From the Workshop

Ian · Post by **Ian** » Sat Aug 28, 2021 11:48 am

An occasional diary about what (if anything!) is happening in the workshop here.

My main priority at this time of year is trying to stop the wisteria from taking over the workshop… Not that easy, as tendrils can grow a meter in length in only a few days, and have been coming in through windows, door and cracks in the floor. And the next job is to fight my way around the side through chest-high nettles to attack the brambles which are now coming over the roof…

Anyway, to more model-related thoughts.
The current model on the building board is the Sunderland. This is my own design, drawn up in CAD (Fusion 360) and made from Depron. I’ll be doing a separate thread on its construction later.

The paint booth is just an aluminium frame with old curtains draped over. When removed the Depron CNC is below.

After that clears the paint booth, the next model in line is the Handley Page Victor. This is another in the line of excellent designs by Craig Clarkson (www.jetworks.online/parkjets). I’ve already built his Tornado, Buccaneer, Jaguar and Sea Harrier, and the Victor, being one of my all-time favourite aircraft, was an obvious choice, although it’s a large and complex build.

I’ve already been 3D printing some of the parts for the Victor. There are a lot, so I’ve been experimenting with light-weight PLA (known as LW-PLA, https://colorfabb.com/lw-pla-natural). This is a relatively new material which claims to be under half the effective density of equivalent PLA. It took some effort to get the correct settings, as there are no ‘official’ published settings, but I eventually found a post by someone on a German site who had worked out settings for the Prusa I3 Mk2 which I have.

Care is still required, but results are impressive, I’m consistently getting 45% - 50% of the weight of the equivalent PLA models.

Victor nosecone: Almost 17 hours printing! But only 43g using LW-PLA

Park jets: The Sea Harrier first flew a couple of weeks ago successfully, although it did make a rather loud buzzing noise. Eventually I traced this to a resonance with the 7x4 prop I’d been using. This is the same setup as on the Lightning and Jaguar where it works OK, but not on the Harrier. Eventually I swapped it for a 6x4 prop and the problem seems to have gone away. Thrust is reduced from 1kg to 780g, but since the model weighs about 770g, it shouldn’t be a problem.

The Jaguar’s first flight ended rather prematurely as I’d set all controls to minimum rates and didn’t have enough elevator to avoid the ground… But it was a clean break and is now repaired and ready for another try.

Of course the next question is where to keep all these models. I’m already running out of space despite some inventive storage solutions. And the Victor is largely a one-piece model, although I’m going to try to make the tail end removable as otherwise it won’t fit in the car…

Some of my planes. Oh yes, the Beaufighter; one of these days...

So that’s it at the moment, more perhaps at a future date when there’s something else worth writing about.