Topic: Vailly Fw 190 a Build

After haveing the lazer-cut parts,retracts, plans and A.Bentley scale drawings hidden away for nearly a year I finally got down to laying the plans on my workbench and setting-to on my latest and largest project.I would like to start by thanking Dave Tilbury alias 'thescaleman' for giving me the opportunity to aquire the said items.
Normally I start my build by doing the fus. first, but this time I started with the tail feathers.
First off was the stabiliser, started by marking centre lines both sides of leading and trailing edges and along all ribs before gluing.I would like to divert a mo' , I have mostly built B.T models which usually havethe stab. built top/ bottom then join .The vailly model has one piece ribs which meant I had to rest the framework on blocks before placing ribs into position then gluing using cyano.

Good start, look forward to the build 

You will have to change your forum name now though 

Steve

I would like to start by thanking Dave Tilbury alias 'thescaleman' for giving me the opportunity to aquire the said items.

And me and GrahanD...................coz I bought them off Graham, Dave bought them off me, and you bought them off him.....................so it's 4th hand now  ..............

Good luck Keith................ganna be a goodun.

Phil

Hi 109,

If the plans are anything like the Tempest's, then you're in for a good building time. 

Lookin' forward to regular updates

Cheers,
Neil

Thanks for your encouragement guys' I didn't know this kit has been doing the rounds!
Nice to see you are getting the paints sorted Phil, won't have to go down the auto paint supplies and try to get a near match.
On with the build.
Holes were drilled in rear face of stab. then squared-up to take brass channel( to ease removal of hinges -if needed) before assembly
Sheeting then commences useing 1/16'' light balsa -keeping the back end light as poss. Strips of  1/32 ply was added to trailing edge of sheeting before gluing to frame.

Missed these pics off the last post.

Trying again

Looking forward to this one 109 Flyer, far too many 190's on here these days 

Elevators ,nice and easy? Comprise of ribs top/ bottm sheeting leading edge.
The Vailly plans call for 1/16'' balsa for sheeting  but the laser-cut kit contains  1/32'' ply; which is great 'cos all the cut-outs have already been done. Construction started by gluing the ribs onto lower elev. surface ,once the glue had dried, I then offered up the upper surface onto the ribs and secured it in place with tape. The elev. was then offered upto the stab for a trial fit; result elev too thin at the front, even if leading edge was fitted and shaped it would be still too thin .The solution was to remove the ribs and replace with slightly higher ribs to account for the thinner skins.
Blocks wre then placed for hinges and control rod, top sheet added followed by leading edges ( predrilled for hinges) and then soft shaped blocks for the tips..
Stab. and elev. complete

This  is the right pic ! Still learning.

looking good keith....be keeping a keen eye on this thread...feels very close and familar

any scheme yet?

all the best...nice to see the 109 in the back ground!!

dave

Hi Dave , followed  your advice and started the thread, took a while to get used to do the uploading of pics. but I guess I'm gonna' get plenty of practice. The 109 is always lurking in the background ,you just never know when there gonna' bounce! Did you ever get around to flying yours.I would love to do one about 80'' one day, the P.M one is slightly over my  price range. May have a go at enlarging the B.T. one a few years down the road, until then I'll just plod on with the 190.
                       Keith

Rudder and fin wre next on the builing board. The rudder was assembled  the same as the elevators. and incase anyone is asking, yep! I had the same problem as the elev. so I resized and cut-out new ribs before gluing commenced.I have placed hinges in the scale positions and hope to place the rudder control horn also in the scale position ,  which is just above the middle hinge and will be concealed as per full size if all goes well.
The fin as you can see is fairly straight forward construction, centre lines marked on everything, ribs cyanoed  onto the fin post leading edge added then diagna rib between lower two ribs.
Hinge holes and cut-outs around the hinges were drilled and cut prior to assembly. Fin will remain unsheeted until building of the fus. is near finished.

Evening all, got my final package from Mr.'V' today containing some very nice mouldings- chack them out!
A crystal clerar canopy, vac formed display spinner,weapons pylon,wing ammo covers and belly tank. Th photo also shows F/G cowl ans aflying spinner and functional  alum. cooling fan.

vac formed parts.

Guess what??

[img][http://www.RCMF.co.uk/uploads/Fw-190-fan-cowl-spinner.JPG/img]
And the bits that go somewhere up front.

sorry forgot this one!!!

Hi Keith,

The canopy & engine cowling look every bit as good as the Tempests. Superb mouldings Keep up the good work

Cheers,
Neil

Good afternoon chaps, just a few lines to bring you uptodate .Before assembly of the fus. I decided I was going to carry out a small mod. to the wing mounting block cut-outs. If you look at the plan you will notice that the position of the wing block is not square with the wing bolt, which indicates to me that the wing block would require drilling and tapping- not a great fan of this method. It was decided change the angle so the wing block was 90 degrees to the wing bolt which means I can use the better method of captive nuts
secured to the blocks

Hi 109flyer,

Came to the same conclusion with the Tempest - Roy has used the same method. I intend to do the same as you, but add some balsa underneath, which'll butt up top skin of the wing. This should stop the wing bowing when the bolts are tightened.

TTFN,
Neil

After a short break for tea and toast in the Mess, back to finish this little snippit.
Thanks for info Neil about using balsa between top skin and wing block, it's something I've never applied to a model before but may follow your tip on this one.
A dry fit of the box section and fus. formers is amust. In doing so I discovered that the rearmost former of the box section had to be in place first otherwise if left 'til last, I wouldn't be able to fit it .
At this stage one can visualise how big the finished model will be.

