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Drilling out landing gear legs?


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I'm wondering if anyone has tried to drill out the center core of a plastic landing gear kit legs? I want to do this so I can stiffen the stock gear and simulate the chrome shock portion by using a polished stainless steel rod to replace what I drill out.  As I think about how to do this, the possible problems that come to mind are:

 

-how to do ensure the drill is perfectly centred to the core of the gear leg?

-how to keep the drill centered as it makes it way down into the leg when you drill?

-how to keep the plastic leg from twisting apart as it gets drilled out?

 

Has anyone had success doing this? If you have, can you a share your technique or any other pointers we can all learn from?

 

Thanks in advance, Chuck.

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I've only done this the once, but it was to mount the landing gear on some brass tubing for strength purposes, so I didn't have to drill through the entire length of the plastic landing gear. I did everything by eye, and used a pin vise to power the drill bit.

 

For your purposes, I'd probably look at only drilling the bottom portion of the leg, to similarly limit the length you need to drill. That way you can still simulate the metal oleo and provide some additional strength, without risking the problems of trying to drill out the entire leg.

 

Kev

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1 hour ago, ChuckT said:

 

-how to do ensure the drill is perfectly centred to the core of the gear leg?

-how to keep the drill centered as it makes it way down into the leg when you drill?

-how to keep the plastic leg from twisting apart as it gets drilled out?

 

First step. Use a scalpel, put the tip where you think the centre is and turn it around a full turn.

Examine what you have - it will be off centre (well, mine always are)

Rotate the scalpel backwards and forwards with the sharp bit of the blade on the side you want the centre to move to. The blade will cut across the plastic shifting the centre point with it

Keep checking until it is right, give the blade a full turn and then use a  drill

 

Drill with the drill in a pin chuck turning it by hand. keep turning the part over by 90 degrees to check if you are drilling down the middle

 

Good luck with the last part. Not using power tools helps

 

Richard

 

 

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I’ve done it a couple of times. I use a small hand drill and go slow and rotate the leg checking it’s vertical. As others have said you don’t need to go all the way but a decent amount. I replicate the chrome portion with foil and trim with a scalpel. I haven’t had any disasters so perhaps I’ve been lucky.

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Instead of using a scalpel to mark the centre of the leg why not use a pin/needle? Certainly more accurate. Gives a nice mark for the drill bit to get a hold of. Bit like the mark you  make when you centre punch a drill hole in metal.

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55 minutes ago, AlanG said:

Instead of using a scalpel to mark the centre of the leg why not use a pin/needle? Certainly more accurate. Gives a nice mark for the drill bit to get a hold of. Bit like the mark you  make when you centre punch a drill hole in metal.

 

Because inevitably the mark is in the wrong place (well, it is when I do it). I have been through that many times.

 

The scalpel method allows you to drift the mark one way or another by cutting away one side of the dimple. That's what the "Rotate the scalpel backwards and forwards with the sharp bit of the blade on the side you want the centre to move to" bit is about

 

Richard

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I've used the scalpel method with great success on tasks like hollowing out exhausts. Here's an example using the normally solid exhausts from the Matchbox Spitfire 22/24 kit (with apologies for the poor photo):

 

QtUs4V.jpg

 

I did in fact try to punch a centre starting hole with a needle in a pin vise, but few of my attempts found their mark. Rotating the scalpel blade with a bias toward the thicker portions evened things up pretty quickly, and as you can see in the photo, provided for a pretty neat result.

 

Kev

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