1/7th F-14D Scratch build thread

[Thomas_W]

its solid right now.. but even as a tube, its still 1/2 a pound... its 1/2" in diameter and 6 1/2" long.

[Thomas_W]

Took the time i had off today to draw up some more parts for the main landing gear.. I've just about decided that this will be a "option" for the kit. That way those who want a less expensive gear can get that, and those who are looking for the most accurate scale wise can get that. That being said, the internal structures for the gear will probably have to be different, but i may be able to make it where both gear could be interchanged with the structure. Will just have to wait and see. Here's a shot of the mostly completed right main landing gear. I'm going to look into getting the gotcha braces functional with the landing gear, and i've still got to draw up a actuator and its mount on the gear and see how it works with that. but otherwise the gear is mostly complete minus the detail items.
What is seen weights only 1pound for the entire strut. This is leaving out the assembly hardware, and all the parts are 6061-T6 aluminum. I also think a bronze sleeve should be put in the upper strut, and a steel strut piston should be used instead of aluminum. this would be a beefier and smoother operating oleo strut IMO.. but would add a bit of weight.




ohh.. i've also been working on some drawings for my next model... kudo's to those who can figure out what it is

[3Dguy]

Some kinda twin... that's all I got.

[wesryman]

looks like a plane you are very familiar with, Kingair?

[RCHUGHES]

Looks like a King Air 90 to me

[FBaity]

Thomas,

Please inform those that haven't followed the entire thread that what you are building is a plug for molding the finished flying F-14D.

[Thomas_W]

Its a U-21.... which is an army Kingair A-90.. so close enough....

Fbaity, you are infact correct. This is all a plug for making molds (and eventually kits by the end of the year) of the F-14D. The fuselage weights about 70lbs at this stage, and the vertical and horizontal tails weight about 10lbs... So it would take ALOT of thrust to get this thing off the ground. lol

[Thomas_W]

Here's tonights progress.. most of the nose section panel lines on the bottom have been drawn. I'm waiting on some dimensions for the nose gear to make sure everything match's up.. Gotta do some work to the vehicles tomorrow, and hopefully will get the remainder of the bottom center drawn up along with some of the engine nacelle panels. I'm expecting the entire bottom and sides of the fuselage to take the remainder of the week to draw up. By then the aluminum sheeting i ordered for the wings should arrive and i can get started and complete the wings. Anyways, here's 2 pictures so far.. still alot of work left to do, but so far i'm on schedule to start molding by april. I've also got parts files sent out to a few places to get quotes on all the machined parts for the kits..

[50%plane]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Thomas_W
	its solid right now.. but even as a tube, its still 1/2 a pound... its 1/2" in diameter and 6 1/2" long.

What wall thickness tubing are you using for the weight measurement? How about thinner wall titanium?

[VETTE]

I am still following this thread......Very interesting

[Thomas_W]

[Thomas_W]

After spending about 6 hours drawing panel lines on the remainder of the bottom of the fuselage yesterday, and getting the left main gear doors drawn in, i thought they looked very odd. So after doing some measurements from my documentation, i came up with a few issues, but decided to sleep on it and come back to it the next morning. Well after spending an hour on measuring, and re-measuring and measuring again, i've come up to a pretty large issue thats going to take about 10 steps backwards to correct. It seems that during the construction of the plugs, the area between the fuselage gloves and the nacelles' has a "hump" that the gear retracts into. While i was building the plug for the fuselage, i always thought this hump looked a little to large, but it checked out with all the documentation i had at that time, so i pressed on with the construction. Now that i've gotten to the point of detailing the plugs, it is just so severely wrong that i can't just let it go and adjust some things here and there to make up for it. It HAS to be redone. So this issue has basically ruined the plan to have the molds completed and a useable fuselage by june. Overall i'm pretty ticked off at this point, so i probably wont work on the fuselage at all for a few weeks. I'll take this time to finish the wings and tail section and i may begin moulding some of that stuff. As i'm not in the mood to do more woodwork right now. So here are some pictures of the bottom, and the last one shows how much material i am going to have to remove in order to correct the issues i have found (indicated by the red line):







And heres a photo from the Cybermodeler website showing how the gear door should look. You can see the grossly inproportions of mine right now when you compare it to this photo:
[image]http://www.cybermodeler.net/aircraft/f-14/images/f-14d_vf101cag_glove2.jpg[/image]

[VETTE]

I feel for you.........I absolutely hate doing anything over

[Thomas_W]

I've got one sponson done minus fiberglassing the new balsa. Over-all it took about 4-5 hours to do one. Hopefully the second one will go much quicker. But overall i'm happy with the results. Its much more accurate now and in the process of redoing it, i actually noticed that the lower wing fairing was trimmed a little to short, so it enabled me to fix that issue as well. Here's some shots of the entire thing thru the entire process, as long as some over-head (or underside depending on how you look at it) shots showing the old and the new:

[Thomas_W]

I am happy to say that both sponson area's are now completely rebuilt and the fiberglass and resin is now curing, so hopefully tonight i'll be able to get back to drawing panel lines on the rest of the bottom of the fuselage and start with the detailing once again. The last bit of fiberglass i needed for the molds also arrived. The roll is 86" wide and 100 yards long of 20oz tooling cloth, so roughly 238 sq. yards of cloth, which should be enough for all of the molds and then some... And of course, pictures: