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  1. #1846
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    I've got my new torture board done, the last step being the acquisition of a couple of 50 mm-long 5/8 " bolts and a packet of spring washers to suit. I only needed two spring washers but had to by an expensive packet of 50 or thereabouts. The excess goes straight into the engineering stocks :). The new sanding tool is quite heavy - being made out of the heaviest and stiffest material that I could match to the width of the "Sahara" sandpaper rolls - and this helps the sanding process on the foils where there are a lot of lumps and bumps. The wing nuts on the bolt ends act as useful handles, too.

    I managed to knock over almost the entire of one side of the foils board (minus the ends where the clamps were) in a bit over an hour with this thing, and it nice to use. I put a length of 120-grit paper on it in this instance.

    I have some photos of this thing:

    1. The new "torture board" - a length of "Australian white cypress" (probably Callitris columellaris) floorboard, cut to a suitable size on the TS. I wanted to make it 100 - 150 mm longer, but the board showed a bend a bit after about 500 mm, so that decided the device's final length. The board is about 20 mm thick. The offcut can be seen in the background The end-blocks are some oregon from the original and removed centrecase top-cleats, with sandpaper-holding clamps made from 6mm-ply leftovers from F1 & F2, plus a couple of bolts with flat and spring washers, plus wing nuts





    2. Close-up of sandpaper clamp. The wing nuts make useful "grips" with which to grab the sanding board...





    3. Sandpaper clamp viewed from the other side. The oregon blocks were screwed onto the main board after pre-drilling and countersinking the board in one pass with the CMT adjustable countersink bit (it clamps onto the drill bit). The sanding dust was from the final smooth-sanding of the working face of the board





    4. Business side of the sanding board. Countersunk screws holding the clamping blocks on are visible here. The edges of this side of the board were rounded over to ease the sandpaper's bending around the 90 degree ends of the board, and to protect the work surface and board from each other to a degree





    5. First end of the sandpaper strip clamped onto the board. A slot was cut with a pair of scissors to let the sandpaper to fit past the bolt and allow for tensioning of the paper. Note the printout in the background - MIK's instructions for applying "Brightside" paint - see posts towards the bottom of the previous page ;)





    6. Both ends of sandpaper clamped: paper tensioned up as much possible with this setup. The white spots on the sand-paper are Prekote undercoat, the sandpaper roll being in the wrong spot when I was painting the hull the other day





    7. Sanding board and foils after about 1/4 hour's work. The resin-spotting is starting to wear down ;). The thermometer (grey cube with dial behind the foils) show the temperature to be about 12.5 degC. Well, it is winter...





    8. Foils after just over an hour of being worked on with the new sanding board. Lots of resin dust everywhere. The new sanding device appears to be a success, at this stage at any rate. The roll of paper in the background is the plans for the wings of the 1:5 scale DHC-1 Chipmunk, the unfinished cowling plug for which can be seen sitting on top of the shoe box, biding its time


    Follow this link to my Flickr account to see these and many more photos in endless tedium...



    I probably should have made the sanding board before starting working on shaping the foils, but I was impatient and lazy, as usual. It's doing to job now very nicely, and it should make short work of the other side of the board, which isn't quite as spotty. Although I will have to be careful to prevent the board from digging in as a result - less spots to keep the board more-or-less parallel with the foils' surface. Once the spots have been taken care of I'll check that the TE is even along the whole board length: I may have to do some extra filling if not.

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  3. #1847
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    The sanding off of the spotting on the foils is now finished, courtesy of the new sanding board - and the old sanding block(s). The foils are now smooth with no visible dips or holes, and the TE is much better than it was - thicker where it was thin, and more even along the whole length of the board. I'm not going to worry about any further filling thereof.

    The mounting screws are back in the tips, and the next step will be to coat the foils with an even coat of resin, let it go off, and see what needs to be done: hopefully minimal fine sanding.

    The cleaning up (sanding) of the rear of the centreboard case also got done today, before I tackled the foils. In this latter case, "all" that remains before varnishing is re-triple-coating the case and environs, sanding off (again ;), and final dust removal from the whole of the inside of the boat. Which is quite a bit. The workshop is too cold to do any resin-coating at the moment, and I'm having to give some serious though about heating (i.e., which heater to pinch from upstairs, and how long to leave it running at full bore before The Boss finds out and either makes me turn it off, or put it on a timer ;).

