Mystery 109 Build; Revealed!

[mattlow]

Excellent idea Phil. I'll keep that saved fro when I do mine.

 

I do recall someone having a little trouble getting the engine 'thrust line' lined up properly (well, at least it needed some fiddling). He put the prop assembly on (dry fit) to aid the lining up - you jig could do all of this.

 

Matt

[Azgaron]

Nice work with the engine Phil! Looks great!

 

Cheers,

 

Håkan

[dodgem37]

I wish you loads of luck and plenty of patience!

Is there any way you can replace the frame mount locations with brass rod and a couple of drilled out tubes on it for more structural support?

Or even the bearers that attach at the strut location with brass and attach the ends?

I'm sure you've already thought of all of this stuff, but it is just a thought.

 

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mark

[Out2gtcha]

VERY cool! starting to come together buddy............

 

Brian

[PhilB]

Excellent idea Phil. I'll keep that saved fro when I do mine.

I do recall someone having a little trouble getting the engine 'thrust line' lined up properly (well, at least it needed some fiddling). He put the prop assembly on (dry fit) to aid the lining up - you jig could do all of this.

Yes Matt. I found the lower resin support arms to be too short. If you use those as a guide methinks you will get a droop!

 

 

Nice work with the engine Phil! Looks great!

Thanks Håkan

I'm just sorting out all the pipes and wires to go on.

 

I wish you loads of luck and plenty of patience!

Is there any way you can replace the frame mount locations with brass rod and a couple of drilled out tubes on it for more structural support?

Or even the bearers that attach at the strut location with brass and attach the ends?

I'm sure you've already thought of all of this stuff, but it is just a thought.

Thanks for the ideas Mark. As it turns out they will be purely for show.

 

 

VERY cool! starting to come together buddy............

 

Thanks mate.

Remind me never to do a detailed 109 engine again!

 

I have installed the engine.

 

 

My aircraft has the lower cowling in place.

The resin one is in two parts and doesn't meet up at all. Looks like possible resin shrinkage.

I am therefore going to use the kit one which had been cut off according to Aires instructions.

The definition is just as good as the resin cowl.

I taped it in position and used it as a guide for the vertical alignment of the engine.

I had to think carefully about what would show up badly.

So the engine is aligned with the cowl and then I will install the exhaust to line up with the cowl.

Any bad fit here will be very noticeable.

The resin lower engine bearer arms are too short to give a correct alignment so I will install those and lengthen them with some rod which won't be seen down in the fuse.

There is a small gap between the lower cowl and the fuse which I'll fill with card.

There are some pieces to remove from the kit cowl to accept the exhausts but I'll do that later.

This was all set up and fixed with epoxy on the metal pin and ca for the top mountings.

With hindsight I would not have removed the kit lower cowl as it would have saved a lot of trouble.

A fair bit of sanding was needed on the pipes under the engine to get a good fit.

It seems the Aires conversion is intended for a display only with the lower cowl open.

Here is part of the instructions:

 

Fair use criteria apply:

 

 

The small arched shaped panel on top of the fuse to be left in situ does not exist on the kit.

Remove the whole of the upper cowling.

The small triangular-ish panel just above the wing leading edge below the supercharger mount is a problem

My reference photos show this as part of the fuse under the cowling.

Aires have molded this into the engine cowlings which is correct but there is still a horizontal panel behind the cowl which

you need to fix if you have the engine covers open

I'm going to have to replace mine.

 

I am now trying to get the guns together and wire and put in the coolant pipes and tanks.

 

Phil

[blackbetty]

some work putting that engine in, i wouldnt have imagined being that difficult

very good solutions you thought of

[big matt]

Looking great Phil. It sure seems like a lot of trouble to get that engine mounted but it looks great to me. I am sure you know but don't forget to paint the dessicant canister on the lower right hand side of the windscreen. I am trying to remember if it is blue and turns pink or the other way around, I will find out.

 

Keep up the fine work!

[PhilB]

some work putting that engine in, i wouldnt have imagined being that difficult

very good solutions you thought of

Thanks Karl,

Throughout this problem with the engine I keep thinking have I done something wrong but I've gone over

what I've done again and again and I'm sure the problem's not me although I wasn't satisfied with the mountings as directed by Aires.

I just couldn't go with four tiny resin joins holding the whole front end on.

 

 

Looking great Phil. It sure seems like a lot of trouble to get that engine mounted but it looks great to me. I am sure you know but don't forget to paint the dessicant canister on the lower right hand side of the windscreen. I am trying to remember if it is blue and turns pink or the other way around, I will find out.

Thanks Matt. I have never heard of this although I always wondered what the tiny circle in the front screen was. I thought it was something to do with the gunsight.

I look forward to more info. This isn't a wind up to try and get me to paint pink spots on my screen is it??

 

Todays riveting episode.

I had a good think about what Mark(dodgem37) said about the lower bearer rods. I was going to build some out of brass rod but as the engine was now firmly in place I used the resin ones from Aires.

I removed the small blocks from the bearer arms and opened the joint.

