Well, it's time to start putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Some of you may recall the great Sandringham crash of TEMAC War Bird Day 2013. The plane is pretty beat up, but there's still lots of good plane there and it's a model worth putting the time into repairing. I think it'll go back together quickly. Wish me luck!
Good for you, Robert.
Can't wait to see the progress.
That sure illustrates your assertion regarding the amount of damage sustained in a land crash versus water.
Looking forward to the blog.
Good luck.
Jack.
I have to commend you Rob. That is a lot of damage and it is foam. Harder to repair than balsa. When I crash my planes I repair a lot of them. Looking at your pics, I would consider rebuilding some of it from new foam, like the fuse, as it would be easier than trying to straighten it out.
Someone did post a video of the crash on Youtube.
If you haven't seen it, here it is.
Chris
Short S.25 Sandrigham Flying Boat with Crash (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0j3UScXWbQ#ws)
Ouch. That reminds me, I owe you that 110D.
Wow. the video is a painful reminder of my last Pitts flight, which fortunately didn't sustain as much damage but took me a while to get in the mood to fix. (Repairs moving along nicely now, inspired by Glenn's new Reactor, which really wants some aerobatic biplane company in the sky.)
Rob, this will be a really important thread for showing folks how to dig in and come back from a serious crash. Your comprehensive set of damage photos is excellent. It shows not only the damage but the initial construction, which is very instructive. Looking forward to following your rebuild with discussion about how you approach each piece.
So glad you're resuscitating this magnificent plane. I know you will do a fantastic job, as always.
Andy
Thanks for the encouragement, guys. I've been waiting all summer to get at this repair. Believe it or not, I'm looking forward to it.
Chris, thanks for the link. Yes, I've seen that. Jeff took the video and forwarded it to me after the crash. It's a nice piece of documentation ;D My first thought after the crash, was that the plane would be a write-off knowing how fragile the fuselage is on the plane. When we arrived at the crash site I remember Ed saying that really it doesn't look that bad. Most of the fuselage is still in great shape, as is the wing. It was at that point that I knew I would repair it. I think it will be a simple matter of gluing the major chunks back together again, reenforcing as needed, filling the dents and creases with epoxy and micro balloons, glassing the repaired areas, more filling and sanding, then an entire new paint job. I'm looking forward to making it like new and also doing some detailing that I never got to the first time around.
Jack. Yes, if that had happened over water, I would have been flying it the next day (if not the same day). Oh well :)
Will it be coming back as a Sandringham or Sunderland?
Hmmm.... interesting thought....
If some of the foam is bent rather than simply broken try steam and/or boiling water to get it to return to its original shape.
DLG wing repair trick, here is an example of a badly crumpled wing Ivan fixed:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=911087 (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=911087)
Note how the kevlar doesn't generally break like glass would, so you end up with a bag of bent foam
Beautiful model, I hope you get it back together.
What caused the crash? Saw this model fly in the past and it seemed very well behaved.
Field a bit too tight, and you let it get too slow on the turn to final?
Perhaps you could add some flaps in the rebuild to help slow it down for landing?
Pat MacKenzie
Pat,
Thanks for the DLG repair link. I read through the entire thread. What a huge resource Aradhana appears to be and how unselfish he was with his time to log and photograph the entire repair process. He strikes me as the Keith Shaw of DLG.
Wishing Ivan success with his re-build project.
Good luck to Rob on the Sandringham re-build.
Frank
That thread was from 2008. ;D
He fixed it and it was perfect, flew it for a long time. Then fixed it again after another tip strike.
Still has it, just has moved on to other gliders.
Thanks for the recommendation, Pat. I'll look for opportunities as i work through the repair. I haven't had a chance to move on it yet. Maybe 1/2 hour tonight...
O.K., after I chucked my Stranraer off the workbench last night, I glued a bit more of poor sandy back together. It's a slow process as each piece has to be glued separately with 5 minute epoxy, which has to be held by hand until cured. Still, I made some good progress with the hour I had last night. The most major accomplishment was the gluing and closing of the split open keel area. This brought the sides back together again so the rest of the major chunks can be assembled. I expect to have the nose section of the fuselage pieced back together after one or two more building sessions. I'll provide more pictures soon.
