Topic: The Whispering Death, Beaufighter Build

Wing building has commenced


 

The wings are built over the plan, the dividers are there so I can check the dimensions as the left side is a mirrored copy of the plan and is there as a guide. All the measurements are taken off the original blue plan.
 
Modifying the ribs was a lot easier than I thought due to two of the most useful tools I have never bought. I have used spruce spars with slightly thinner ones at the back to give more room for the flap control rods. I might web them to make them a little stronger. My patch is rough so I am using spruce for the extra strength as it is only about 50gr heavier. The outer wings will be using obiechi spars. I figure the centre section has to deal with all the stresses.

 

Which are two spar off cuts with sand paper glued to one side, and you have the perfect size spar slotter
 
I am building the centre section first



I will finish off the spar webs and fit the two dihedral braces next. I will then sheet the top of the wing as those ribs are fragile and I have already hat to fix some hanger rash. I am going to strengthen the trailing edge with some 1\64 birch ply.
 


 Just to give an idea of what it will all look like  here are the nacelles propping up the wing.
 
The wing dihedral for the outer panels is set with this little jig



I need to cut a slot behind the spars for the brace.
 
I also did some work on the switch plate and cockpit area



The holes are for the magnets and I will use some dowel and holes to locate the cockpit in place.
 
I seem to have more of a plane now!

The pictures of the build this week, slightly curtailed as I have had Flu





 I have made a start on the outer wing panels. These are constructed flat over the plan, I have lifted them off to check that they are the same. One thing I have noticed is in the current state they twist easily. I have done the ruler check and was pleased to see that ribs are all correctly positioned. I will pinn them down to the board again and add the spar webbing and TE of the ailerons section. Hopefully this will stiffen them up a bit. I don't really want to sheet the top side until they are joined with centre section as it will make it a lot harder with clamps around the dihedral brace.



The centre section now with dihedral braces and flap mounts. You can see in this picture where the back of the nacelles will glue to the wing spars. It occurs to me that if I was to infill with balsa between the spars I will have much larger surface area for the glue joint, worth doing ??



Here are the flaps built. They are made from 1.5mm birch ply and balsa ribs but are still a bit flexible and heavy for my liking. They could realy do with a spar about halfway down to stiffen them up like this


 
Rounding off the LE with soft balsa and hard ply was fun !
 
I have also been slowly finishing off the sheeting on the fuse. 

Looking at the pics I have realised that I will have to sheet the top of the outer wing panels before joining them with the centre section, or the inner to ribs will fall off when I cut the slot for the dihedral brace   

Well its been a while since my last update and progress has been a little slow due to various reasons
 
I have decided to focus on the wing for the moment and I have been working on the outer wing panels.







I added the wing tips then partially shaped them, I then added the bottom sheeting.
 


And cut the slots of the dihedral brace and test fitted them. Two thing struck me whilst doing this. Firstly how big the wing is This will be one of the biggest models I have owned once finished and that the outer rib of the centre section on the left side was inexplicably at the wrong angle for the dihedral I have had to carefully remove it and put right. I have no idea how this happened.

I have also done some work on the set-up of the flaps.



And have worked out the best way of getting it to work
 
Here is a quick video of it working

TN Beaufighter Flap Design Test

All this seems to take far longer to do than you would expect as I had to work out the design of the bits.

Next it will be time to build the ailerons.

It's coming along nicely again Max Much nicer keeping all the flap linkages internal isn't it

I Managed to grab an hour of time with the Beu today and got on with the aileron servo mounts. Now I am using HB5485's for the ailerons as I have some and the smaller mini servos are expensive to buy.
 
A bit of a squeeze


I attached the RDS shaft to the servo so that I could get it coming square out of the trailing edge before glueing in place.



I used my lovely scroll saw to cut the mounting blocks and all the bits, the mitre attachment is very very useful. The blocks are glued to the ribs with a light ply brace across the top.
 


Servo fits in like this. This way it can come out if need be.
 


The hatch also holds the servo down in its mount. I added to screws that go into the servo mount its self after I took this pic. I am looking for some counter sunk screws in my box of bits to hold it down. Next chance I get I will build up an aileron then repeat for the other side. I have also built the other flap servo mount.
 
 

Ok since last I posted I have managed to build one   aileron and here it is



I doubled up the leading edge with blocks of wood behind the first EE between the ribs (easier to look at the picture to understand this). This one done to give me enough material to round off the LE without increasing the size of the aileron
 


I installed the pocket of the wiper so that it would be sandwiched between the top and the bottom of the aileron
 


And here it is installed
 


I am going to add a shroud top and bottom later on.
 
