Model Sunday 4-25-2010

[Lancair IV]

I finished the catapult that I won't use. Oh well. The P-51D is ready for color.

Lets see what you've been working on.

Cheers

[Nortley]

Hi all, Progress on the Honda has been creeping along, mainly making replacement cables. Picture 001 shows kit cable stuck on the throttle for comparison. I made a bit of a strategic error in not providing for improved cables earlier, there are places where I should have drilled holes that can't be drilled now. I cheated here by slipping a short piece of kit cable over the spigot and slipping the smaller replacement cable into it. The tach drive is an example. The ends of real cables have little metal ferrules to protect things and give a neat appearance, and it took a while before I realized I had just what I needed in the 5 leftover spoke nipples. The nipples were too long but I took care of that by sticking a wire through, one at a time, and rolling the piece under an Xacto blade on a formica block with the head held in a pin vise hung off the edge of the block. Pressure on the blade keeps it clamped down, and the edge of the block is a guide for rolling. Be patient, the nipples are apparently stainless, they're magnetic and tough. I ruined a blade for any other work. The wire keeps pieces from flying. This gave 5 headed and 5 plain pieces, the headed ones make cable adjusters, the plain ones plain ferrules, and each one has a burr that must be reamed out to make the part useful. To do the rear brake, I cut off the kit portion representing the cable from the brake arms, and drilled the brake arm, then stripped a piece of the 1/24 detail hose I'm using for cable far enough to reach from the cable anchor on the brake plate through the brake arm with the exposed wire core. I twisted and super glued this to hold its shape, then painted it steel, slipped a ferrule over the wire, and glued the whole thing in place on the brake plate with the wire sticking through the brake arm, to be trimmed when the glue cured. Pictures 004 and 005 show a simple cover up, literally. Several parts of the kit are joined with screws, which is great structurally but the largest phillips head screw I've seen on a bike are the #4s on an S&S air cleaner while the kit screws scale out to about #7, which I don't think exists. I sliced a wafer of hex rod, painted it, and super glued it to the screw head which secures the steering damper to the frame. Better an oversized hex than a monster screw head. This may be a kit I'll revisit, it is excellent but there is a lot of room for further enhancements.