Ash 26 .. 1/3 scale 6metre update

19 May 2012



Mystery Poster .. Weird

Another post was received today from the mystery poster Kilo Oscar Papa. It arrived on a memory stick in unmarked brown envelope. It self destructed 15 seconds after uploading. This one has a few more pictures in it but we are hoping there will even more pictures in the next one rather than more verbal diarrhoea. Unfortunately we cannot ask him directly as we do not know who he is due to the secret nature of his  government job.

Anyway here goes......


 

ASH build Part 2

Having squeezed the model into the shed, It was time to think......Where do I start?  There were no instructions, I was on my own, building with my wits and living life on the edge. I thought...What would Martin do in this situation, actually Martin wouldn't be in this situation, he would be on his computer, dropping Scotch egg crumbs onto his keyboard looking at other F3F models.......thinking 'ooooh shall I have a pink one or another orange one.....or maybe a brown one'.......

Anyway I started by looking at a finished article.

.......that didn't really help; never having completed a build like this I started with a simple task.  I started drilling a hole for the tail wheel.  I was able to make a larger hole using files to shape it so the wheel would fit neatly, then I drilled a hole either side of the fuz for the spindle to go through, success....a neat fitting wheel. I won't be fitting a retract this season....I'll see how I get on with the model, I will be looking at a Fema unit, but at £150.00 It needs thinking about.....

Wheel fitted and easily removable for maintenance.

I then moved to the other end.........knowing that this model would only be flown off certain slopes due to it's size, I have convinced myself that I will only fly it a handful of times a year (if I even like it!).....but if I fit a tow release I can at least have more options to fly!! The nose was drilled out a little at a time to get the correct size, the tow release was fitted and lightly epox'd in, once dry it was again checked for alignment and epoxy was poured 1.5cm deep around it, this provided a very solid fitment.....It won't be like a Tanga with the nose falling off........

Neatly fitted tow Release.

As mentioned before the paint job is awful, who would spend over 1500 euros on a model, then spray it without doing any preparation? I am spending 10-15 mins a day scraping off the old paint with a sharp blade, I will get it back to the gel coat for the initial flight......and if all goes well I will spray it and add decals.............