Come one Rob, pictures paint a thousand words! ;)
Alright. As ugly as it is at this point, I'll take pictures as I go along for documentation purposes. As long as you promise not to judge :)
Yes Robert, lot's of pictures, remember Simon only reads the comics.
Or as my grandson calls them Graphic Novels.
LOL
Jack.
O.K. Simon keeps telling me to stop yapping so much and post more pictures, so here ya go.
Way to go, Piker! And thanks for posting.
So do you use tape to hold the pieces together whilst you glue them? Does that work? What type of tape is it - the blue one?
Well, I wanted to describe what the pictures were all about, but... well, YOU know ;D
O.K. Since you asked...
The early stages of putting all the bits of foam back together consisted of gluing in the chunks missing from the lower section of the internal fuselage. Eventually I got to a point where I could bring the two sides, that were split apart along the keel, together and most recently I've been adding the major chunks to fill in the top of the nose section. The other pictures show a couple of splits at the tail end brought back together. So, initially I was applying the 5 minute epoxy and holding the bits of foam in place until it stabilized. But now that the shape is coming back together, I'm able to glue and tape around the structure as you can see.
I'm using the blue painters tape, the one intended for delicate surfaces. It has a much finer texture than regular blue or standard masking tape, and I happen to have it in my shop. It doesn't stick to the epoxy, so removal is easy. I know Michael described taping over epoxied seams as a way to flatten any excess epoxy to help create a nicer surface, especially in foamies that will not be sanded and glassed.
The red tape you can see is normally used for sealing the vapour barrier in house construction. It's quite strong and has a very strong adhesive. The adhesive can stay attached to the work surface, so I certainly wouldn't use it on anything delicate.
Great inspiration for members of Foam Busters Anonymous!
Andy
The major bits are back together, but nothing more yet. However, this is a fairly major milestone as the plane has taken shape again and the rest is simple structural stabilization and filling, sanding, and fiberglass work. The tricky part of a repair like this is getting the major structure back in shape with reasonable alignment.
Last night I reattached the outer portion of the wing. This, as with the fuselage rebuild was a little stressful as there's the risk of rebuilding it crocked. I think it's pretty good, so I assembled the plane to review the overall alignment before I move on.
Next step is to repair the rest of the minor breaks and fill the rest of the missing bits in the fuselage (specifically on the port side near the cockpit). Then, I can give it a rough sanding to knock off the rough, high points, then filling, etc.
BTW, if you look at the picture of the right side of the forward fuselage, you can see the regularly spaced slices where the spinning prop contacted the nose during the crash :)
Quote from: pmackenzie on October 27, 2013, 08:41:28 AM
What caused the crash? Saw this model fly in the past and it seemed very well behaved.
Field a bit too tight, and you let it get too slow on the turn to final?
Perhaps you could add some flaps in the rebuild to help slow it down for landing?
Pat MacKenzie
Hey! I realized the never answered your question, Pat. It's simple. I screwed up and stalled as I was trying to bring it in slow for landing.
I had actually decided to never flying the Sandy from land anymore because it's really hard on the hull and the tip floats, and we've been doing a lot more float flying lately, so there was really no need. The planes weighs 16 lbs and to land nicely on the rigid hull the plane needs to be greased in. I had planned on approaching from the south, so I could get a nice, low, straight run in and not risk over shooting the landing strip, and the winds were from the south but quite gentle. Then Glenn (yes it's Glenn's fault) said I was crazy to do that, so I approached from the north. I guess I just slowed it down too much, expecting it to float in nicely, when it just rolled out of the sky. I MAY have ben able to power up and get the heck outs there, but I was automatically in minimizing the damage mode and let it drop I n with power off. If I had powered up and it still went in, the damage would have ben more extensive.
