Slingsby Gull scale 1/4

[Johannes]

Hi Vincent,
der Rumpf ist sehr schön und sauber gebaut - respekt
Besonders gefällt mir das Foto vom Rumpfinneren zum Heck


LG Johannes

[Franco Vallari]

Gran bel lavoro Vincent...

[bocorvin]

Merci Serge, danke Johannes et grazie Franco
The Gull is not modelled often, but its a nice glider

Vincent

[de Schaetzen Harold]

Belle forme. Très élégant.
J'aime beaucoup.
Harold

[bocorvin]

Hello everyone,

Thanks for your remarks Harold, I agree with you, the "gull wing" gives it indeed an elegant look. I found another nice picture of the real thing


I went on with the wings, the capstrips and gusset plates had to be put on, a lot again!








To keep the ailerons demountable, I had to keep the kwiklinks (or is it quicklinks ) accessible, a hatch was needed.

I used a metal piercing saw with tape against splintering




By bending the 0.6mm ply and a bevel? at one side it locks. Its possible to bend it through a hole in the root rib.











I didn't like the gusset plates at the elevator, I glued them on top of the D box as it should be, but I couldn't get the bevelling properly, it was distracting also.

So I decided to make them flush.




After this two day effort of cutting and gluing I made the hinges for the canopy, Folded a strip of nickel silver (big pliers )





and fitted the canopy (still demountable, the hinge pins are temporary)

The canopy looks to small, it gets wooden battens at the outside after fitting the glass.




To be continued,

Vincent.

[sebastian92]

hello Vincent,
all these little details are very long… but it gives the final look of our models !
it's a good sign ; you're going well towards the end
The storm is strong ; we stay warm in our house and workshops

[Clifton]

So marvellous and great job as usuall !

[bocorvin]

Thank you Sebastian and Philippe for your nice feedback

Its also dreadfull weather over here, one gale after the other .
When the weather is better I hope to make some photo's outside to give a good impression how the Gull looks at this stage.

Vincent.

[Peter64]

Congratulations
Greetings
Peter

[bocorvin]

Hello everyone,

Thanks Peter for your nice words .
I had some problems to solve int he cockpit. It was hard to get the info, here in the museum in Edenburgh, the Gull hanging at the ceiling and dufficult to get by!

There is a kind of platform under the instrument panel

I also wanted to have my receiverpack and switch in it.


It was not easy to fit all in it, I had to remake it a couple of times



The instrument panel itself will be black, the ply I used chipped quite easily, luckily it will be painted.

In the circle is a strong magnet lock (covered with ply) to hold the canopy shut..

On the Scale soaring UK site I found this picture of the Petrel intstrument panel, which looks identical to that of the Gull in my view.




I ordered the instruments at Aerocockpit, maybe I use the dials from this picture.

to be continued,

Vincent

[patte de loup]

Vince,

Maybe , you could contact Vince Cocket through SSUK to catch up some further information? This guy is very kind
A+
Pat'

[bocorvin]

Hello Pat,

That sounds good, I'll try to contact him, I guess via SSUK.
Thanks a lot for that idea

Kind regards,

Vincent

[bocorvin]

Hello everyone,
Thanks to Pat', I contacted Vince Cocket and he send me the layout of the instrument panel of the Gull T.12 and T.15



Because I modelled the T.12 (the one with struts) I choosed the lower image. Nice detail; the altimeter is turned 90 degr . There seems hardly any bezels to be, so I tried to make it more or less flush





I thought there most have been machine screws to fasten the instruments and I didn't have them that small, so I modified some pins

first sanded the head and then I made a small sawcut

Now it gives (hopefully) the impression of screw heads


After its sprayed black the dials with glazing can slide in from the bottom


Another detail is the pitot tube, on the Scale Soaring UK site I found a nice picture of a number of pitot tubes

combined with a photo of the Gull

I made this from solid metal bar, silver soldered is a square braas tube.

Because its is vulnerable in transport I made it detachable, sliding in a bigger square brass tube in the nose and secured with a small magnet





Talking about vulnerability, I discovered (you can see the repair...) that the wing root TE was also a weak spot

and I made a rather crude protecting device


All the capstrips on the ailerons were fitted and I also made a washout of 4mm at the tip of the ailerons



I replaced two panels with some chipping




and finally I sculped the pilots head, again helped enormously by the tutorial of Josh Foreman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlPYWe2bGUo
Material I use (thats Vincent Becancon idea) is Super Sculpey Living Doll, a kind of polymere clay that can be baked in a oven at 140 degr for about 30mins (instructions are on the package)
The head is basically made on a wooden stick with a clump of aluminium foil to get a reasonably thickness (les than about 10mm)of the material. After baking I pulled the stick out and milled the head further out, to reduce the weight, its now 89 grams.

My sister is making its clothes and cap, so I am curious how he will look!

To be continued, Vincent.

[bocorvin]

To be continued, Vincent.

[patte de loup]

Pretty things
Pat'

[caralp_laurent]

Hi Vincent,
Bravo, it's superb !
Will you come to launch it at Chantemerle this summer ?