I drilled out the end of the resin arms and fixed 0.8mm brass tube in. Cut to length and flattened with pliers.

I found some aluminium tube which was the same internal diameter as the rods.

I made a couple of sleeves extending the rods about 2mm.

The rods were then fixed deep down in the fuse on the mounting points of the resin rods and epoxied in.

They won't be seen as they are very deep down and will also be covered in oil!

The brass rod ends were fixed in the main bearer arms with CA.

These now actually further support the engine ensuring no vertical movement so its fixed! (Many thanks Mark!)

You can see a small couple of white plastic shims I've put in to close the gap with the lower cowling I mentioned last time.

 

 

I thought I'd take a respite from all this resin and sort out getting the landing gear in the up position.

As you can imagine this kit was not designed to have the gear up so here's what I did.

I must warn you that the following picture may distress lovers of detail and those of a nervous disposition:

 

 

First, the wheels will not fit in the bays on the legs with the camber set as it is in the kit.

I had to sand down the axle and remove detail from both the leg and tyre to get a neutral camber.

I had to thin the doors down considerably removing a lot of internal detail.

I had so remove a lot of detail from the leg and tyres to get a good fit in the bay to allow the doors on.

Its a good tip to mark the doors as they are very similar and it prevents any mishaps sanding them to fit.

 

After a lot of sanding, fitting and sanding:

 

 

Tyres have been painted with MM matt black with a drop of white and the hubs Humbrol satin black.

As this was a crash landing I'm looking forward to getting a lot of dirt and dust in there!

 

Phil

[big matt]

 

You are onto my evil plan... pink dots and pigs on the wing...

 

The dehumidifier crystals would start off blue and change to a reddish brown kind of pink color. If I recall correctly, there are spark plug inserts that thread into the cylinder containing similar material. These are installed when an engine is to be stored. They absorb any moisture and turn pink when they do. To revive them, just heat them up to evaporate the water.

 

Desert conditions on a well maintained aircraft would leave me to believe it should be a blue color.

 

Great work, keep it up!!!

 

Matt (The Instigator)

[Lud13]

Great work so far, great details and it will be awsome when finished..cant wait to see it done!!!!

 

Dejan

[mattlow]

Engine looks a treat Phil.

 

Matt

[Azgaron]

Looks great Phil!

 

Cheers,

 

Håkan

[dodgem37]

This is such a weird looking image to me. I'm so accustomed to seeing the oil cooler panier in this lccation that to see it not there and somethng different in it's place makes me do a double take.

Anyway, you're looking mighty fine there, Phil. Keep on keepin' on.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[PhilB]

You are onto my evil plan... pink dots and pigs on the wing...

The dehumidifier crystals would start off blue and change to a reddish brown kind of pink color. If I recall correctly, there are spark plug inserts that thread into the cylinder containing similar material. These are installed when an engine is to be stored. They absorb any moisture and turn pink when they do. To revive them, just heat them up to evaporate the water.

Desert conditions on a well maintained aircraft would leave me to believe it should be a blue color.

Great work, keep it up!!!

Matt (The Instigator)

Thanks for the encouragement!

Not sure I trust you now..........

 

Great work so far, great details and it will be awsome when finished..cant wait to see it done!!!!

Thanks Dejan, I can't wait to get onto the paint!!!!

 

Engine looks a treat Phil.

Thanks Matt, just got to add some plumbing and wires.

Looks great Phil!

Thanks Håkan

 

This is such a weird looking image to me. I'm so accustomed to seeing the oil cooler panier in this lccation that to see it not there and somethng different in it's place makes me do a double take.

Anyway, you're looking mighty fine there, Phil. Keep on keepin' on.

Thanks Mark,

It was pretty weird getting her "gear up" Definiteley not kitted to have that done!

 

Just a quick update. Having 2 109's on the bench is interesting...

I've negelected this one for too long so I'm getting on with the wiring and coolant pipes on the engine.

As always you have to be careful of resto images.

There are four pipes/lines that run on the port side of the engine.

In the resto photo they had what looked like a coiled protective cover sort of like the type you find in modern cars keeping wire bundles together.

though it was just usual restoration stuff.

Checking my photos was surprising. Looks the same on the real aircraft.

You can see them here, they are the two lines running around the engine block towards the front circular tank:

 

 

These appear to have the same coiled effect on them.

I had already decided to use 0.3mm wire for these and I wrapped a very thin strip of Tamiya tape around them.

It was pretty tricky and I had to use stainless steel wire as copper was too bendy.

I put the wire in a pin vice, attached the tape to the other end and slowly turned it keeping tension on the tape to get this effect:

 

 

Looks about right. I am going to paint them next and drybrush to bring out the effect.

 

More soon.

 

Phil

[dodgem37]

Good show, Phil. I wrapped just a few millimeters of wire as the fuel line to the Hartmann G-14 and said to myself 'Now that was an exercise I could have done without.' But to wrap engine hoses? As well as you did? You are the man, Phil.

 

Sincerely,

Mark