Masterclasses > FAIREY SWORDSMAN - A PLAN FOR BEGINNERS
THE FAIREY SWORDSMAN - A PLAN FOR BEGINNERS by Bluebird
John W E:
The next procedure is to work on the inner faces of the aft-cockpit. Two support battens are clamped and glued either side of the cabin sides, around the area of the cockpit as can be seen in the photograph. When this is dry, these battens are sanded lightly to the correct curvature of the cabin sides.
We next make a small template up from a scrap piece of wood to get the angle at the rear of the cockpit, next to the transom. Once we have made this small template, we need to know the inside length and this can easily be found with two lengths of scrap wood which are placed on the cockpit floor and slid apart until one end touches the transom inner face and the opposite end touches the cabin bulkhead.
We then put a mark on across two pieces of timber so that they line up. We can then transfer this length onto our material that we are going to make the cockpit inner side walls with. Once we have the length, we take the template that we have made with the angle. We mark the angle onto the cockpit side wall as well.
We cut out the length leaving adequate height. Then offer it up inside the hull and sand until it is a perfect fit between the two faces and then, it’s a simple method of scribing with a pencil the angle and the radius’ of the cockpit wall. Once we have done this, we cut out near enough the angle, leaving a couple of mm’s plus. Then, we glue it into place and when that has dried we sand it to the correct profile. We repeat the process for the opposite side.
John W E:
Next we move on to the cabin main roof. In the plan, it shows that this cabin roof is planked, using 1/8 balsa planking. I used Obechi planking 1/8 x various widths.
These were all edge glued and pinned, starting from the outside. Once this has all dried, I sanded it to shape.
I covered this with Light tissue and 4 coats of sand ‘n sealer. Then, when this had completely dried, marked out the main hatch in the cabin roof. Very carefully, I cut through this with a very sharp scalpel taking my time not to split the planks by forcing the blade through, or, distorting the hatch. I just did gentle cuts.
After the hatch had been cut out, I added that hatch combing to the inside of the cabin roof.
John W E:
We are moving on now, and even though the hull is roughly 75-80% complete, as in hull build, we are going to move on now and install some of the ‘electrical hardware’. There are several pieces of woodwork to be done on this operation, namely making a motor bed and a servo mounting, plus, a battery tray.
The sizes and the material used in the making of the motor mounting is all on the Plan. It is a simple operation of making the flatbed with two triangular supports. The triangular supports on either side of the motor bed are adjusted to suit the diameter of the motor being used. What I did, because I was using a slightly larger motor than suggested, was to remove some material from the inside of the triangles by using sandpaper wrapped around a piece of pipe of near enough the same diameter of the motor. To finish off, I wrapped sandpaper around the motor I was going to use to finish off the radius in the motor bed. I lined the faces that the motor sits against with a thin rubber.
John W E:
I have also included a couple of pictures of how I soldered the wires to the motor. This is a tip I use when you come to bare the end of the wires, run a sharp knife/scalpel around the outside of the insulation, but, do not cut all the way through the insulation. Twist the insulation at the end, so that it breaks where you have cut it DON’T PULL THE INSULATION JUST KEEP TWISTING IT and you will see it will break free and as you twist, it twists the strands of wire and keeps them neat. As long as you don’t touch the bared end of the copper wire, it will remain in a tight twist and it does make it a lot easier for tinning and soldering them.
We move on now to a pretty important part of motor installation into the hull and that is aligning the motor up with the propeller shaft. You can get various gadgets to aid this – but – personally I prefer to use two pieces of brass tubing one the same diameter as the prop shaft and one the same diameter as the motor shaft. These two pieces of tubing should slide into one another, just like a telescopic aerial. You have guessed it – one slips over the propeller and one slips over the motor.
What you may have to do is either sand a little bit off the keel, where the motor bed sits or pack it up with thin pieces of plywood to get true alignment. Once happy, the motor bed is glued into position. Another tip I use a fairly flat 1.5 volt battery – I know the voltage in the battery can turn the motor over when it is not connected to the prop shaft and once you have your motor coupled up, connect the 1.5 battery up to the motor again, and, if it turns with no struggle, you know you have a pretty good alignment. :)
When we have finished and we are happy with the motor alignment, we move on to constructing the servo mounting tray.
If you note I have not installed suppressors on this particular motor. The reason for this is, I do not think this motor I have picked will be in the hull very long. Its an 'MTroniks Vision 600' and I think it may be a little bit on the 'large' side for this model and also, if it was to be a permanent fixtures, suppressors would have to be fitted.
John W E:
This again, is all detailed on this particular drawing. The only modification I had to do is put a crank dog-leg in the connecting rod between the tiller and the servo. This was to facilitate the shorter (in length) rudder post.
Once I had ensured that the servo and the linkage were all set up squarely and there was no binding in either movement of rudder or servo, I glued the servo mounting in place. Once the glue had dried, I double checked to see if there was a slight adjustment required, in other words to see if the rudder had even throw on it (movement from one side to the other).
Quite happy with that, and, its now time to construct the main battery box, this again – all sizes for the materials came straight from the plan. When happy with the fit, glue it and screw it into place.
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