News:


  • March 28, 2024, 04:14:39 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Author Topic: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?  (Read 5048 times)

Offline Flying Knight

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • New Pilot
  • *
  • Posts: 18
Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« on: July 03, 2015, 04:32:29 AM »
I am building a 59 Ares from a Brodak kit.  All is going well so far.  One of the most distinctive parts of the Ares is the cool air intake scoop in the nose.  The kit come with a very nice plastic scoop, but I would like to build mine just like they would have done back in the sixties. I have attempted to carve this piece out of balsa and find I am not very good at it. Were these old model builders master craftsman or am I missing some tricks on how to do this?  Anybody still carve these pieces?  Thanks!

Offline Avaiojet

  • 22 supporter
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Admiral
  • *
  • Posts: 7468
  • Just here for the fun of it also.
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2015, 05:51:01 AM »
Flying Knight,

I have the nose block for an Ares. Yes, kept these Ares pieces and others for over 55 years! You are welcome to it, but the wood is a tad heavy.

Could work as a test bed for the task.



Trump Derangement Syndrome. TDS. 
Avaiojet Derangement Syndrome. ADS.
Amazing how ignorance can get in the way of the learning process.
If you're Trolled, you know you're doing something right.  Alpha Mike Foxtrot. "No one has ever made a difference by being like everyone else."  Marcus Cordeiro, The "Mark of Excellence," you will not be forgotten. "No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot."- Mark Twain. I look at the Forum as a place to contribute and make friends, some view it as a Realm where they could be King.   Proverb 11.9  "With his mouth the Godless destroys his neighbor..."  "Perhaps the greatest challenge in modeling is to build a competitive control line stunter that looks like a real airplane." David McCellan, 1980.

Offline Don Jenkins

  • 24 supporter
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Commander
  • *
  • Posts: 348
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #2 on: July 03, 2015, 05:58:29 AM »
I am by no means an experienced builder, but I do most of my "carving" with various grits of sand paper glued to pieces of balsa, epoxy bottles, brass tubes and other small objects to get into tight places and for rough shaping.  I built an RMS kitted Neptune II a few years ago that had a somewhat "complex" cowl and I did all the "carving" with sand paper.

Don

Offline Flying Knight

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • New Pilot
  • *
  • Posts: 18
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #3 on: July 03, 2015, 04:00:32 PM »
Your pictures helped a lot.  I was attempting to carve the nose piece freehand from a solid block of balsa.  I can see how creating a composite could help me in the process.  I'll give it another try.  Thanks!

Offline Flying Knight

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • New Pilot
  • *
  • Posts: 18
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2015, 05:02:10 AM »
My Ares is electric powered, so nothing goes inside the lower cowl.  I need the scoop to flow air back inside the battery area.  Making the lower cowl out of balsa pieces looks a lot easier than trying to be Michelangelo.  :)

Offline Avaiojet

  • 22 supporter
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Admiral
  • *
  • Posts: 7468
  • Just here for the fun of it also.
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #5 on: July 04, 2015, 05:47:50 AM »
My Ares is electric powered, so nothing goes inside the lower cowl.  I need the scoop to flow air back inside the battery area.  Making the lower cowl out of balsa pieces looks a lot easier than trying to be Michelangelo.  :)

There is this building method called planking.

Used by many model builders and designers since the beginning of time. Was once a method of construction offered by some popular kit manufacturers. Berkeley and Comet. Even Ambroid.

Just another form of construction actually, was more popular in scale construction. Might be worth looking into?

"Or possibly not."  A line from the movie Transporter.  ;D

I did build this cowling the same way one would build a fuselage. A complicated shape but no hollowed blocks and no planking. A bit of extra work, but worth the effort.

Designed in CAD actually for my Stuka tank buster. 7.5" in length and 16 grams, looks lonely waiting for surface detail, water base paint, and a matt auto clear.

Soooooo, complicated built up cowlings are possible without carving blocks.

Go for it!

Edited: Series to Movie.



« Last Edit: July 04, 2015, 10:17:03 AM by Avaiojet »
Trump Derangement Syndrome. TDS. 
Avaiojet Derangement Syndrome. ADS.
Amazing how ignorance can get in the way of the learning process.
If you're Trolled, you know you're doing something right.  Alpha Mike Foxtrot. "No one has ever made a difference by being like everyone else."  Marcus Cordeiro, The "Mark of Excellence," you will not be forgotten. "No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot."- Mark Twain. I look at the Forum as a place to contribute and make friends, some view it as a Realm where they could be King.   Proverb 11.9  "With his mouth the Godless destroys his neighbor..."  "Perhaps the greatest challenge in modeling is to build a competitive control line stunter that looks like a real airplane." David McCellan, 1980.

Offline Air Ministry .