  4. #1848
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    There isn't much to report other than it has been jolly cold (for Sydney), and that I have been slowly sanding the hull bottom bit by bit. And I mean slowly. This is a fairly critical step as far as the quality (or lack of it) of the final finish is concerned. Just over half the hull bottom now has a flat, almost glassy finish - the other half or so still bears the roller-stippled finish. As time goes on the surface is getting harder to sand as the paint cures further, but that has to be put up with. I'd use the ROS, but as mentioned previously, I can't control the machine well enough to avoid dig-ins and staying too long in one spot, so it's the long slog with the cork block - and a pile of AlOx (white) sanding sheets. I did a bit of experimenting with both wet and dry sanding, and found that I could better see what what was going on by sanding dry. So that's what I'm doing. There's no point in posting photos as there is essentially no visible change that I can reproduce with my current equipment and techniques (and patience). Maybe it's time for some of my Chipmunk photos as a bit of light relief from all the sanding ;).

  5. #1849
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    Mar 2007
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    Adelaide
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    Add these to the the list of must have workshop attire.

    Long underwear - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Mike
    "Working to a rigidly defined method of doubt and uncertainty"

  6. #1850
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    Hi Alex,

    What grade paper are you finishing up with. The idea is to go as coarse as you can so long as it doesn't leave scratches that the paint cannot fill in following coats. Normally 220 to 280 is about as coarse as you need to go.

    Keep up the good work.

    And MIKE .... keep your underwear to yourself!

    MIK

  7. #1851
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    Quote Originally Posted by m2c1Iw View Post
    Add these to the the list of must have workshop attire.

    Long underwear - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Heh . Thanks Mike - I'll have to dig 'em out of the chest o' drawers - I'd totally forgotten I had 'em. Unfortunate that I can't keep applied resin warm using said items...

    Cheers,
    Alex.

  8. #1852
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boatmik View Post
    Hi Alex,

    What grade paper are you finishing up with. The idea is to go as coarse as you can so long as it doesn't leave scratches that the paint cannot fill in following coats. Normally 220 to 280 is about as coarse as you need to go.

    Keep up the good work.

    And MIKE .... keep your underwear to yourself!

    MIK
    Howdy MIK,

    I'm currently using 240-grit white AlOx wet-n-dry: I was going to step up to 400-grit white AlOx for a final polish but I guess I don't need to. That's great! Maybe the 400-grit if I need to sand the Brightside?

    Cheers,
    Alex.

  9. #1853
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    Still slogging away at the sanding - bit by mind-numbingly-boring bit ;). Once the hull bottom is complete - still over 20 % to go - it will be the turn of the boat's four sides (including bow and stern transoms). Slog slog slog.

    In the meantime, I've done some sorting of the Chipmunk photos that I've been threatening to post on this thread. Most of them are really typical snaps from a scale-modeller's/Chipmunk fanatic's album, and as such are close-ups of arcane details. There are a few of the actual aircraft in overview though.

    1. Port side of the DHC-1 Chipmunk, forward of the empennage (tailplane/fin/rudder). This aircraft is still in the RAF trainer colour scheme that it had when the current owner acquired it (from the RAF), although its Oz CASA callsign is painted on the airframe in the usual spots. Unlike many extant examples of the Chippie that I've seen photos of, this bird has completely metal-clad wings: most have fabric coverings aft of the main spar





    2. Starboard side of Chipmunk, sitting outside its hanger on a sunny day, post-flight





    3. Rear port view of Chipmunk. Anti-spin strakes forward of tailplane and larger, "notched" rudder are common to the later versions of the aircraft. I had a lot of trouble getting the camera to focus properly on the day - this and a number of others are rather too fuzzy





    4. Another side view (starboard)





    5. The elusive Chipmunk cowling profile. Well, I've found it elusive! This photo and the next also give an indication of how lumpy, bumpy and uneven the outer surfaces of an aircraft can be. And here's me fussing about thousandths of a millimetre variation on a small boat hull. There are differences in speed and fluid viscosity 'twixt the two in practice, though...





