IMAC Dalton 300 ml build thread.

[orthobird]

took my stabs and fin with the shucks over to my friends house, actually my partner, he is a hand surgeon, and he did the cuts for me, and i must say, he did an incredible job.  on the first one, he said he would cut it leaving some for me to sand down, and after he did the 1st one with his band saw, i told him he did such a great job, to go ahead and hug the line.  less work for me!!! He did an awesome job!!!

 

 

 

 

 

[IMAC FANATIC]

Your making me look bad here doc, what youve done this weekend took me a month ! LoL,  keep the steam up, everything looks great.sure wish mine had the canopy to hatch assembly, one piece lexan like that, makes for really nice lines. 

 

[orthobird]

Brian, the steam has run out!! my wife was out of town friday and saturday, that is how i got all that done!! I will be gone all next week for work reasons, so it will be a while before i get more done.  I did glue the plywood blocks for the Cowl to the fuse, and i glued in the 6/32 blind nuts using Hysol.  I also have measured carefully and drawn out the lines for the alignment of the fin on the tail of the fuselage.  

 

[orthobird]

here is the cowl screw blocks , waiting for glue to cure.  by tonight should be good.  once it is cured, i will start on the split cowl slide lock mechanism!!! should be fun to see how this works out.

 

[orthobird]

here are the lines i drew on the fuselage and fin, to ascertain the longitudinal axis of the airplane.

 

 

 

 

 

[orthobird]

i then placed the fin on the fuse, lined everything up, then i placed two small balsa blocks with CA to set the fin in place.  I will still do another thing to check that these lines are correct, before i glue this on.  Also, i still have to glue on the leading edge on the fin before i glue it on.

 

 

[IMAC FANATIC]

Its like a favorite tv show then, where we have to wait till next weeks episode to see what happens next !  Lookin good and trued Doc, enjoy your week. 

 

[orthobird]

hello Brian,

you can tell I am addicted.  I have a flight to catch in about 6 hours, but i woke up at 4 am to finish the cowl off.

i will not arrive at my destination til about 11:30 pm tonight, so i will sleep on the airplane!!

i drilled two holes,one in front of the rail, the other in the rear.  this was done with the cowl spilt.  then i replaced the cowl, and marked holes on bottom side.  i aligned the rail with the inner edge of the cowl lips.  i then used a marker to draw out the slots.  then i used the dremel CF blade to cut out the slots.

 

after this, i glued the rails with Hysol and i used the screws to align everything again.  I then made sure i could pass the tabs thru each slot, and then i clamped it down, and again, tested to make sure the slots were lined up.

 

this is the picture of where i left off last night.  Last night, i glued on the rails.

 

 

 

[orthobird]

this morning, when i got out there, it was all cured! 

SO i took it apart, and this is what it looked like:

 

[orthobird]

next step, you need to check and make sure that the slots, especially on the bottom cowl unit, is length wise, at least the length of the long part of the tab.

 

I used the dremel router to make sure that the hole was slightly longer on the forward side of the slot.  

 

before i continue, i want to explain some rationale.  you want the tabs to be on the top cowl piece.  that way, when you remove the top cowl for working on the engine, baffles, whatever have you, you do not want these things sticking up and getting in the way.

 

when the tabs are placed on the top cowl, they have to open to the back, so that it will capture the bottom cowl as you slide it back.

ok, back on track here, the router opens the slots on the bottom cowl segment, here is where it is important not to bind as you put the cowl on and off.  but the back aspect of the slot should be kept at the measurement as it was.