
my even older Mustang had a 21 and 3 full size servos, again a good turn of speed, but could also fly slow with no stall.
original engines of choice were FP25's!

Mac, I'm about to go build again, I'll weigh the 190 for ya, tho I'd expect the weight to match any other sports size 37 powered plane. mine is glass/epoxy covered.

3lbs 12oz Mac thats glass epoxy covered, full modded cockpit, mods to the tail and guns,  rudder servo and a 37 engine. under 3lbs should be doable with smaller engines easy.

I've started the build propper...

first job is glue on the doublers, normally this is done with Cyno or PVA, i decided to try out my new Falcon Grip ( gorilla grip or PU glue )
a little goes a long way then it foams giving a really good grip.


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the next instruction confused me for a second because i knew what i had to do, but i got thrown lol.
simply cut through the ply doubler and through the balsa sides for 6 and 4
my next step was to work out the center of each former then mark it, this helps with lining everything else up later.


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everythings going together nicely here, the CNC's a real improvement over the old crunching.
tails pulled together now, with the Falcon Grip again.

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you can see it expand now, this stuff is meant to be the dogs for joining wings, goes off quick too.

the other formers are now added.

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I'm watching with interest, espec about the glue.  I've only ever used epoxy (firewalls and u/c mounts) or cyano (for everything esle) and have a brand new bottle of gorilla glue but never thought of using it for planes.  Doh!

Nice looking kit, £58 I think from the website, seems a good looking well cut kit for that

Cheers,
Rich

I've done f2 and other formers with cyno, but i might try the grip for the f1 to f2 joint.
it foams up and is quite light in that respect, not sure just yet how it's work in these high stress areas but most EPP glider combat fans swear by it for joining wings, it creeps into the foam even more if you spray on a little water.
some end up sticking the foam to the bench as it creeps through!!

I'm no fan of $hi*teply but in the right place it's ok, only f2,4,6 are liteply, the rest are normal plys, good choice of which wood to use where. i like the fact that f6 now forms part of the fairings
the rest of the wood looks light and well selected.

a far departure from the ole days of thick ply fuzz's and orange wood fit for baseball bats.

we do get some really good scale looking planes from what is basically a box, it all depends on how much/accurately you sand it all down and how you finish it.
you could just round things off, seal the wood and spray paint with cans then fuelproof of just film it for a quick build chuck about boot of the car fun job.

Mac, i realise my edit in the posts above might go un-noticed, the weight is 3lbs 12oz, thats glass epoxy covered, full modded cockpit, mods to the tail and guns,  rudder servo and a 37 engine. under 3lbs should be doable with smaller engines easy.


some of "The Red's" models and finishes

Hi Cactus - Enjoying the build- keep it coming ! 

After reading your posts I want to get mine out of the box andmake a start !. (Might upset the wife though as were going on holiday soon).

Pat.

so does that falcon grip join everything? i saw it at cosford and it looked gr8 on foam, snap it, glue it, fly it ! 
looks like a really nice kit 

it seems to, been using it to glue in snakes tonight, however i don't use it everywhere...

pics just coming.

ok, we're on to parts 12, they had different grades, by design or not i dunno, but i decided to have the harder grain on top to give the tailplane some grip, these were cynoed together and stuck on then made level for the tailplane.

next step is to use the left over from your 1/4sq to put in a cross brace behind F6.
now i hit a snag..

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just a tad too short, i had used the side view to give the lenght of the longerons.
this drawing shows the cross piece going right to the sides of the fuz, and this is what i used.
however the plan view shows the longerons going right to F6, had i done this i would of had enough.
anyways, 1/4sq isn't something I'm short of so problem solved.

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i now put in my snakes using a sharpened bit of aerial to make the holes in the ply formers, then the grip to hold them, i find cyno isn't ever great for this job.
2 for elevator ( I'll still use the joiner for safety as it's a display model with a hoofing gert engine. ) and one for rudder, for now I'll probably just make it adjustable rather than control it, but,.... i do like to KE, really annoys Jamie.

now sheet the bottom with the supplied balsa, theres two sheets the same only i had one hard, one soft. as it's on the bottom i picked the hard, the other sheet must be used for something later but for now i can't see what.