I then made up the wiper rod



This took a bit of practice with trimmed off peice and a lot of cursing trying to get the temp right of the silver solder. Got there in the end.

And here it is installed



The wiper is a very snug fit in the pocket and is not "floating" quite as it should yet. I might get some emery cloth and make it a tiny bit looser and add some silicon lube to the pocket.

I am liking RDS, it makes for a concealed and slop free linkage
 
Here is a video of it finished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eik1b6CH2I

]Aileron Test

Just to cheer myself up I got everything out that has been built so far
 


I am going to carry on building the wing before returning to the fuse. I need to put sheeting on bottom of centre section of wing, Build right aileron, join the wings and attacht the naceles. I will have to hold off putting the rest of the sheeting on the wing as I am waiting for the electric telemetry station and voltage and amp metre to become available for my Hitec radio system. This will give me telemetry on the pack voltages but it would be very difficult to fit these once the wing is fully sheeted.
 
One question I have for you guys is what sort of paper do you use to make the tubes for the servo leads ?

Hello,
I thought you were going after Frise ailerons...I mean are you going to build them in?
I see you have the wiper....I want to build a Spitfire with Frise.  would one install pin hinges with wires to hang the Frise into the flow?
Albert

Yes I was, however I would have had to scratch build them and modify the wing. TN's ailerons are thinner and longer than a "scale aileron" would be and when I started planning them I quickly realised that there was a lot of work involved in making them. The full size ones are "frise" type with the hinge point on the centre line of the aileron not underneath.




All most of the ribs on the outer panels would have had to be redesigned and frankly I thought it a bit beyond my building skills, and I have not built anything like it before. So I played it safe and just went with the simpler option.

Hat,
I am a beginner and I find all of this scratch build terribly difficult, but I enjoy it and do not understand why people in our hobby do not do it more.  I am finishing a P-47 at 83", my first, and it is pretty rough...If you know what I mean.  Your work is inspirational to me and I here you brother on the simple path, but my next is a giant Spitfire and I want to work out the Frise aileon.
Take care,
Albert , Phoenix, Arizona, USA

If you have a look at a build thread of a Vance Mosher design you can see how he does it, loads on RC Builder.

One step forward , two steps back
 
I glued the bottom sheeting to the centre section using "super phatic" glue and then regretted it fairly shortly afterwards.


 
Some water then dripped off the roof onto the sheeting infront of main spa, the sheeting buckled and pulled its self off the ribs. I then tried to iron the sheeting  back on, as heating up the glue re-activates it but that did not work. Went on holiday last week and came back to this


 

It had lifted off again



And I have found that, super phatic does not soak into the wood or make a stronger bond than CA. I proved this by peeling off the sheeting back to the main spa.
 


Which I will now redo using CA and normal aliphatic glue , which I will stick to in future when it comes to sheeting.
 
Now does anyone know how to remove the rubbery residue of Super Phatic off the ribs ?
At the moment it will stop CA bonding the Sheeting to the ribs.

I have the rest of the week off and as its raining it looks I should be able to make some progress

I joined the wing together today.


 
You can never have to many clamps.

I then did a rescue job on the sheeting on the front underside of the centre section, with CA this time





It does not look to bad ATM,  There is a little dip just before the main spa, and I am finding that the 1.5mm balsa the plan uses for sheeting is a little wavy.You can see some filler which is drying, My usual yellow glue and micro balloons mix most of this will be sanded off. We now have something resembling a wing !
 
I have got some nice counter sunk screws from model fixings for holding the access panels in place


 

And here is the wing again after a bit of sanding and the flaps put back in place


 

Tomorrow I think I will glue the nacelles in place and sheet the top of the outer panels. I will have to leave the centre section top sheeting until J perkins start importing these http://www.hitecrcd.com/products/aircraft-radios-receivers-and-accesories/telemetry/hts-ss-blue.html

Got some more done today
 
First off all I in filled between the main spas where the nacelles glue to them. This has more than doubled the size of the glue joint. This is important as my patch can be a bit unforgiving on UC and all the forces from the motors and UC will be transferred through these joints.



I then carefully tested the fit of the nacelles, did some adjusting here and there and then glued them in place with some epoxy and some BIG clamps.



Doing it this way allowed me to double check the alignment of the nacelles.
 
