Finished up the spoilers today and spent some time soldering up the wire harness. Multiplex connectors are used between the receiver and wing. Cable end connectors and labeling are yet to be done.
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40% Ka-3 part scratch part kit
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It has finally come down to final sanding. Most of the rough sanding has been done already, except for the leading edge spruce and contour. This will be masked off so as not to damage unwanted areas of the leading edge sheeting.
The N-95 dust mask (used for the first time) is to help prevent the condition known as “self-inflicted COPD†during the process. The problem with the mask is you can’t plow off the dust to see what is left. For this the brush and the shop vacuum will be put to use this time.
What I do miss at times like this is the extra set of hands, maybe I can teach the shop cat to hold on to the wing, but that might take for ever, so I’ll just have to make do with the two hands available.1 Photo
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I know what you mean about the masks. Especially the double respirators. Harder to do good work with them on. I'm amazed I made it to 66 without them but I use them more now as I don't want to press my luck. Yes the age and experience does help. One of my other hobbies is `1/32 slot cars. Recently I started scratch building cars again. Built my first one this week in 50 years. They are better than I built back then.
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While waiting on some water based stain, finish sanding was put on hold. Besides that I got side tracked on a second canopy frame using 3/16â€dia brass tubing. A good part of the frame was fitted and soldered together using jigs, other parts were set by hand. What’s left is the wing leading edge eyebrows that will need to the formed and attached to the main canopy frame. This however will have to wait until my patience has recovered to some extent. It looks simple enough but it is been quite laborious to pull off so far.
My idea for the wing eyebrows was to use 1/8â€dia brass tubing filled with glass beads and sealed before bending around a form of the wing leading edge. Only time will tell how this will all work out. Hopefully the new canopy frame will hold form better than the wood one.6 Photos
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Now that the festivities are past there was time to get back in the shop to jig up the eyebrows. The eyebrows were made from 1/8 dia welding rod, heated and bent using Visegrips against a flat surface. The nose OD diameter is approx 1/4†so bending 1/8†dia brass tubing would have been painful without kinking. The jigs were simple as it was only for a one time use, but they managed to hold the eyebrows in position for soldering. To make things easier, only one eyebrow at a time was soldered.5 Photos
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The start of what my be a long process, cutting and fitting plastic. Now that the canopy frame is formed, soldered and holding shape, the 0.040 PETG plastic windscreen are being roughly cut to shape. It appears the the canopy frame is shortly to enter the glass bead booth and then a coat of black paint before a windscreen is rashly glued in place. There is still the sliding window to cut out on the left side, just how I'm not sure yet.
But for now the Ka-3 is starting to take on some class.6 Photos
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Gene, I at Aviation Concepts Rc can cut out the little sliding window on my laser cutter.Gunny
Aviation Concepts rc
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Yep, ARUP called it. After removing the plastic covering on the window side there were two pinhead blemishes just forward of the window. A new sheet of 0.040 PETG was cut, check and covered with 1.8 wide blue tape.
For cutting the window opening, a low tech approach was used, with a 1.5 dia Forstner bit, drum sander and polishing wheel. The Forstner bit was lowered to just cut the tape dia on one side then flipped and the hole centered the bit to cut the tape on the remaining side. After clearing off the tape the hole in the plastic was finished. This was repeated twice to cut in the window. Using a trimming scissors the excess plastic was trimmed away before using the drum sander to smooth it all out. Of coarse a test piece was done first to test the procedure. The window self was rough cut to shape with the trimming scissors and sanded to shape.
The canopy frame needs to be painted, but it's cold outside.
Pilot #2 now has two coats of West Systems 105 epoxy applied. Based on measurements obtained from a 40% pilot figure the head position is just about right now. Pilot #1 was closer to 50% in size. Now finishing and painting can proceed.5 Photos
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Rigged up a temporary paint booth out of a cardboard box to paint the canopy frame inside the heated shop. The frame well required another coat of paint, but that will have to wait until the first coat fully cures. There was time to work on the pilot a bit more also. Today was spent making the window rails out of 0.010 aluminum roof flashing. An aluminum offset bar fixture and machine vise did the trick with only trimming left. The rails were jigged and drill in place on the left window. Now to dig up some 1-72 flat head screws to put it together.5 Photos
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Slightly, pilot #1 was a bit large. After communication with Wolfgang Shaeffler,owner, pilot of a Ka-3 in Germany, as to the pilots seated position in relation to the shoulder restraints, pilot #1 would be nearer 50% scale. However I was able to gleam a lot of artistic tecnique from Wayne to paint pilot #2. He even sent some of the base paint home with me. If that fails I'll beg forgiveness and hopefully Wayne will clean up my errors.Last edited by Gene C; 01-15-2019, 07:16 PM.
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Found a few 1-72 panhead screws today to assemble the sliding window. They however needed to be shortened in length from 1/4" to roughly 3/32". Luck being in my favor a 1-72 hexnut thickness equaled the 0.040 PETG plastic and aluminum widow rail. Thread two hexnuts on, clip off the excess and belt sand the remains back to the hexnut and presto one shortened screw. It sounds easy but with stubby fingers it took a while. The exciting part is that the sliding window turned out far better that expected. The windscreen was tapped up again for protection until the canopy frame is ready to be sanded for canopy glue adhesion.3 Photos
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+1 with Gunny! I sure am glad you found the imperfections in the plastic before going to all of the trouble. I did all of this work with rivet detail around the perimeter of the canopy glazing, etc., then pulled the blue protective plastic off just to see what looked like Murphy's thumbprint mocking me!
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