Re. flaps: I had actually built the wing with scale "Gouge" flaps that are similar to Fowler flaps, but run on a track system to extend rearward over a gradual arc. The result was that they increased wing area initially, then introduced increased chamber as they rotated downward. I never came up with an adequate and reliable way to set-up the track system, so In the end I just glued them on and filled the seams in an efforts to get the dang plane finished. I've never really regretted eliminating the flaps as the plane performs well without them... well, until that day :) Actually, it would have been fine if I had just kept the speed up a bit. Pilot error for sure.
The repair is really looking good; I'm happy to see it looking like an airplane again.
The front view show shows that it's very symmetrical.
As always, well done!
Thanks! ;D
There is an indent on the right side as a result of the crumpling of the nose. That's why the left side is also pretty smashed up. The ugly scar on the right side it the result of my having to cut the glue joint open and space it apart by 1/8" to get the side reasonable flat, and the nose aligned. The remaining indent will have to be fixed with filler.
Just a little bit of work done last night... I reattached the motors as three of them were hanging by the wires. I also ran each one up to check if the ESCs were still good, if any of the wiring (power and ESC control) was damaged or if any of the prop shafts were bend. All checked out just fine.
And at lunch today I went to Plastics World, for the first time... (why didn't I know about this place before?) to get some fresh epoxy, fiberglass, and micro balloons. I'm now all ready for the filling and patch glassing of Sandy.
See! God favours the just.
Moving right along and looking good.
Jack.
Tell us more about Plastic World
http://plasticworld.ca/ (http://plasticworld.ca/)
Jack and I purchased fiber-cloth there.
I've shopped there several times for glass cloth and East System epoxy resin. Last time I was there they did not have 1/2-ounce cloth, so call before you go to make sure they have what you need.
Andy
Having some experience with the 1/2oz. I would not use it again. It's too flimsy and difficult to work with. Next time I will use 3/4oz. or even 1 oz.
Jack.
I bought 4 yards of 1.2 oz., fine weave, fiberglass for the Sandringham. Essentially the same stuff I glassed it with when I built it.
Watching you repair that Sandringham from Sunny Antigua. I just want to say that you sicken me making it look so easy .....well done|
Glenn
You sicken ME posting from sunny Antigua ;D
Great to hear from you... and thanks :)
Quote from: piker on February 13, 2014, 11:15:38 AM
This, as with the fuselage rebuild was a little stressful as there's the risk of rebuilding it crocked. I think it's pretty good, so I assembled the plane to review the overall alignment before I move on.
Thing looks as straight as an arrow. Great job.
Colin
Quote from: piker on February 14, 2014, 11:08:15 PM
You sicken ME posting from sunny Antigua ;D
Great to hear from you... and thanks :)
Don't worry about Glenn, it was probably the open bar talking.
Sorry boys, wifi was a little squirrely down here. Anyways looking forward to seeing more progress on the Sandringham, and Ben was right in the assertion that my being easily impressed with the quality workmanship was proportional to my trips to the bar! :P :P
Glenn
You can't help but be inspired by Rob Pike's passion for float flying and his superb skill at repairing, let along building fabulous hydrophillic RC planes. With the "black water" season just around the corner, I thought you'd enjoy some related material.
Boeing 314 Yankee Clipper NC 18603
http://www.panam.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=179:marine-air-terminal-laguardia&catid=100:people-places&Itemid=523 (http://www.panam.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=179:marine-air-terminal-laguardia&catid=100:people-places&Itemid=523)
Boeing 314 Yankee Clipper NC 18603 - Video
Boeing 314 Yankee Clipper NC18603 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRYzFjift2Q#)
And maybe we (Rob) could do something like this (http://www.panam.org/images/PeopleAndPlaces/lga_mat_1940-aerial-view-45.jpg (http://www.panam.org/images/PeopleAndPlaces/lga_mat_1940-aerial-view-45.jpg)) at Frenchman's Bay!
Andy
Since we are on a historic note follow this link and learn how flying boats led to the creation of a famous Irish Drink.
http://www.flyingboatmuseum.com/irish-coffee/ (http://www.flyingboatmuseum.com/irish-coffee/)
Jack.