I then fitted the last bits from the laser wood pack , which are the rear formers for the naceelle.
 


And then cut the holes for the routing of the extension leads going to the nacelle. I have made up a list of the extension cables I need. I will make them long enough so that they can be a permanent addition to the wing. I am still trying to find out what sort of lead the telemetry sensor station for my Aurora 9 uses, I might have to leave a bit of string in there.
 

I then started on the outer wing panel sheeting. I like to join several sheets of balsa together and them glue them in place as one peice and then trim off the excess. It works well for me but is a bit waste full of wood and the fumes from the CA is not nice.
 




I will do the other side tomorrow. I briefly  toyed with the idea of adding the landing lights on the left wing. However this more money and the ones on the TF Mk X are not very big.



Starting to look like something that might fly ! 

Forgot to show the reinforcing on the leading edge , nacelle joint
 


I also managed to find this picture on J perkins web site



 Which shows the connections for the telemetry unit, and the cables are short. Luckily it looks like a couple of normal servo extension leads will do the job, although I notice the signal wire is in a different place but this should not matter.
 
Now just need to pop to the LHS and get 2x 25cm and 6x 40cm extension leads.

Had a slow day today, just tidied up a few bits and pieces before finishing off the wing sheeting tomorrow.
 
I am having a debate with myself about which version of a beaufighter I am going to build this as. I don't particularly like the lines of the Beau with the dorsal fin so I think I am going to go for an early production TF Mk X Like this below



This still has the thimble nose for the radar, no wing guns and the nice big landing light on the left wing which I am going to make operable. Not sure yet how I am going to make the nose cone for the radar and the front of the torpedo. 

It's coming along nicely Max. It's funny how different we all are isn't it, I actually prefer the blunt nose version I see you have used the RDS system on your ailerons. I was going to use this on my current project. I have ordered just the bits I can't (Be bothered to) make myself. But some questions,....How is the rod itself secured to the fitting on the servo. I see It's a hex fitting, is this just a push fit in to the plastic servo fitting? If so what stops it from working it's way out in flight & the whole rod moving back in to the pocket and disconnecting itself from the servo? Also the way you have fitted your servos, can you still get them detached from the rods for removal through the hatches you have made? Looking to fit these this week, so would appreciate any hints from you mate
Cheers,
Ian.

I always felt that the thimble nose spoilt the marvellously pugnacious lookof the Beau - still, each to their own. Like you I don't like the dorsal fin.
Mike

I always felt that the thimble nose spoilt the marvellously pugnacious lookof the Beau - still, each to their own. Like you I don't like the dorsal fin.
Mike

Stop it lol or I might go for the non thimble nose TF Mk x, which would get rid of a couple of headaches  TBH I am still undecided at this point and I do have a while to make my mind up 

I have ordered just the bits I can't (Be bothered to) make myself. But some questions,....How is the rod itself secured to the fitting on the servo. I see It's a hex fitting, is this just a push fit in to the plastic servo fitting? If so what stops it from working it's way out in flight & the whole rod moving back in to the pocket and disconnecting itself from the servo? Also the way you have fitted your servos, can you still get them detached from the rods for removal through the hatches you have made? Looking to fit these this week, so would appreciate any hints from you mate
Cheers,
Ian.

Thanks Walts , its slow going but ATM the weather is not being nice, today sunny but windy again. You may find this link helpful http://augiemckibben.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/RELATED_RDS_PICTURES_AND_DRAWINGS.pdf

It shows the system put together. The Hex shaft is a fairly tight fit in the plastic holder but it can move fore and aft. I am trusting to the designers knowledge that it will stay in place. As for my aileron hatches yes you can pull the shaft off the servo and lift the servo out. I wish I had made the hatch a little bigger though.

I managed to get the other outer wing panel sheeted and prepared the piece for the centre section.
 
I also made the recess for the landing light on the left wing


 
I added to extra pieces of balsa behind the leading edge and when the clamps where removed some triangle stock on the other side to keep the strength.
 
I then sheeted it and cut out the recess for the lights



 Luckily the servo is right behind the light so getting the wiring installed wont be to difficult.
 
I got all extension leads today but then realised they where to short to reach the fly leads from the RX and it would be a pain to rig the plane.
 

 
So I am off to get some slightly longer ones tomorrow before sheeting the top of the centre section.
 
 I also made the first "cuts" on the leading edge shaping it to the top and bottom angles of the wing, I will then finish off profiling it later. You can see the last bit of sheeting in the background, it will go on like so tomorrow.