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at this point we're told to fit the tailplane and fin, i ignored that.
experience told me that trying to shape anything with them in place is a nightmare. ( we will have to fit before covering tho unlike most models )
instead i smoothed off the bottom sheeting and the tailplane seat.

i then added f5 and 7 using clamps to hold the fuz in ( making sure i kept the same distances, so don't over clamp. )

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with these in place we can now add the spine and sand it to shape ready to fit parts 14.

i still didn't intend to fit the tail group as i thought there would be solid balsa to sand down to fair between the two, however part 14 cleverly goes on to do this for you meaning you can get these on next.

i rounded off the LE's but left the backs square, this makes it less liable to flutter and easy to cover to boot.
 

when fitting make sure everything is square, for this i again used cyno, then added a fillet of grip on top only, not under the tailplane or too far back as this will push part 14 out.



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before fitting i half cut the rudder from the fin on the scale line ( i glued the two half's together before fitting to the fuz, if you don't want a rudder then don't cut it, kinda obvious really. )
this allowed more area to judge if things were square, and a quick slice will have it off easily.

tomorrow the upper parts of the fuz and maybe the cowling will have everything starting to look Spitfire shaped.

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parts 14 are now glued on. stick them at the bottom, then add more glue and curl over. attach the back to the fin and allow the rest to curve into place.

F3 is now glued inside of f2, strange sequence to me but thats what it is.
i reccomend you do this before gluing the fuz together to insure you get it dead central, not that it's very important.

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one thing i did note was the piece was slightly too small overall, also when the holes are lined up it sits too low up top by about 3mm with a tiny amount sticking out below.

as the bottom would be sanded at an angle i decided to line the holes up and let it sit away from piece 18 later while giving a good gluing face on piece 17.



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not much more done tonight coz i was out getting Alula bits.

but thats ok because i decided to fuel proof the tank bay after adding the triangle stock.


after putting the engine mount on temperally ( i have a cunning plan later, but i need a delivery ) i added parts 13.

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parts 16 now fix the two together.

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time to add the top deck...

the instructions say to mount the motor and the cut piece 18 till it fits, i decided to save meself some hassle and cut some card templates.
these were marked up with former and side positions then cut until i had a good fit ( allowing for access to screws and such )
i then added piece 18 and cut another template at this height.
this would give me a top and bottom line to follow.

you can just cut the whole thing square and have a nice large area, i might yet have to trim mine to allow the engine to come out easily, but i like things neat and done right while looking good.

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here you can see how the two templates line up.
transferring the top template to the wood.

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top cut roughly and the bottoms shaved to give a nice smooth transition

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the finished piece

the side is done the same way, only this time it's left flat.

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as i can't yet mount the motor properly how i want to ( delivery expected soon ) i can't block it in with the rest of the cowl, so I've moved onto the wing.

time for me to be nit picky again. 

I've heard from others that over eager sanding can be a problem on the tips of the wings, the LE is sanded very close to the foam due to the wings curve and the fact the cores are straight.
to avoid any problems i decided to cut the LE part way along then slice part of the foam wing away.

this will give much more balsa to sand away and should give me a nice smooth LE instead of a possible very blunt rounded section before moving to the balsa tips.

this isn't necessary but again thats just me being me.

the grip is used again and boy, can't say I've ever found a better glue for this task. it's oozing out everywhere giving a very good, quick, no gaps joint.



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Phil

Very clever use of templates, much impressed.  I spent ages carving away at the cheeks and top deck on both the 109 and Mustang to get the cut outs correct.  If only...

keep up the good work.

Brogue

I like your air and fuel filters 

yep, nowt gets in them, nor air or fuel, i suspect this engine will last forever

i did spend a while carving bits out of my 190's cowl also, just had a brain wave as i was doing this.

good news is my package has arrived, so more to come tonight also details on this mystery item.

ok, finished a bit late last night so heres the progress...

with the wings now cured they can be sanded to shape, using the plan i marked off the rough shape and then sanded till it matched, the other wing is then offered up and the shape transfered.



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hopefully the wings should now match up..



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now to my delivery...

thanks to www.modelfixings.com i have these nifty inserts. no nuts on the back of the firewall to play with, no wood to strip, just a 5.5mm hole and a M4 bolt goes right in, no messin

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simple.

i brought the bolts over length just incase of future projects, just need to cut to length so the tank isn't holed in a hard landing or just over time with vibration, this goes for any firewall mounting.

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Surely if you could have it would have been structually better to have put the Flage Threaded Inserts in from the back of the fuse forward.