F7F-3 Tigercat - BuNo 80405 - VMF 312 MCAS - El Toro, CA 1946

[MikeMaben]

Super lookin' Brian, thanks for the idea re sockets. In the past I've looked for thing of a

certain diameter to use for creating 'round shapes' and never thot of sockets.

I got sockets comin' out my ...  toolbox 

[LSP_Kevin]

Genius work, Brian!

 

Kev

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks guys. It hit me when I was out in the garage getting the slightly larger torch to heat up the wire with. I walked right by the old wood cabinets I have my socket sets organized on, and it dawned on me that it would work well, as the deep sockets are long enough to wind wire around, available in almost any size and are resistant to heat from the wire.

More tomorrow, as I'm currently hollowing out 72 individual Meng bolt heads to use as bases on the ignition ring. Fun!

I'll be using some of the copper colored ANYZ braided "wire" for the plug wires.

Honestly the ANYZ cable is oversized for the scale, and on top of that, the F7F used the flatter/smooth finish plug wires......

But the stuff looks SO cool as plug wire IMHO, that I'm going to use it anyway. It will save me painting and crushing lead wire anyway.

 

More later, cheers!

[dodgem37]

Good show.

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[dennismcc]

Nice to see this one progressing again, it would have been a shame to waste all that good work.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Out2gtcha]

Back at it!

 

This first part has been a definite reminder why I put the kit down in the first place. I will be doing NO such thing this time, as I will be pushing through to finish the big girl no matter what, but its all been very tedious stuff, and it seems like there is one task like that after another with the "resin pool" type of parts layout in HpH resin kits.

 

Back with pics in a moment............

[Out2gtcha]

Next on the agenda for getting the two R2800s knocked out were the push rods. This was indicated as .05 styrene rod on the HpH instructions. All I had on hand was one measly rod of .06, so off to the LHS I went. I grabbed a full pack of .05 rod, but had to find a way to paint 72 individual push rods. Hrmmmmm............

 

Well the way was not to paint 72 individual rods, but to paint two full styrene rods at the same time, then chop them up. The push rod holes in the engine case were drilled out to allow them to sit inside the lower hole, then be pulled up to meet the rocker cover. In the mean time, had to rig up some help to keep the ultra flimsy .05 rod from flailing about while I painted it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was then simply a matter of chopping them into 72 individual 11mm long sections. Yeah, it was about as fun as you'd think it would be. I also figured out I definitely should have installed the push rods prior to installing the intake runners. Had to run the back row of push rods around all the intake runners. It was a bit of a PITA and will never be seen, but this is my favorite aircraft of all time, so Im pushing through.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up were the "inner-ear" drain tubes for each cylinder, which are effectively little flattened half circle rods that connect each valve/rocker cover. The kit did not provide these, so they had to be scratched. I had no clue what a task it would actually be............

I used a similar method to creating the ignition rings, only I used a piece of wooden dowel.  

 

 

 

I then cut each section again into small circles, then into half circles

 

 

 

This coil of jewelers wire was way too big. So BTTDB. 

I then found a bit of clear plastic R/C push rod section that was smaller than the dowel and used that.  

[Out2gtcha]

After cutting most of the previously too big semi circles, I coiled up a new wire with the R/C push rod, and it made a much more acceptable sized coil:

 

 

 

 

 

After a few hours of cutting, swearing and generally having a fit, I had all 36 1/2 rings fitted to both engines:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know this is far from the best representation of these I've personally seen, but it was such a PITA, that I'm not redoing them and will live with them. The main issue with the engines, is that you have LOT of small little tedious tasks for an engine, and because of the twin aspect every single thing is doubled. 

 

 

 

 

Next in line of the tedious tasks was the upper cylinder heat shields. All 36 of them +4 extra had to be individually cut out, holes reamed, and trimmed and sanded to get rid of the pool of resin attached to all of them.

 

 

 

 

 

1 down, 39 to go:

 

 

 

 

 

The final task was done for the heat shields, and I got a layer of MS 1500 black on them:

 

 

 

 

 

Ill be getting on with the install of the head shields tonight, then it will be on to installing the 72 ignition connections on the ignition ring, then painting the ring itself, and starting on the ignition wires.