 
 Next after this...Strip planking the nacelles 

If I did make it an early TF Mk X then I could use this colour scheme

Now that is a proper Beau!
Mike

Now that is a proper Beau!
Mike

Indeed and it might turn out like that 

I will so be on to planking the nacelles. This will bring me to one of the big hurdles of the build, the UC doors.
 
I have two options here, don't bother and just cut an opening for the UC or build working doors.
 
I would really rather add working doors but there is no info on the plans or the build article about this. Also the wheels will poke out below the nacelles when retracted and the full size has bulges in the UC doors to accommodate this.
 
So if anyone has built a Beaufighter before and has some pics of their UC doors and how they made them please could you give me some pointers 

Have a look at Jamie Duff's Meteor build thread - he details how he made glass U/C doors by laying glass onto the wing. It would be a little more involved with the curved shapes of nacelle doors, but the same basic process should work very well.

£6.16 supplied,

PDR

Or make and finish shaping your nacelle's as normal, cut out the area where the doors go, spot glue a block of balsa in and shape up to the desired shape adding blisters etc. Then remove the block seal it and vac form your own doors. Split them down the middle and job done If you do go this route, once you have shaped and removed your block, add an additional 1/2" block to the back to allow for the web to be cut off which always forms at the base of the plug when the plastic is formed over it.

Thanks guys those are two excellent suggestions, of the two I am leaning towards the glassing method as my carving skills are not the best 

Here is the problem as such



You can see here how much the wheel pokes out. I will make a small recess in the wing so it will sit about 10mm lower down, but as sods law dictates its right over a rib. TN used 3in wheels on the plan, I don't see how they could ever fit. I am using 2.75in which look the right scale size

And see you some time later




 

Max, On the full size a/c the wheel would almost certainly have passed through the wing and be resting almost touching the top wing skin when retracted. same method applies to models with swept back retracts. It's strange there should be a rib in the way,...was the model designed with retracts or are you modding it?

Yes it was designed for retracts, on the build article it seems to miss showing you the completed underside  It would be pretty difficult to get the retract to go up into the wing (standard commercial ones at least) unless you got a 105 degree retract and installed it at an angle. I could add it to the list of things to be updated on the plan  but at least it keeps my brain working 

I suppose a scale UC could be built but that's proper engineering and I suspect quite heavy.

Some considerable time later...I gave up for the night
 



And with a little sanding it looks a bit better



Hopefully with a lot of sanding and a little filler it will look perfect. The centre section did not quite got to plan but I think I know why and can avoid it on the other side. Should be able to rescue it. So about 2/3 done for one nacelle

watch this space lol   

Hello Hat,
Nice work on planking engine wing pods.   I would think or study up on flight impact of dorsal fin.  P-47 pilot say when they take off dorsal fin it gets a little harder to fly.   I like the electric.  I would never build an electric warbird but multi-engine planes I would not think twice about going like you did and electric.  Good luck.
Albert

Thanks Albert, I am gong electric purely for the "reliability"  (touch wood) its certainly more expensive then glo.

No pictures today but I have finished the planking on the first nacelle and now started sanding down and correcting some dips with filler  Luckily they are where the UC doors will go so I can get away with lots of filler as it wont finish up on the plane.

Back to wheel size , I should have said 3.5in shown on the plan and 3.25 for the wheels I am using. Even so these blisters for the wheel are going to be big 
I am also starting to wonder about how to actuate the doors as I was going to use a treadle to pull them shut. I could just go for a cut out in the nacelle hmmmm.

Right I have been sat down with the plan and doing measuring and a bit balsa bashing to make the blisters for the wheels. As is the blisters are going to be stupidly big and are going to just not look right. They will also be a PITA to fabricate.

The only practicable way of doing the retracts that I can see is to have a pair of doors on the forward section to open and let the retract come down and an open hole for the wheel to poke out of. This should look better than cartoon size blisters for the wheel. Also once its up in the air it won't be noticeable.

I hate to make it non scale like this but with out a custom retract system that rotates through 100-120 degrees and puts the wheel up in the wing I see no other way.

I am still going to make the doors using the glass fibre method, question is which sort of fibre and resin ?

It always leaves me slightly bemused that people don't design scale models with layout of all the components in mind. Rather, people seem to start by designing arbitary structures then bodging around gaffs such as a rib right where the wheel is supposed to be afterwards.