Quote from: electroflyer on February 16, 2014, 05:29:11 PM
Sorry boys, wifi was a little squirrely down here. Anyways looking forward to seeing more progress on the Sandringham, and Ben was right in the assertion that my being easily impressed with the quality workmanship was proportional to my trips to the bar! :P :P
Glenn
Wait! Are you saying you have to be drunk to appreciate me?!!! Beer goggles, eh?
Just a short update, but no pictures as there's not much to see yet.
Progress has been slow on the Sandy repair lately, but I'm still moving ahead.
I've been reinstalling all the internal bits and pieces that were torn out in the crash. Last night I remounted the bulkheads that are used for attaching the tail section (the stab and fin are one removable piece with self contained servos), and the section of the fuselage top between the front of the wing and the cockpit. I held off on adding this section of the fuselage until I had finished working on the inside, so I had access. I also remounted the battery box and test fit the wings and tail last night.
Just one more bulkhead and some doublers to add back in, then I can start the filling and sanding process. Although the sanding process will be a bit messy, it'll be nice to start getting the rough repair job smoothed out and looking pretty again.
Quote from: piker on February 25, 2014, 10:28:46 AM
Just a short update, but no pictures as there's not much to see yet.
Progress has been slow on the Sandy repair lately, but I'm still moving ahead.
I've been reinstalling all the internal bits and pieces that were torn out in the crash. Last night I remounted the bulkheads that are used for attaching the tail section (the stab and fin are one removable piece with self contained servos), and the section of the fuselage top between the front of the wing and the cockpit. I held off on adding this section of the fuselage until I had finished working on the inside, so I had access. I also remounted the battery box and test fit the wings and tail last night.
Just one more bulkhead and some doublers to add back in, then I can start the filling and sanding process. Although the sanding process will be a bit messy, it'll be nice to start getting the rough repair job smoothed out and looking pretty again.
Would love to see photos of these details. They would be very instructional for us less skilled construction wannabe plebes. The devil is always in the details. There is often more to see than you realize.
Waiting patiently......
Snowballs Hoffer
Alright. I'll take some pictures tonight. I know you guys are more the "graphic novel" type
I'm embarrassed to show too many pictures of the Sandy at this point as it's still very ugly, and the inside is even worse. It's always been rather "rough" on the inside, but even more so now after the damage from the crash and the sloppy regluing to get it back together. But ultimately, it's the outside that has to be pretty, so I'm not too concerned about the way the inside looks
Anyway. Andy asked about the set-up I had built into the tail end, to have the stab and fin removable as a single unit with self contained servos. This set-up has worked well for years and makes the inside of the fuselage (toward the front) an empty shell that only holds the power batteries. Everything else (Rx and four ESCs are fastened to the bottom of the wing at the center section. See pictures below (sorry about the poor image quality)
With this plane, I experimented with the foam shell with foam core bulkheads technique. So, the bulkheads that you see are black (because it looked nice) foam core. The bulkheads at the LE of the wing, and the one that is yet to be added at the mid-cord point of the wing are still foam core, but I faced then with 1/64 ply to help stabilize them a bit (as they were a bit banged up after the crash), and to help make them look a bit better.
The last picture shows the left side of the fuselage that had a lot of crushing damage from the crash, so I cut out the bad stuff and glued in a new chunk of pink foam.
All this external rough stuff will be filled in, sanded smooth , re-glassed, then painted like new... I hope :)
Nice pics Rob ... REALLY interesting to see how you set up the servos/control surfaces etc in the tail. Very efficient. Its funny how from the out side it looks very "traditional", however when you "raise the hood" it's really cool! :)
Colin
Now that all the bits and pieces are stuck back together, I can get on with the filling and sanding process.
First I aggressively ground away at the high spots on the wing and fuselage, then just like icing a cake, I applied the first filler coat. Much of this filler will be sanded off again, then a second coat will be applied to fill in the low spots.
What filler are you using Rob? The first two pics look like automotive filler but what is the white one in the later pics?
Colin
The first two pictures just show the bare, roughly sanded repair joint. The colours you see are: balsa, ply, primer, and auto spot filler, all exposed from under the paint from sanding.
The white filler is Dap, light weight Spackle as shown below. It spreads on really nicely, and sands easily, but is not very strong (based on my first impression). However, all the filler will be glassed over with 1.2oz cloth and epoxy, before final filling and priming.
