landing gear fairing

Had an idea yesterday that was very easy and seems to work. Needed to make landing gear fairing for Legacy No. 2. Old one was simply balsa gouged for 1/8" wire. Looked all right when new, but tended to split and deteriorate with every hard landing.

So, what I did on the new one was to take 5/32" balsa and cut three pieces, middle, inner and outer (Duh!). Then, I split the middle piece with an x-acto and applied coat of ambroid to outer piece and two pieces of middle piece. I inserted a piece of .2 carbon veil and glued them together, leaving a gap for the gear wire to pass through. After it dried, I placed it around the wire and glued on the inner piece, again using a veil sandwich. Sanded to shape and done.

I think this is stronger and allows enough movement of the wire inside to avoid as much deterioration as the earlier model. Here's a pic after the rough sanding:

>Had an idea yesterday that was very easy and seems to work.
>Needed to make landing gear fairing for Legacy No. 2. Old
>one was simply balsa gouged for 1/8" wire. Looked all right
>when new, but tended to split and deteriorate with every
>hard landing.
>
>So, what I did on the new one was to take 5/32" balsa and
>cut three pieces, middle, inner and outer (Duh!). Then, I
>split the middle piece with an x-acto and applied coat of
>ambroid to outer piece and two pieces of middle piece. I
>inserted a piece of .2 carbon veil and glued them together,
>leaving a gap for the gear wire to pass through. After it
>dried, I placed it around the wire and glued on the inner
>piece, again using a veil sandwich. Sanded to shape and
>done.
>
>I think this is stronger and allows enough movement of the
>wire inside to avoid as much deterioration as the earlier
>model. Here's a pic after the rough sanding:

"Looked all right
>when new, but tended to split and deteriorate with every
>hard landing."

I seem to have that problem myself a lot lately...
Looks good. I usually use a plywood center core on my stuff- seems to help increase the strength and longivity on parts like this.

That looks very substantial!

I've had pretty good luck on my Mo'Best wheel pants with the method shown in the drawing below. Epoxolite or Aeropoxy fillets add quite a bit of strength. I always cover the entire assembly with .56 oz fiberglass, then silkspan, using unthinned clear dope as a binder.

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"I can live for two months on a good compliment." -Mark Twain

Here is a variation on how to do wheel pants/fairings.

Also, this gets you into Bill Groman's website which has some neat stuff for those who have not been introduced to it yet.

http://www.classicaircraftmodels.com/Trostle.html

Wow! What a nice site.

Definitely a good technique for the take aparts - I love the soft rubber (Electra Lite?) wheels, but they certainly wear quickly.

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"I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today." -anonymous

>I love the
>soft rubber (Electra Lite?) wheels, but they certainly wear
>quickly.

But the take-apart wheel pants let you replace them quickly.

Just thought you'd like to know I'm a sucker for your site!

Too bad the aricles take soooo long to download, but I can wait..

The Cobra series is there, right?

God bless you!

In Christ,

>Just thought you'd like to know I'm a sucker for your site!
>
>Ion

Just for the record, and I hope I did not imply otherwise. That site I referenced is by Bill Groman here in the LA area (El Segundo). He is a real craftsman. He was very kind in letting me put the split wheel pant concept on his site. As you can tell from the word description of this method, the landing gear that I had on that Chizler was the result of ideas from Bob Hunt, Windy Urtnowski and Paul Walker.

It's not PA stuff, but I have always made my wheel fairings (pants, spsts, whatever you want to call them) where they can be taken off easily. It doesn't look as elegant as the moulded artwork you guys do, but I seem to have a knack for having wheel troubles that the only way to fix it is to replace the wheel- and I am NOT cutting into the sucker to do that.

J.