    6. Cowling profile with entire section forward of the firewall. The large "fish-plate" with the big rivets on the upper fuselage directly behind the engine cowling is a stiffener plate for the upper (port) engine mount. The entire of the airframe's metal cladding (apart from the fabric-covered control surfaces) uses domed, not flush, rivets, except for about a dozen flush rivets on the cowling





    7. Starboard side of the Gypsy Major engine. Engine mount, upper attachment point and external stiffener plate are clearly visible here. The large diameter pipe sticking out horizontally is - I think - the carburettor air intake. Or the oil cooler intake. There is a scoop on the other side of the cowling that is either the oil cooler intake - or the carb intake ;). I should check my references but they are currently in the workshop...





    8. Windscreen and black anti-glare panel, plus lots of domed rivets. The scoop sticking up is the cockpit ventilation air intake - I think. Pilot's radio headset sitting on the cockpit coaming behind the windscreen





    9. Rear seat - for the passenger in this instance. For a training Chipmunk, the rear seat belongs to the instructor, while the student is shoved up at the sharp end in the front cockpit ;). Interior of RAF Chipmunks was painted "RAF Night Black". Bottom of joystick and its boot are visible forward of the seat





    10. The Chipmunk's distinctive glasshouse canopy. Later versions used by the RCAF had a bubble canopy like a late-WWII Mustang, Tempest or Thunderbolt. Rather a lot of boat-building dust still on the camera lens - a possible (probable) reason for the lack of focus in a number of photos





    11. Starboard tailplane. Note the fabric-covered elevator: this is often misrepresented in general in (plastic) scale models by over-large stitching and cavernous dips between ribs. Not the case in reality, though... Note the "DON'T PUSH" stencil forward of the trim tab - it means what it says! Trim tab actuator pushrod and horn visible on far left of tab





    12. The Chipmunk back in her hangar after a busy day in the air - and on the catwalk ;). The metal sheeting on the aft section of upper surface of the wing can be seen here (the lower surfaces are similarly clad). The red-and-white thing in the background is the fuselage of a Piper Pawnee (this type is often used as a crop-duster, a glider tug, and as a fire-bomber)


    Follow this link to my Flickr account, where you won't find free ice-cream or lollies. But you're free to browse around before boredom overtakes you and you nod off...



    As implied above, there are many more Chipmunk snaps, mostly of rivets, indivual panels and bits and pieces of interest such as air-scoops, hydraulics, cockpit components, more rivets, more panels...but I decided to spare you ;). There were a few other aircraft about on the day besides the Chipmunk, including a PT-17 Stearman in US Army pre-WWII blue and yellow livery, a couple of Yak 18Ts (a Soviet trainer), a couple of DH-82A Tiger Moths (the Chipmunk's predecessor in the RAF and a number of other air forces around the world), a modern version of the Piper Cub, etc., etc., etc. So as you can all imagine, I had a deliriously happy time a-snap-snap-snapping my head off :). I may even get around to putting up some photos of the 1:10 scale electric-powered Tiger Moth model that has been languishing half-finished for a large number of years now. Which might even prompt me to finish it. But not before the 'Duck, though ;).

  10. #1854
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    Another day of nothing much done on the boat - I had a trip down to Wollongong to try and flog some more of my model kit stash at a club meeting. Sales of bits of the collection help fund the boat :). I did get a small amount of sanding done - every little bit advances the cause. There are patches of grey ghosting up through the white where the sanding has gone a bit lower on account of not getting the fairing of the hull perfect. I haven't gone right through to the grey primer, but I'm faced with either putting on another coat or two of undercoat to make sure that the undercoat colour is completely even, or more coats of topcoat than I was intending if the topcoat ends up with darker spots in it, yellow being the tricksy colour it is to apply evenly. In either case I'll need more paint. I'll see how I feel about it when I've finished sanding the undercoat, whenever that is - maybe the week after next ;)...