I do have concerns about the stability (strength) of the structure with glass over the filler, but I don't think it'll be a problem as the nose of the fuselage sees very little loading, and the wing repair will be stable enough in tension with the glass skins, and in compression (primarily on the top surface) with enough wood structure remaining from before the crash. I would be more concerned if the plane was to take crazy G loadings, but it doesn't.
The major patching work is done and I've started to glass the areas in need of structural stability... those being the entire front end of the fuselage, a couple of areas further back where there were major splits in the original glass skin, and of course, the wing break and wing tip where there was a fair amount of damage. I'll glass the underside of both the wing and the fuselage tonight, then the surface fine tuning can be started, in preparation for painting.
Just a quick update based on some work I did a couple of weeks ago, now that I just found the pictures while downloading stuff from the camera.
The images below show the first step in blending the edges of the fiberglass cloth that I had applied to the repaired areas. Since then, after sanding, I have sprayed a coat of filler primer to the glassed areas of the fuselage, now awaiting the next sanding step.
Did you have to realign the fire walls? And if you did, how did you do that?
Jack.
I just stuck them back on then sighted along the LE to make sure the shafts were reasonably parallel. Mounting props, or even better, straight sticks on the shafts makes it easier to see misalignments.
O.K. with all this talk of big flying boats lately (for which I'm completely thrilled ;D), I figured it's time I updated my Sandringham repair thread...
Well, I left off last March when I got to the point that I needed to do a lot of surface filling and sanding. The best place to do that is in my garage, as I then don't have to worry about smell and messing up the floor. But in March it was too dang cold to work outside, so I put the project on hold until the weather got better. But then there were other airplanes to get ready for the flying season, so I didn't get back to Sandy until a few weeks ago.
Anyway, I've been sanding and filling and sanding and filling for the past few weeks (a little here and there), and I have the plane to the point where I will apply an overall coat of primer, in preparation for the final sanding then paint. I need to get going on this as I figure I only have a couple weeks of nice weather left.
BTW, so much sanding and filling wouldn't NORMALLY be required, but I'm working on fixing up a lot of small scares left over from the big crash, so patience is required :) See a picture below of the plane from a couple of weeks ago. It looks about the same now, just more fine tuned...but will soon move to the next step.
While I was focussing on the main parts of the plane, the cowls were left with a little more patching to be done, and the poor, old tip floats were still looking very beat-up. Well, I tackled the job of fixing up the tip floats over the past couple of evenings and now they're starting to come back into shape. The main problem was that the struts were broken off and so I needed to dig them out of the floats and install new ones. After last nights work I'm left with filling and sanding to do, which is relatively simple. I want to have these and the cowls ready for paint at the same time as the rest of the plane so I can do them all when the spray gun is set-up.
This time spent focussing on the smaller parts has me thinking about some detail features that I want to add to the cowls and nacelles. The only thing I have to do for the cowls is to create the cowl TE fins (those things that open and close on the back of the cowl... see pic below). This is no easy feat as I had to figure out the shape of each piece so it will lay nicely around the cowl at the proper "open" angle that I want to achieve. I've worked it out in CAD (see picture below), and will see how they fit tonight. I'll take pictures of both the cowls and tip float, so you can see how they're coming along.
Anyway... just a bit of an update and more flying boat chat ;D
Can you summarise for me?
For Simon...
Still working on the plane...
Not done yet...
O.K. I'm back at the Sandringham repair now that my workshop space is become more usable.
I left off a couple of years ago with the plane mostly ready for painting. Then I tore the roof off the house and the plane went into the rafters of the garage for long term storage. The other day I brought it down, cleaned off the dust and spider poop, and started touching up some of the nicks and scratches to prepare again for painting.
But over the weekend I was moving things around in my shop and a wing that was leaning in the corner tipped over and guillotined the Sandy horizontal stab. I was not impressed. Oh well. I applied some 5 minute epoxy last night and it's back in shape. A couple coats of filler and sanding will make it as good as new.
See below for current state.