Back to the building board; no I haven't been away, just doing the odd little jobs that are required to make the' Happy Chap in Red ' have a trouble free night, and putting out the Reindeer fodder.
I was happy with the dry fit of the parts , so I continued with the construction of the fus.  Firstly by assembly of the main box structure making sure that everything lined up correctly - every which way you can - no pun intended. After the epoxy had cured, the front section was lined up and formers glued into position.
Next to do was the fixing of the stab. seat ,which sits on top of the crutch. The outside edges of the stab. seat were then shaped as the fus. skin will be glued to the seat.
A few more lightening holes here?
What do you think?Upper stringers then glued into postion.

Got to try again.

looking good keith

don't know about the lightening holes...if the balsa's soft then i'd be inclined to keep the strengh.....it's not going to remove alot of weight..

have to tell you another time about my next project.....need a big petrol.....(well not too big!)

have a good new year!!

cheers

dave

Hi Keith,

I didn't glue the stab. mount in till I'd finished messing around with the front end. In fact I didn't glue the last 3 formers in till the last moment, just held the in place with the fuselage stringers. I did this, just in case there was any distortion/lining up of the rear end, caused by moving the fuz around. However, must admit, when I put the fuz in position ready for sheeting, everything was still in lined up . No Prob!

I haven't lightened the bottom stab. mounts, but I thought I would lighten the upper ones, but only at the very rear end. This is because of the way the fuselage is shaped & the fins sheeting comes down to meet the stab. In fact, I might even cut the last 1/3rd or so off, but I'll wait & see. Should save a small amount of nose weight (As the fat lady said as she peed in the sea "Every little bit counts!" )

Happy New Year to you all,
Neil

Thanks for your input folks, just come in from cutting a hole in the firewall so I can install the engine with 90 degree carb bend with trumpet fitted.
Time to start messin' with the front end before assembly of rear end (less hangar rash).
Off out for a few 'wets' to welcome in the New Year, so all the best and Happy New Year
           Keith

Engine refitted after drilling out the various holes for carb. trumpet and control linkeages

Staying at the front end- other sde of the firewall this time. Fuel tank holderwas made next useing 1/8'' ply, the holder was built around a 32 oz. tank which will feed the Zen. 62.
Blocks were then attached to the insid of the crutch with which the tank holder will be secured.'
Fuel tank snug as a bug

Moveing to the other end, next on the 'to do' list was rudder control. I wanted to keep the rudder ' clean ' so this called for a scale like method. The control horn was made from 1/8 f/g sheet then drilled to take two clevis- or is it clevi ? this would  then be located in the rudder post just above the middle hinge in a scle position.
A hole was then cut-out in the fin post to accomodate the clevis and reinforced with some f/g sheet.
When the fin has been sheeted, the system will be bearly noticeable.

And finally a dry fit of the tail feathers.

Plenty of work still to be done here, tail retract, covering  and final assembly of tailplane .The retract will be a bit of a challenge as there will be a bit of cutting out to be done just in front of the fin post.
 On that note I shall call it a day , even though it's nearly 10pm.

             Keith

she's coming together Keith....looking great.....just ordered my retarcts for my P51 from sierra.....hopefully be the standard as your 190 ..

what's next..sheeting/tailwheel?

all the best mate

dave

Lookin good Keith...........

Just a wee warning.....................I've found using metal clevises in GRP board horns a BAD idea...................the metal to glass ribbing due to vibration soon enlarges the holes, and you get play...........so I always use ball links into GRP horns now.

Phil

Hi Keith,

Lookin' super - How do you guys keep your building room so clean? Mine looks like a 'tempest' has been through it. I think the only time it gets cleaned properly is when I start to run out of tools & I need to find 'em again.

Gotta agree with Phil on the GRP horn - the bellcrank I made for the throttle linkage on my Lowley has worn already & that's only from last August :-[ I'll get round to replacing it soon. Sierra do a very nice metal rudder horn. Just bought one for the Tempest

TTFN,
Neil

Thanks for your comments gents. With regard to the clevis/ f/g horn, I've actually sleeved the holes for the clevis with brass tube, hopefully eliminating the wear factor, should of mentioned this in the thread. Will look at the ball link alternative.
I'm messing around with the tail retract at the mo' , and realizing that it needs to be fitted  ( with a bit of fine tuning ) before final assembly of the tailplane.
I don't know about too many other builders , but my office is the garage. Neil ,you wanna' see whats strewn around the chap thats taken the pics.

 Byeee for now
                   Keith

Nothing to show today, but a quick update. Elevators covered with solatex on Sat. prior to relaxing with a bottle of wine in front of the box for the night. Yesterday was spent respraying the underside of my 109 that had been attacked by fuel residue , now ready for dirtying-up and fuel proofing. Today I was presented with a pair of pinking shears from my other half which I  put to use almost immediately. Nearly 4 hours later, I had cut and applied the rib-tape on both elevators. A time consuming task I know , but the result was well worth it. A lick of paint will be applied  tomorrow , which will hopefully display the effect on photos better than natural solatex. Hopefully back to the building board tomorrow.
                  Keith

Evening folks, as promised yesterday, some pics. showing the effect ribtape application.

 The next photo, to me, makes it all worth while.Just adding the silver seems to bring out the detail With the elevators out of the way, it only leaves the ailerons and the rudder. With the amount of work that goes into cutting and applying the tapes , these items will be left for another cold wet miserable day.
                             
                             

Superb job Keith..................look almost identical to the SisT 190 elev's.......................

Hi Keith,

Super stuff, mate. Simple job makes the rudder 'come alive', well worth the time & effort 

Cheers,
Neil