BUSA SE5a, etc. Build

piker · February 01, 2013, 02:30:16 PM

Hey Colin, this is the compressor I have. It's generally on the low side for spray (continuious airflow) applications like painting, but as I said, it worked well enough for me for now.

piker · February 01, 2013, 11:14:27 PM

Just a quick post to show the current, ugly state of the SE5a fuselage. Base primer as mentioned before with spot putty on the less than perfect places. That'll be sanded smooth (and mostly removed) tomorrow evening, then the final primer coat applied.

Just wanted to show this for people who are not familiar with the painting process.

Michael · February 02, 2013, 11:06:25 PM

Superb work!

Ededge2002 · February 03, 2013, 12:16:32 PM

Looking great. Lots of work to get to that stage. Why is it taking so long though? Michael started and finished his balsa P47 build already what is taking you so long?

Michael · February 03, 2013, 01:41:23 PM

Based on Robert's work on this model, I predict that his Sandringham will stop winning prizes at funflys.

I predict this SE5a will win Best Biplane and/or Best Finish and/or Pilot's Choice and/or Contest Director's Choice at more than one Funfly in 2013.

OK Robert, the pressure is on!

piker · February 12, 2013, 10:44:11 AM

Quote from: Ededge2002 on February 03, 2013, 12:16:32 PM
Looking great. Lots of work to get to that stage. Why is it taking so long though? Michael started and finished his balsa P47 build already what is taking you so long?

Simple. Michael is AWESOME!

piker · February 12, 2013, 10:45:20 AM

Quote from: Michael on February 03, 2013, 01:41:23 PM
Based on Robert's work on this model, I predict that his Sandringham will stop winning prizes at funflys.

I predict this SE5a will win Best Biplane and/or Best Finish and/or Pilot's Choice and/or Contest Director's Choice at more than one Funfly in 2013.

OK Robert, the pressure is on!

I dunno. There's a lot of building going on. Lots of competition. We just need to get the guys out to the fun flys!

piker · February 12, 2013, 10:54:31 AM

O.K. It's been a bit slow as I work my way through the painting of the forward fuselage. It hasn't been pleasant, so hard to get motivated. But I finally got a coat of paint on Saturday evening, then an extra coat on Sunday to cover some thin areas. Last night I fine tuned the transition from the paint to covering and below is the result.

I'm happy with the way the paint went on and how my new paint gun worked. I had added a bit of aluminum tape strips before painting in hopes that it would help create a flanged look in the area of the fuel tank on the full size. I plan to add rivets in that area as well, but for now I just wanted to get the paint on so I can move forward. If/when I add rivets I can airbrush locally to match the paint.

The paint I used is Home Depot, eggshell, latex that I had them match to a piece of the covering I took in. Well, they failed. The colour isn't an exact match, but I don't mind. If it matched perfectly, you may not notice the difference between the two finished and the results may not have been worth the effort. So I can live with a little inconsistence in the colour.

Time to start assembling the plane with control surfaces and radio and motor, then on to detailing.

Michael · February 12, 2013, 11:03:01 AM

Yup! A prize winner for sure!

Amazing work!

Ededge2002 · February 12, 2013, 11:29:05 AM

If I said it looked like crap could I have it?

Lots of work there and I agree with Michael it will be a prise winner!

piker · February 28, 2013, 11:48:40 AM

Michael's been giving me a hard time about my lack of picture posting in my SE5a thread, so, although I don't have any pictures with me today, I figured I'd give a little update with a promise of pictures to come.