    Regarding the Chipmunk cowling, I got the air scoops right: the carburettor intake is on the starboard side, the oil cooler intake on the port. I ran out of editing time before I could correct the previous post.

    Once the bottom and transoms have been sanded, I'll turn the boat on its sides to do the side panels: that way I can stand on the buildng frame and get over the top of the work, and get a clearer view of things than I would were the boat to remain on the frame.

  11. #1855
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    Sanding on the bottom of the hull is complete, and I've also sanded the stern transom and half of the bow transom. As the catch on my headlight broke before starting on the transoms I don't know if I've completed them or not. Duct tape has come to the rescue again, so I'll have a look at things after the penultimate episode of this year's series of Doctor Who ("The Pandorica Opens").

    As I suspected there is still a lot of sanding to do to remove the "orange peel" surface on both transoms. Some of which I've been doing, although there is still lots to go. Breaking out the ROS is getting sorely tempting...

  12. #1856
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    After a bit of thought, I decided to use some 120-grit "Sahara" sandpaper to knock off most the "orange-peel" lumps on the undercoat, and use 240-grit Sahara to finish off/polish, having considered that the paint was by now hard enough to take the rigours of the sand-paper. It worked like a house on fire! Pity I didn't twig sooner. Where I went through umpteen sheets of 240-grit wet'n'dry to do the hull bottom and half of the bow and stern transoms, I'm still using the original 120 and 240 pieces that I've used to do the other "halves" of the transoms, and the starboard side of the boat to a smooth silky finish. And they'll be good for a bit longer too. Added to which, they are more pleasant to use on account of their cut, not to mention cutting longer.

    Of course, the reason why the 240-grit was dulling quicker was that it was doing the job of two different grades - the coarser and the finer as outlined above, so it shouldn't have been a surprise: standard sanding practice. But I still think that the Sahara has the edge over the wet'n'dry, so to speak, as the latter still clogs up more quickly even when not stressed out (i.e., made to do the work of the 120-grit). The paint is, by now, very hard: if I'd used a coarser grit on the paint, say, a week ago, it is likely that the softer surface would have been ripped to ribbons (and the finer grit clogged up even more).

    As a result of the greater ease in sanding, I left the boat where it was on the building frame, and sanded the (starboard) side vertically.

    Excellent!

    Note: it appears that someone (not MIK) has been mucking about and deleted this post plus two PMs that I sent last night. It looks as though the Forum - or my account - has suffered a glitch or been hacked: I suspect the latter, as I noticed that there was a "Forum filter" being installed this morning around 8:30 am AEST. I've retrieved the post and put it back, adding back some corrections additions that were put in later last night. I could, of course, have accidentally deleted it myself, but that is highly unlikely.

  13. #1857
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    Hi Alex,

    When things are deleted by a moderator normally they go to a "soft delete" meaning that they are just hidden from normal users.

    I and other mods can see them still see a note saying that something was deleted here and it can be clicked on to see the original post - it can be restored as well.

    There is no evidence that it ever existed in this case (though I do know you put it there). So looks more likely to be a glitch.

    Did you see that it was posted after you posted? Just trying to ascertain where the prob was.

    MIK

  14. #1858
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    Howdy MIK,

    I did in fact see the post and corrections last night - I always check to see that things have gone up (if not for typos and similar ;).

    It does look like a backup roll-back after a disk crash/failure.

    Cheers,
    Alex.

  15. #1859
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    G'day Alex.

    I'm still here, & I still read your thread.

    I have been posting in other threads.

    There has been a forum upset so some things will be a tad weird.
    Cliff.
    If you find a post of mine that is missing a pic that you'd like to see, let me know & I'll see if I can find a copy.

  16. #1860
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    Howdy, big apologies from the Administrators but there were serious problems over the last 24 hours requiring a backup to be restored.

    From the owner.

    All posts for the last 24 hours have been lost due to a major problem with the server.

    Some of you on earlier today would have noticed that there were threads merged and posts where they should not have been.

    This was caused by a system error in the thread filing and unfortunately the only way to fix it was to take a "snapshot " from 24 hours ago.

    Not bad, the first major stuff up in 11 years.

    We apologise for the inconvenience.

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