Thanx Dad, have had an awsome birthday. Everyone has being buying me drinks all night so really ready for bed now.

I think Mick did the scheme on my extra 330L, if so he did a good job.

I look forward to seeing how the paint turns out opn the 260..

Guys, after considering all of your very useful comments on the matter of strengthening the undercarriage attachment, I've come up with a plan that I'd value your thoughts on before I get too carried away. Essentially, my problem is that Xtreme Composites have put the attachment girder frame upside down from the point of view of spreading the landing loads and making it easy to reinforce. I don't want to cut a hole in the fuselage which leaves going in through the back of frame (the firewall restricts access to the front) as the only practical option for getting under the girder to strengthen the fuselage attachment points. There isn't much room on the frame so I'm thinking Step 1 is to drill 2 x 12mm holes, one each side, and use a paper funnel to pour a small amount of epoxy/ground glass 'slurry' into one side at a time and let gravity form a fillet at the fuselage/girder attachment. When I've done both sides that way, Step 2 is to use expox/glass cloth to reinforce the outside if the frame where it holds the girder and attaches to the fuselage, and to seal up the access holes I cut into the frame in Step 1. Step 3 is to make a top plate from 2mm carbon and file down the top of the frame so that the plate sits flush on top of the undercarriage legs. Then, rather than bolt the plate to new mountings, I'll permantly glass the plate onto the frame and fuselage sides, effectively making a fully reinforced carbon 'tube' for the undercarriage legs to slide into. This should arrangement should transfer most of the load from the bottom plate to the top plate which will now be properly tied to both the frame and the fuselage. A plus for this system should also be to prevent the undercarriage legs from flexing aginst the attachment bolts leading to 'crushing' damage to the fuselage as long as, that is. I properly glass the the top plate to the frame. It should also be reasonably light and easy to install.
All comments welcome.
Thanks,
Ian

After a very busy period where work and family commitments took priority over building Byron's Extra, I finally got back into my workshop to do the fuel tank.

Unfortunately, the model is still at the paint shop and (you were right Glenn) they think they might need to revise their quote . Still, it looks like I'll get a quality paint job when they finally get around to finishing it. The carbon wing joiners from PCB Composites in NZ, and the 14 x Hitec 5955TG servos from Precision aerobatics all arrived this week. Hopefully, that's it now for the bits on backorder and my credit card can have a bit of rest

Building the fuel tank assembly. First up was sorting out the plywood bits that came with the kit and cleaning them up with the face sander, chisel and flat file so they all fitted snuggly for a dry assemble. This took only a little bit of work with the tongue and slots and nothing to worry about. Next job was to laminate the two undertray frames which was easily done with epoxy and weights to get a good bond and keep the frames straight while the expoxy cured overnight. Then it was superglue to hold the bits in place and more epoxy to build the tray. When the epoxy was dry, I glued the tray onto to the frames with more epoxy. After the tray assembly was dry, I mixed some epoxy/micro-balloons and used my finger to build up a fillet along all the joints and fill some gaps where the slots where too big for their tongues. All dry and an all over sand and tidy up. The only word of caution with this assembly is be patient as the tray will warp if it isn't built 'flat'. I can definitely recommend doing it in stages.
At this point, I noticed that the 4mm holes in the undertray frames for the cable ties didn't line up with the 4mm slots in the tray sides. This didn't worry me as I had already decided to use 20mm velcro straps instead of cable ties to secure the tank and I had to widen the slots with a chisel and flat file anyway. Hopefully you can see what I mean from the photos. After that, it was an all-over fuel proof with thinned epoxy (just warm it up by putting the mixing jar in hot water).
While that the fuel proofing was drying, I assembled the 50oz Dubro fuel tank according to instructions and making sure that I used the 'gas' components. The only tricky bit was soldering fine wire 'retaining rings' at the ends of the brass tubes. I did this by making two turns of fine copper wire around each tube, cleaning the lot with bakers soldering solution and using a hot iron to 'run' the solder around the joint. I used side cutters to trim off the wire ends and a file to remove the sharp corners. After doing one end of each tube, the brass tubes were all pushed through the stopper assembly and the whole exercise was repeated to put rings on the other ends of the brass tubes.
Getting the Tygon fuel tube over the rings was a pain in #$%&*% but perserverence won in the end. I used 2mm cable ties to hold the Tygon on the brass tubes behind the rings and the clunk. I inserted the assembly into the tank, making sure that the vents sat flush against the top of the tank (I cut v notch in the ends of the Tygon), and that the clunk moved freely and couldn't catch on anything. Tighten the stopper screw and the tank was done.
The only job left was to glue some 3mm foam rubber into the tray to absorb some of the vibration and cut the velcro straps to length. That was it, and fuel tank assembly all done.

Dont be too harsh on em Ian, it is a BIG job to paint one properly, rest of the build is looking good!

looks good dad, I see you decided to go with the three fuel lines in the end. Such a pain in the arse to set up but worth it.

