He-51W Laser-cut frames beta build

[Ron0909]

Darwin

Fantastic job! After Ironsides I am going to follow your example and build this one. I never had the cojones to tackle it but you are the inspiration my friend! Are those control surfaces movable?

Ron

[Darwin]

Ron, as I used florist's wire instead of music wire, the control surfaces are posable, but not really what one would call movable. With more care than I wanted to give it, they can be made movable, but would be prone to tearing, and possibly a bit floppy, which would be a problem since the two elevator halves move independently of each other. It's not a difficult build, but is an exacting build. Having precision cut frames is a definite help and worth the purchase price.

[eatcrow2]

[QUOTE=Darwin;378098]Tail feathers are done. Frame parts fit continues to be near perfect.QUOTE]

Always a pleasure to see such clean work. Super job on the rigging of the tail!!

[MacSongLi]

Darwin,

Magnificent job on the rigging and controls.

Gary

[Darwin]

A full morning of building and very little to show for it...the radiator and windscreen took well over an hour each to assemble. Still several fiddly bits to go before the fuselage is done. I figure it will be easier to do without wings to get in the way. It will be interesting to see how well the wing and float rigging comes out. As a hint to what material I'm using for the rigging...when completed, it may be possible to play "Air on a G string" on it when finished.

[Darwin]

I've hit my first real 'oh crap' moment with the model. Whoever made the enlargement of the 1:50 scale He-51 kit and added the floats (this is such a major error that I cannot believe Marek was responsible for it...his work is not without minor glitches, but I've never seen such major errors in his older kits) totally screwed up the location of the braces for the float attachment struts. The kit instructions, and the design of the brace pieces (parts CD and FG as called out in the kit plans) put the braces one float bay too far to the rear of the float. Part CD should really be a part BC (located between frames B and C), and part FG should really be a part EF. The existing parts in the frames kit can be used, but need to be modified a bit and placed in the proper float bays. Since no two bays are the same length, some trimming and filling will be needed. For the rear brace (FG), the part should just be moved one bay forward...the hole drilled through the brace for accepting the attachment strut will be properly lined up with the location mark on the float skin, but the part will need a bit of extra material glued to the forward end of FG, since float bay EF is a bit longer than bay FG. In the case of the forward brace, piece CD will have to be flipped over so the drilled hole remains next to frame C, and the length of the brace will have to be trimmed down somewhat, since bay BC is shorter than CD. In my case, I didn't have my STAR moment (cleaned up a bit for the kiddies, that stands for 'shoot, that ain't right') until after skinning the upper half of the float. As the location of the forward strut is only a little bit off when built as the instructions show and the strut design should allow a little bit of misalignment of strut attachment points on the floats, I left the forward brace as it was, and was able to do the needed surgery on the rear brace without destroying any of the installed skin. So, not a show stopper for building the kit as long as you are aware of the problem before building the floats...and nothing that Ron will be able to correct without issuing a redesign of the floats, which is NOT in his job description.

[Ron0909]

I thought it was just me! Damn and Damn again! Maybe I can do something about it.
This day keeps getting better! I'm sorry you are going through this Darwin

Ron

[cgutzmer]

This is totally a Marek kit, no one did anything to it besides him.... I will forward this info on to him.
Thanks
Chris

[MacSongLi]

Sorry this had to happen after the work was done. Thanks for the problem identification Darwin.

Gary

[Darwin]

Ron, if you have the floats skinned already, I think you might still be ok...as I said, the front brace will be usable, just that the float attachment point will be about an eighth inch further back on the float than the location mark on the skin. The after struts will be without a brace, but there is enough material on the rear strut piece to give a good glue joint.

However, to further make your day...on initial evaluation of the float alignment jig, it appears to be FUBARed as well...it has the fuselage and the floats pointing in opposite directions. I think there may be a work-around...I am going to try cutting off the vertical supports for the fuselage (making sure the cuts are the same distance from the bottom of the jig, then splicing the cut-off parts of the jig on the opposite end of the jig from the original location. If that doesn't solve the problem, the lower half of the jig will still keep the floats properly positioned with respect to each other, and the float assembly (including the attachment struts) can be completed and TLAR used for attaching the fuselage to the struts.