Robert
Good to see the old girl getting some attention Rob. look forward to seeing her fly next year.
Still one of my favourite (model) planes! Way to go Rob!
That doesn't look like a workshop; it's much too clean.
I haven't shown much of my repair work on the Sandy, as it's been nothing more than a slow, tedious process of filling and sanding, when I get a chance. But I started the painting process tonight with the first coat of white on the fuselage and the grey on the wings. As I was refreshing my memory of what colour goes where via Google images, I clicked over to Youtube to see if I could find any videos of the Sandringham that I hadn't seen before. I found one...
If you're interested in this type of plane and the nostalgia for the flying boat era, take a look at this video from the 70's. Pretty corny, but beautiful too... if you're into this sort of thing like I am.
I'll show pictures of my Sandringham after a bit more paint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zbtfFQKuGg
Another video with a bit of the same footage but also an interesting story.
If you're not interested, that's O.K. I'm as much using this as a log for my own reference and viewing pleasure ;D
Robert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQYGqt3x9s8
I've been very quiet on the Sandy repair as I've been plugging away at finishing details. I did a fair bit of fine tuning with filling and sanding to get ready for painting again. Then , over the holidays I started the painting process. The main colours are now on and ready for the trim colours. I need to get my wife to create some files for me this weekend so I can get vinyl masks cut for painting the red fin. I already have the masks for the registration numbers from when Tara cut them for me the first time I painted this plane, in 2007 :o
You may notice that I'm using flat paint...it's actually called Chalk finish. I would have rather gone with more of a satin finish as I did with the original paint job on this plane, but I wasn't able to find anything that worked well. I'm opting for a flat finish as I feel it will represent the faded, tired looking paint finish of the full size better than a high gloss, plastic look. I do have the option of finishing with a satin clear coat when finished, if I feel the paint is too flat. But I think this is going to work out the way I like.
While I'm working through the overall painting process (its recommended that I wait 48 hrs between coats or trim colours), I've been messing with the detail features to help add a little more realism to the finished model. Time to make the various antennas and other bits and bobs that adorn the full size. Most of these details are over the center section of the wing, and as features on the cowls.
I started with these little tear drop shaped thingy's that started out looking like tiny tip floats. With a bit of sanding, they turned into what I was going for. More play with ply and balsa resulted in the mess of details features I was looking for. Now for the process of sealing the wood, fine tuning, and painting. These details are time consuming, but fun to see as they come together.
Really nice to see the old girl back in flying condition. I really appreciate your skills with making such small details look so good. I am always concerned about breaking antennas and other things such as guns off of the plane just carrying the airplane to the car from the basement, forget the actual transit and flight! No matter how careful I try to be, they seem to get knocked around. D'oh!
Glenn
Sweet! It would be awesome to see the two big birds (this and the Solent) flying together!
Colin
I agree with Glenn about both, how good you are at making those little rdf antennas and all, but I also agree if I made them they would last, oh I don't know, maybe to the top of the stairs at home before I knocked something off. I made the winglets on the 415 detachable and may do the same with the tip floats. But she looks great Rob.
Thanks guys.
I do have a plan for the delicate features sticking out. The tall, rear antenna will be connected to the short stubs further forward with wire, and back to the fin, I believe. This is the radio antenna I think. When removing the wing the wire will be unhooked from the fin, and the tall pole is removable as it's plugged into a tube glued into the fuselage. This will leave it attached to the little posts with wires. The two tear drop things are also removable, but will likely stay. When the wing is removed I will have a thing built from foam and wood that will mount over the delicate features over the wing and protect them when travelling. I'll probably make this device a handle of some sort for carrying the wings as they're rather awkward and the center section infill over the wing is delicate.
The cockpit hatch will be removed and shored safely inside the fuselage, and the little T shaped aerial is also removable and will store somewhere for safe travels. So, anything that can easily be knocked off will either be removed for protected.
That's the plan, anyway....
Hey
@piker Fabulous inspiration Rob! Can't wait to see your scale passengers and crew. :D
Loved the 2nd video clip you posted on Dec 15. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQYGqt3x9s8)
Cheers!
Andy H