Friendly,


Lolo

[bocorvin]

Thanks Pat' and Lolo for your nice words . I often see only the things wich went wrong
Lolo, its not possible for me to come to Chantemerle, I wish you good weather, nice winds and a lot of thermals

Amicalement, Vincent

[caralp_laurent]

Thanks Vincent
I wish you good flights too

Friendly,

Lolo

[bocorvin]

Hello everyone,

I sprayed the instrument panel satin black

very black...
I didn't glue the ply at the bottom, so I could slid the cut out dials in. On top of the dials I put a disc from about 0.3mm clear plastic sheet as glazing. Finally I glued the "screws" in place.



Next the glazing of the canopy. The real Gull has wooden strips also on the outside.



I started with staining the frame of the canopy. I choose to do that with bister (an organic material I bought in artist shop). I cut the canopy glazing in three parts which I glued on the frame with 'canopy glue'. After drying I glued strips (0.5 X 5mm spruce) lenghtwise

not easy, its slippery . I cut slots in these strips and glued brebent strips across



excuse that the picture is blurred but it was the only shot of the gluiing, short of hands...
After a lot of fiddling it fitted reasonably flush with the rest of the fuselage.




the instrument panel in its place


The fuselage still needed its skid, I decided to make a rigid one.
Laminated 3 layers of 4mm balsa, painted dirty black and the skid itself from 2 layers of 3mm spruce

two small battens to keep "the canvas" in its place are already glued on the bottom of the fuselage.



To be continued,

Vincent.

[bocorvin]

Bonjour a tous,
It was time to finish the ply. I hesitated which colour I would choose. In the end I decided to make a fairly light staining, making the Gull how it should have looked leaving the factory.
So I used bister, (Francais; bistre) the same stuff as on my Nemere 1/6. It is an organic pigment (a powder) with only water added. Rembrandt used it, I bought it in an artist shop. I diluted it quite a lot, till I got the right staining ( I hope....)
I put it on with a brush and


because its practically only water it had to be spread with a sponge


A small detail; I made the impression of inspection hatches with a rotating cutter, just in the outer layer of the ply (after glueing 3mm balsa behind the ply), stained it so the scraped circle became very visible


and than glued the "handle" on the hatch



I put on two layers of "porienfuller" (did this job outside) and after some sanding one layer PU boatvarnish





Put it together

I had the sun straight in my face...


Ready to put the diacov on, which I received last week.

Vincent

[sebastian92]

Hello Vincent,
beautiful color and beautiful reflections on the wood !
do you live near the river ? it is splendid at this season !
many thanks for this picture ; a very pleasant breath of fresh air

[Franco Vallari]

Molto bello Vincent.....complimenti

[Claude Moinier]

An eyecatcher Vincent, bravo

[bocorvin]

Merci beaucoup Sebastian, grazie Franco et merci beaucoup Claude for the nice comments
The water is not a river, its a made by digging, a ditch I presume
A big part of The Netherlands is actually below the NAP (sea level). Our house is about 1meter below sea level and just 100meters away from us, is the Haarlemmermeerpolder which is 4meters below sea level. Good fun to check that on Wikipedia!

Vincent

[ManfredNeu]

einfach nur wunderschön , Vincent.
Manfred

[caralp_laurent]

Hi Vincent !
Wow, it's magnificent ! Congratulations !

Lolo

[hermann]

Hallo Vincent,
Herzlichen Glückwunsch , sehr schönes Projekt und Realisierung .
Ich hoffe wir treffen uns diesen Sommer.
Sehr freundlich
Charles

[bocorvin]

Danke Manfred und Charles fur die angenehme Worte and thanks Lolo for your nice comments
I start putting on the diacov, hopefully all stays straight and level...

Vincent (DB)

[bocorvin]

Bonjour a tous,

After the varnish I put on the Diacov

and put on a ply ring, just as a dummy inspection opening for the spoiler




Then varnished the Diacov and had a bit mixed feelings about that, some less good varnishing at the bottom, not possible to change it
Now I could put the CG alright and I had to put in more lead than I had hoped.

700 gr, making 950 gr lead in total. poured in 24h epoxy, so it became a rigid block.
Reason for so much weight was perhaps the weight of the tailplane (145gr). Total weight of the plane is 5200 gr with struts (2 X 10mm carbon wingjoiners) giving a wing load of about 55gr/dm2 and 5600 gr without struts (2 x 10mm steel wingjoiners) giving a wingload of about 59gr/dm2.
After fitting the receiver and programming the transmitter I discovered a nasty problem , the ailerons didn't come well in their neutral position.
How did that come? To avoid problems with the steering cables I made the servo arm exactly as long as the rudderhorns. Because there was some friction in the pulleys and the servo arm was long , it didn't centre properly. What to do? I discussed it (at 1.5meter distance) with my friend Adri (from the anemometre on the Fokker) who had an identical problem already solved. He made a angled servo arm. I made a crude drawing and with a compass I constructed the angle on the servo arm, sorry, its analog . In this drawing the servo arm is half of the aileron arm


second drawing at 30 degr

I converted this angle om a circular servo arm and had to drill an extra hole


To my relief I had made an inspection opening in the bottom of the wing root, so I could change the servo arm and adjust the steering cables.

To my big relief the ailerons worked nicely and returned now to their neutral position

To be continued,

Vincent (DB)

[Olli]

Hi Vincent,

wie mein Klavier
Super Bauausführung und Technik

Gruß Olli