 

Cheers! 

 

 

 

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Awesome stuff, Brian!

 

Kev

[Troy Molitor]

So good to see this one on the front burner Brian.  

[Rockie Yarwood]

Elegant solutions for the drain tubes and push rods, Brian! I would probably have chopped those 72 rods before painting, and thought "what the he** am I going to do now? Filing that one away for future reference! 

 

Rockie

[MikeMaben]

Stop !!   You're making my head hurt again !!

 

            

 

 

[scvrobeson]

Good to see this one back on the table.  Was hoping it'd see the light of day again.

 

 

 

 

Matt 

[Out2gtcha]

Thanks again all. 

This one.................OH this one here. This type of HpH kit absolutely tortures my OCD. Nothing bloody "clicks" together in a positive manor like most any new gen LSP kit. Its a smorgasbord of endless guesswork, and scratch building. I love to engineer sometimes, but NOT to have to do it throughout an entire build. I definitely would not be torturing myself like this, had I not already come so far, and had this not been my all time favorite aircraft. 

 

So..........................

 

Work continues on the engines. AKA, R2800 hell.   Back in a few with pics.

[Out2gtcha]

 The shining light here with these engines is the look when done. I really have to thank, and all thanks do go to our own Peter of Air Scale who basically designed these engines entirely.

The look when done is really stunning to say the least, and I'm not sure how many individual parts have gone into each engine, but its a lot...........like a LOT. 18 cylinders, two spark plugs, two ignition wires, two push rods, an upper heat shield an exhaust stack and two intake runners per, DOUBLE everything for the other one, and you can see how it can get overwhelming.  However, there is some MoJo flowing now, as I have come to a mile stone on the two big radials. 

 

I finally got all of the above actually installed!! It felt like a herculean job honestly.  But the major part(s) of both R2800 radials is complete. The engines are not finished yet, as I still have to glue on the front trans, connected oil lines and a few other electrical lines and a couple decals to go.

 

The fun got started with cutting out 72 resin ANYZ spark plugs, followed by various sizes of braided ignition line.

 

 

 

 

 

The ignition line is actual braided material, so when cut the ends frayed a bit.  In experimenting with how to attach the ignition line, I also found it was NOT compatible with thin or even medium thickness CA, as it just wicked right up the material and turned it stiff and dark. The solution to both issues I found was as a simple one, a soldering iron.

I just headed up my soldering iron, and used it to cauterize each end of the cut lengths of ignition wire. 

 

 

 

 

 

After the ignition rings were painted and the ignition wire connections detailed, the park plugs were attached and front of the rear row of cylinders ignition wires were cut and attached to the ring

 

 

 

 

 

 

The back of the rear row of cylinders now glued on, and getting crazier to handle

 

 

 

 

 

Now comes the front of the front row of cylinders plugs and wires (the shortest runs of any) and getting even crazier.........like the brittle star-fish my sister used to have

 

 

 

 

 

 

The strategy here for me, for the last set of wires, the back of the front row (by far and away the hardest ones to reach) was to attach the wire to the cylinder first and wrap it around the intake ring at the back while I glued the ignition rings to the engine body, and after I had inserted and glued in all the rest of the plugs and wires. This strategy seemed to work out really well, as in the end, I managed to get all two rings, 72 plugs, and 72 ignition wires on both engines (YES I broke a lot of other misc parts with a LOT of cursing while doing all this) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is the wire over-scale along with probably the ignition ring? Yeah, probably a little bit. Honestly I like the looks of it all, and in scale, I think it will all turn out fine. My camera and lights also have a bad reputation for doing funny things with yellows and oranges, and the color of the wires is really way brighter looking than IRL as well. 

 

Pfffft, 75% of what you can see in these pics will probably never ever be seen again once the build is complete anyway! 

I set the front trans units on the engines to see what it looked like, as I still have some work to do there before gluing them on yet. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, YAY!  I'm a ways toward actually finishing something/any part of this build, as I have to take small wins, and let my self celebrate small completions inside the larger build itself, or Id go mad.

I'm not going to relent on this one again, so its hell or high water toward the finish (of the engines that is)! 

 

Cheers!