Cant wait to see the paint job, hopefully they havnt revised the quote to much

Originally Posted by b0Bro's dad

Step 1 is to drill 2 x 12mm holes, one each side, and use a paper funnel to pour a small amount of epoxy/ground glass 'slurry' into one side at a time and let gravity form a fillet at the fuselage/girder attachment. When I've done both sides that way,
All comments welcome.
Thanks,
Ian

I doubt the epoxy will stick, there really is no way of getting into that area to sand and clean it. Doing the outside area will work fine.
As long as you don't hit any gopher holes or slam it into the ground you should be fine with out any mods.

Originally Posted by The Hobbyman

Dont be too harsh on em Ian, it is a BIG job to paint one properly, rest of the build is looking good!

Glen,

The whinge was more about finding out they haven't started with the paint yet! I'm going out to see them tomorrow as I get the feeling they are a bit daunted by what they actually signed up for. I know it's a big job and I have the $1000 odd dollars you reckoned would be reasonable for a good two pack paint job. I still have confidence that they will do a great job because their hesitation is about 'getting it right'. Much preferrable to the 'just use more paint' approach.

Ian

Ralph,

Thanks, I'll need to get the plane back and have a good look at how much room I've actually got to play with. As you have probably worked out, I'm pinning my faith on a properly tied in 2mm carbon top plate to take a lot of the load off the built-in and hard to reinforce bottom plate. Bye the way, the gophers over here are called wombats and you can hide a horse in their holes...bit of a pest actually, along with the kangaroos on the runway!
Cheers,
Ian

For some reason I always find the gopher holes at one of my sites, I probably wouldn't have any planes to fly if we had wombats.
Looking forward to seeing that paint job.
Ralph

Glenn,

The real problem, as I discovered today, was that Peter (who picked up the model) didn't tell Richard (who will paint the model) that he had given the portfolio of photos and drawings to Lawrence (who runs the business). All sorted now (I think)

Another weekend and still the beast isn't back from the paint shop. I chased them down last week and was a bit #$$&% off to find that they STILL hadn't started with the paint. The excuse this time was 'end of the month' (whatever that means) but I suspect the real problem was their worry about their 'revised quote'. I went out to the shop on Tuesday and we pulled it all out in front of the manager, assembled the bits and talked turkey. Net result is a fixed price quote for the polyurethane paint job with stencils is now $1,150 including GST and they promise they will finish the paint this week. I have my fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I have done a few small jobs including tinting the canopy and building the engine plate. The plate started out with me measuring the cone and dry fitting the engine to come up with dimensions of 140mm x 140mm. This size is small enough to allow the plate bolts to go into the carbon reinforcing in the cone yet large enough to still leave room to move the engine as needed to line up the spinner with the cowling. It was then a simple matter to mark and cut the three laminations (2 from 2mm carbon and 1 from 3mm birch ply) to size using my sewing machine adapted jig saw with a blade made from a hack saw. After 'scubbing' the surface of the carbon plates to get good adhesion, I used epoxy with a small amount of ground glass to glue the three laminations together in one step. The laminations were clamped together fairly hard and left to cure overnight. It was then a simple matter of cleaning the edges of the laminated plate with a face sander and drilling the corners for the M6x30 high tensile steel bolts. I using the plate as a template to drill the 6mm bolt holes through the cone and assembled the plate using 4 x 3mm hard rubber tap washers to space the plate and provide some vibration attenuation. I used Nyloc nuts and washers all round to make sure the plate stays put. I won't cut the plate or the cone for the engine bolts until I can line it all up with the cowling so this job is only half done until I get the plane back.

Tinting the inside of the canopy with VHT 'Smoke' SP-171 was pretty easy although I did need a second attempt when the first go showed I'd missed some dust which spotted the finish. This stuff cleans out easily with petrol and after an even more meticulous clean, I was much happier with the second attempt.

WARNING: Three months after tinting this canopy, I dropped it on a tiled floor from about 1 metre and it split right through the centre. I tested a bit of the flange and it was so brittle that my thumb just shattered it! It was a reasonably warm day, but not hot, so I thought that ambient temperature might be the problem. Subsequently, when my new canopy arrived, I stuck the off-cuts in the freezer overnight and found to my dismay that they had remained flexible. I can only conclude that the tint, or petrol used for cleaning, had reacted with the plastic and caused it to become brittle over three months. My new canopy is clear.

Hope to see it back soon Ian.

very neat job!

hey dad,
just found those pics of tonys throttle and choke set up with short rods...
https://www.flyinggiants.com/forums/...tml#post261882

Well, they say good things come to those that wait and in this case they might be right. The beast was finally delivered from the paint shop in the middle of a huge hail storm which I hope says good things for the effect Byron's Extra is going to have on the competition . Apart from missing stickers "Extra 260" on the wheel spats and the Australian flags being undersized, flying backwards on the right and mis-located all of which are very easily fixed, I am very happy with how the high gloss polyurethane paint scheme has turned out. I just hope that Byron likes his birthday present....umm Happy birthday Byron.
I temp fitted the old opaque tinted canopy (not the transparent tinted new one) and used some tape on the tru-turn spinner for the attached photos. I'll let the paint harden for a couple of days now and polish the whole thing up with lots of car wax to protect the finish from any accidental 'spills' and bubble wrap all the bits so I can work on them without worrying too much about scraching the paint Here's the pics...