Unfortunately, I've done little on the SE5a since my last post, but I DID get all the control surfaces hinged. This was a bit of a pain in the butt as, although I had made the hinge slots before covering, the wood used on this area of the tail is very hard, making it difficult to insert the hinges (I'm using the kit supplied, flat plastic, hinges with removable hinge pins). There's no way I was going to be able to glue three hinges in to the stab half (for example) then slot three at a time into the elevator half. I had to install each hinge half separately, line them all up before gluing (even shifting them to line up was difficult), then wick in thin CA to hold them in place. It worked out well, but I was a bit sloppy and filled in the hinge pin holes on several of the hinges, and I couldn't push the CA plug out with a pin after as I had hoped. The solution was to get a 1/32" drill bit, press fit it into a thin brass tube, and with my power drill, drill out the hinge holes again, while the hinges were still mounted on the surfaces. This could have made a horrible mess of it, but fortunately, the drill bit followed the original holes nicely, and this major problem of mine was solved very nicely. I was relieved

Anyway, in the meantime (while waiting to get a drill bit) I mounted the stab, fin and sub-fin to the fuselage, and added some strips of covering to the seams to tidy the look a bit. I'm happy with the way this detail has worked out (owing to the ease of working with Solartex).

So curently, the plane could be ready for flight with some control surface hook-up and the bolting on of the motor, but there's no point in finishing that stuff at this point as it'll just get in the way of the detailing. So, at this point, it's time to dive into the list of detailing that I want to do. First up is the sealing, sanding, priming, painting, and detailing of the nose shutters, engine blocks, exhaust pipes, struts, landing gear and machine gun (all the yet unfinished wood stuff).

I will post pictures as I get through that process.

piker · March 08, 2013, 11:06:31 AM

Just a couple of pictures to show some of the detail items I've been working on.

Things like sanding, filling, priming, sanding, filling, etc of the wooden Lewis gun and mount, the engine parts, front shutter cowl, interplane struts, etc. One thing you can see, that I'm pleased with, is the wrapped cabane struts as done on the full size. They worked out nicely and just need a bit of touch-up paint to get the areas that the covering didn't reach.

Also just a shot of the fact that the tail surfaces are mounted and trimed nicely.

Tonight I'm going to expore rib stitching and maybe fuselage lacing. I'll let you know how THAT turns out

Michael · March 08, 2013, 01:57:59 PM

The wrapped cabane struts really look great. That's a terrific scale detail.

sihinch · March 08, 2013, 06:01:11 PM

Does your wife know that you stole her red towel?

piker · March 08, 2013, 11:50:44 PM

Yes. I noticed that she used a couple of old, red, towels for our bunny to sit on while he's out of his cage. He doesn't like the hardwood floor 'cause he slips. I asked Tara if I could use the old towels for my workbench, to prevent the covered planes from getting scratched up, and she asked what the bunny was going to use. Anyway... she gave in and I acquired them.

I set one on fire tonight (just a little) when I was using it to protect my jeans while cutting though the thick, wire, landing gear for the SE5a.

More than you ever wanted to know about my old, bench towel... but you asked.

Since I'm here chatting, I spent some time not making much progress tonight. But I did refine some techniques that should work well when I get the right material and when I can do a test when the glue dries.

O.K., I know you want the details (ya right) so here goes: I was planning to add rib stitching to the biplane tonight but the thread/string I got was too thick. The plan was to wrap the string, back and forth across a board (at the correct, scale spacing), iron on some covering, cut it into strips the width of the ribs, iron the strips to the top and bottom of each rib and then cover with a wider strip to represent the cap strip. The little bits of string are to represent the stitching. I've done this before but used dope and coverall. That worked well, but because of the thick string, and the gentle adhesive on the covering, some of the string bits fell off. I could use finer string, but while I was a bit discouraged, I thought I'd try a different technique that I've heard of. That is using little strips of white blue over the rib with a cap strip over top. I tried a sample rib on the elevator and now I'm waiting for it to dry before I cap it. BTW, made some test rivets with the same technique that I'll use around the front part of the fuselage. I've known about the white glue technique for years but have never tried it. It's not too bad. Easier than I thought

The other thing I tried was the lacing that is used for maintainence access along the side of the fuselage on the SE5a and other WWI planes. My technique has promise, but again the string is too thick. Too bad because it's a good colour. I hope to go to Fabric Land tomorrow.

I also worked a bit on the engine and exhaust pipes to get them looking right. They both need more work.

Finally, I started working on my redesign of the landing gear. As mentioned a while ago, the kit supplied approach is not scale and the landing gear is very distinctive on this plane, so I'm trying to figure out my best solution. More on that later. I need to get some basswood for that.