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Admiral
  • ******
  • Posts: 4978
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #6 on: July 04, 2015, 08:34:41 PM »
Use FILES again , and as sanding sticks .
or RASPS if your really angry .

The El Cheapo dollar store sets'll do . though they blunten off . FULL SIZE ones .
and DONT drop them on the plane , handle as if its a loaded gun , in that respect.
dont leave them in the middle of the bench , unless you want file shaped dings in your aeroplane .

Online Brett Buck

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Admiral
  • ******
  • Posts: 13717
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #7 on: July 04, 2015, 09:27:10 PM »
With a solid block, it is usually done by HAND drilling successively larger holes until a round sanding block, a dowel, with 80 or 100 grit sand paper glued to it can be inserted and then slowly sanding away until you have the opening size and shape you desire.  H^^

   Don't use a drill. Use sharpened brass tubes, they take very neat core samples and are easy to control.

    Brett

Offline 50+AirYears

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Commander
  • ****
  • Posts: 170
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #8 on: July 04, 2015, 10:38:16 PM »
Built my Ares from the Ambroid? kit in 1966 at Wheelus AFB.  Cowl was built up from several pieces of thick wood (1/4"?), roughed out with my trusty Dremel 260, then finished to fit by hand with several different grits of sandpaper.
Had a lot of fun with that thing (left off the wheel pants for flying from sand.  Lots of that in Libya.)  Really had fun when a bud built one.  We did some "Team" flying, concentric loops, reverse wgovers, simple stuff.  Mine had a Fox, his had a Torp Greenhead.  The Fox started usually first flip on our homebrew (75?% tlar methanol from POL, 25% castor from the hospital sqadron, and a couple squirts of Ronson or Zippo lighter fluid from the BX), the Greenhed took a couple flips, so about the  release, he was picking up his handle.  I got about half way around the circle when his got airborn.  Then the fun started.  Thing that helped, I think, was that I am 4'6", and he was 6' 1".  Was a lot of fun, till I had an Oh Sh** moment.
Funny thing is, that Libyan sand wrecked a Veco, and a couple Johnsons I had, I'm still using that Fox with the original piston and liner.  And I think it ran better on that homebrew than it does with modern glow fuels with extra castor added.
Tony

Offline Flying Knight

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • New Pilot
  • *
  • Posts: 18
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #9 on: July 05, 2015, 04:59:43 AM »
I built a number of models using the planking method back in the day and it seemed to work pretty well.  I remember building a P47 Thunderbolt like that and it came out real nice.  I'll have to think about the Ares cowl and see if I can make it work.  I recent got back into the hobby after a long absence.  I was a member of one of the first AMA clubs in Florida back in 1960.  It was in Opa-Locka when the Navy base was still open. I was there when they voted to name the club the Flying Knights.  I was only 13 at the time, but I still remember it well.  I had a very low AMA number and tried to reactivate it but the AMA told me they lost the records. Anyway, I flew R/C for a while last year, but to me C/L is where it's at and I love building more than flying. It's been a struggle to find any C/L flyers, but we have been able to put a small group together.  Thanks for the great ideas.

Offline Randy Powell

  • 21 supporter
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Admiral
  • *
  • Posts: 10484
  • TreeTop Flyer
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #10 on: July 05, 2015, 08:53:29 PM »
It's just a stepwise process. Fit it to the airframe overall. The carve it to the spinner, then dial in parts you want. Takes practice.
Member in good standing of P.I.S.T
(Politically Incorrect Stunt Team)
AMA 67711
 Randy Powell

Offline Phil Krankowski

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Admiral
  • ******
  • Posts: 1031
Re: Carving a 59 Ares Nose Scoop?
« Reply #11 on: July 07, 2015, 08:26:00 AM »
An article I read years ago illustrated forming a balsa "ring" to suit the firewall, slightly oversize, and using a fender washer, or spinner back, to hold another oversize "ring" of balsa at the correct position (the motor was installed).  The "rings" can be square or any other shape so long as they are bigger than needed for stock removal.  On the models I have done this the "rings" have been made up of several pieces of wood.

Sticks and boards are then glued into place between these two reference surfaces (the "rings"), which are later carved, sanded, filed, and smoothed into the correct shape(s). 

I have used this to build noses on RC planes for both glow and electric.  (or glow, then a couple years later to convert to electric)

Formal plans are not actually necessary, though do help if a specific look is desired.  Transfer the top and side views to some card stock or thin balsa in "full scale" as a silhouette.  Fasten the silhouette to the part in the correct view and use a long blade saw to carefully remove material outside the view.   Do this in both views, then fair the corners out.  Consider using 2 identical silhouettes so the blade spans both while cutting since most of us don't have big band saws.

While getting "good" results is easy, getting better than good takes practice.

Phil


Advertise Here
Tags:
 


Advertise Here