Dave Smith/Tom Martin 1/4 Scale Hall Cherokee Build

[lar73]

Another beautiful job, Art. I'll drive the first leg to Huntsville.

[Swiss1]

Very nice Art, looking forward to seeing it, I just finished loading the Van and Trailer. The Electric Pilatus will be on call for you
Will be in Huntsville tonight and early at the field tomorrow assembling planes.

Jeremy and Ben
SCCAAA TT TN

[ingrahal]

We won't be there till after lunch.

[lenb]

Art,
BRAVO....
It looks FABULOUS !!!!!!!

[Dion Dunn]

Stunning! See you on Saturday!

[ingrahal]

Thanks everyone for the kind words!!! It means a lot and makes these build logs worth doing.

[stihac]

Just awesome! Great build.


Petr

[gunny11]

Beautiful job Art! I love the translucent look.

[ingrahal]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it!!!

[Dion Dunn]

Art,

That plane is more beautiful in person than in the pics. Glad I got to see it and meet you in person this weekend!

[ARUP]

+1 w Dion! Oh boy... is it a beaut! Thnx for the canopy, too! Next season we'll get pics of Larry's 1-26 'Golden Flyer'.

[Dion Dunn]

A couple of pics.

[ingrahal]

Thanks for all the praise fellas!!! It was great seeing and meeting you guys in Huntsville.

The Cherokee performed well. We arrived at Epps Field about 12:30 PM Thursday. Jeremy broke out the electric Porter and towed it for me as promised. The maiden went off without a hitch. If I remember correctly just a little down trim was all that was necessary. I managed to get a couple flights on it even though the weather was horrible. It was cold and rainy with low ceilings and gusty 10 to 15 mph winds. The Cherokee penetrated better than I expected. But I quit flying it after a strong gust stopped it short and despite feeding in down elevator, I stalled it about 3 feet off the ground. It hit hard enough to pop the canopy off and wrinkle the right shoulder just behind the leading edge. There was very slight damage and it was still flyable, although I switched to my ugly yellow 4 meter Discus beater for the rest of the event. I'm very happy with the Cherokee and am looking forward to getting some more shake down flights in good weather. Then I will be able to tell more about trim, balance and overall performance.

I'll be finishing up this build thread over the next few days.

[ingrahal]

I thought I would post some photos of the Cherokee at the Huntsville Aerotow. Thanks to Michael Kelly for taking these shots.

[ingrahal]

More Huntsville......

[ingrahal]

Ok I'll backtrack to the point where I stopped posting build photos which was prepping the airframe for covering.



I mixed some brown and orange acrylic paint and thinned it way down to make the stain. I then airbrushed it on.


More staining.


Any areas that where to be painted white where masked off.


Preparing to glue in a plywood mounting plate for the tailwheel.


1/8" plywood glued in.


The tailwheel assy. is made from an old saw blade and some music wire. This wheel was replaced with a Sullivan 1/2" wheel.
The bent metal strip was cut from a saw blade after it was annealed. I then shaped it and drilled the holes. Then I hardened it
back to spring steel by heating cherry red and then quenching in oil.


Here is the finished product. The wire castor/axle snagged the grass real bad and I removed it at Huntsville. I
made this castor assy. today. Hopefully it won't hang up and it looks more like the full scale one on Dean's plane.


Here is the preliminary nose weight added before covering. It's 4 oz.


I use three irons when covering. One set low, just hot enough to activate the adhesive and one set at the shrinking
temperature. The other is the trim iron. The Coverite 21st Century irons are the best out there in my opinion. They
are electronically controlled, accurate and reliable and not much more than the crappy mechanically controlled ones.
The other important tools are good scissors, double edged razor blades and lots of No.11 hobby knife blades.



If you are a serious scale builder you should invest in a vinyl cutter. I bought the Cameo Silhouette and have used
it on nearly every project since. Here I used it to make the stencils for the lettering. The sign making vinyl works great
for stencils.



Continued.......