Keeping realestate free for major components like that is where you should start in my humble opinion, and once you've got a 3D layout with holes for wheels, cockpits and control surfaces all laid out the locations of all the structural parts are more or less dictated to you, and more often than not the struture will look rather similar to the structure of the real thing.


As for the fibreglass doors, I'd suggest 3 or 4 layers of 200g/sq.m cloth with a finishing layer of 25g/sq.m cloth (gives a surface which needs much less sanding to finish off) and epoxy resin. I use the excellent L285 resin sold by Phil at Fighteraces. It's all I use now, and I wouldn't go near Poly C, pond sealants, polyester resins etc but that's a personal opinion. Given how good L285 is to both work with and in terms of the properties of the cured resin, I see now reason to use anything else. If you haven't tried it, get some. You'll love it!

Thanks for that, this will be my first time using glass full stop 

I share you view about the retracts, but it is partly my fault through inexperience of building from plans. If I had realised the problem sooner I could have got some 105 degree retracts to make the problem less. It would of course be helpful if the plans had shown the retracts in the retracted position.

I now have 50% of people suggesting Fibre tech and one of there surface finishing kits http://www.fibretechgb.com/C1.html and 50% for  fighter aces which is a tad more expensive.

The Fibretech stuff is good too, but Phil's L285 doesn''t smell and doesn't produce a waxy surface layer as it cures. It's also a bit thinner in consistency and flows / wets out the cloth a bit better. You should never find yourself wanting to thin down the L285 resin with acetone or similar. It's really good 

I've probably got Zpoxy lying around you could have if you wanted it, but again it's only because the L285 is so much better that the ZPoxy wont be used.

I could always mix and match, I like the idea of using rollers to apply the resin, I also have some peel ply.

I thought today that if I am not putting the blister in for the wheel is there anyhting stopping me glassing the nacelle and then cutting the doors from that rather than making separate doors from fibreglass ?

You might get away with that, but if your saw wanders you're knackered. Also, when cutting away planked things they can change shape once removed from whatever they used to be part of which is a risk too. If you're going to do it, then you should think about glassing the inside surface too as soon as they're removed.

It is a bit "safer" to do the fibreglass moulding, because then you can begin with cut lines, an undersized hole and oversized doors and trim until they fit nicely. The fibreglass will keep it's shape better too  You can roller the resin on if you like (but you'll use up more) but an old credit card works very well and is more economical with the resin. One set of doors wont break the bank but the cost of resin and disposable rollers will add up over the course of a few models 

Thanks, that makes sense and if it does not work the first time then I can always do  another set of doors. The weather might be improving soon so the build might slow down 

Hello,
Was wonder if you know of any good ways of making a door, hatch access for my P-47 air fill valves and such?  I want something simple and typical for warbirds.  A thread w/ pictures would be nice.
thanks,
Albert

Well it took me a little time but I have finished the planking lol 
 
Has it really been 6 months since I paid serious attention to this build ? The wind is now up and winter is here in the south west so building has recommenced.
 
I have finished the planking on the nacelles and given them a rough sanding to show up where filler might er be needed.




 
This is the first time I have planked anything and I am glad its over and I can start picking the glue off my fingers lol.
As you would expect for a first attempt there is a bit of filler needed here and there 


 
I can consul myself with the thought that most of it will be sanded off and that the lower part of the right nacelle with the massive chunk of filler will be removed later. There must
 
Once I have the nacelles sanded down to my satisfaction I will make the UC doors and battery access hatch.
 
As discussed before I am going to do this by making them over the nacelle with a couple of layers of 163g twill weave glass cloth with a final layer of 25g glass on top.
 
Now not having done this before I have a couple of questions.
 
Firstly what should I put over the nacelle to stop the fibre glass sticking to it so that I can remove it after it has set ?
 
Also I presume that you add one layer of cloth let it cure, then add the next layer and not all in one go ?
 
Back to the UC I have pilfered the E flite retracts for this


 
 So I am thinking about getting some 95 or 100 degree retracts and then mounting them so that the legs are at 90 degrees when down. This would mean that the wheels would retract further into the wing ?
 
I am  looking at these  100 degree Lado retracts http://www.lado-tech.net/en/rs333/8-rs333-100.html
 
What do you guys think of the idea ?

Could I use polyester masking tape ?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=polyester+masking+tape&_sacat=0&_odkw=mylar+tape&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313

In theory I can peel this off the back of the GF after wards as the epoxy should not bond with polyester ?

Jamie  used this technique to make the UC doors on his meteor but did not mention what sort of masking tape he used ?