A few hours of work last night while it rained.
Need some sort of way to mount this thing. At first i made a small plate to mount a 1/4-20 wood anchor but realized i needed to distribute the load better because the mount is way behind the center of mass. I made a steel plate across the cockpit base to do that and epoxied the heck out of it. I know i will have to update the cockpit to accommodate but worth it.
Next problem to tackle are my rear lower spoiler fins. You can see below they do not align with the lower inner wing root. The outer edge of the spoiler should align with the wing root edge. Off by about 4mm and guess what... The wing root is off by about that much somehow. (Centerline on this model sometimes is elusive) Not sure how to fix this.
Can't really tweak the spoiler fin enough to make it work. I think my options are:
- Live with it.
- Force it over an glue in place the best i can.
- Shift and shave the spoiler a little.
- Make a custom spoiler fin and shift the mount over to shift the fin to align. (CAD work)
Note the pencil lines on the first image and read on.
There are very few images of the bottom of the real prop. Nothing in the Chronicles book and anything in the movie that shows the bottom is so fast that you can't stop the screen and see anything other than blur. It bothers me that the spoiler fin hinges do not have a companion hinge on the wing rear edge. There would be one there with an exposed hinge like that on the spoiler.
Took a scrap fin and cut out the hinge. What do you guys think?
Working on the canopy and of course i broke another pillar. This thing is soo weak. Any normal canopy would have a lower frame boundary area that interfaces with the cockpit. This has a really small one. Well since i have a rather wide cockpit threshold (Hence the widening i had to do) why not put a boundary frame down there to add strength? Has to go in the inside edge or i lift the cockpit so....
Below i the plate and using primer to figure out the outline of the inside of the cockpit.
After some tedious work i have a lower frame and a little stronger canopy. I will have to adjust the front once the cockpit is built as the front display is really close to the canopy when in place but i think i can manage. (Or i will build it again...)
Anyways... Making progress.