Hello all;
Attached are photos of the latest status of my 2" to the foot Rearwin Speedster 6000 M. A lot done but also a lot left to go.
Photo 001 is of the left frontal area:
This shows the installation of the aluminum ventilation louvers positioned as they are on the real airplane. These are functional on the model.
You also can see the brass washers that are glued frequently around the side panels. After gluing them on, I drilled out the areas inside of the washers. These are to replicate the dzus fasteners that are used to apply the panels on the real airplane. After painting the model, I will install small aluminum bars in those openings in a horizontal position to replicate a closed fastener.
This model is electric. All of the upper cowl, including the windshield, slides off to allow access to the motor and batteries.
Some of you might have seen my previous posts about my attempt pull a hot canopy for this model. This is a rather large canopy and I was dissatisfied with the appearance of stress marks in the pulled canopy. I think I was using too thin of a plastic material (.030"). So, I instead built a support frame out of aluminum tubing and just bent the same material in one direction only for all three panels. This is exactly how the real airplane windshield was done (hey, it was the early 1930's). Then I made an exterior frame of the same material and glued it in place. The odd color that you see on the frame is actually the interior color. Since the frame on the exterior of the original windshield was painted the same as the rest of the airplane (red/orange) and the frame on the interior was painted as the interior, I had to put the interior color on first (because that would show inside) and then I will apply the exterior color over that (wha
). This is probably all wasted effort since I am going to fly this plane in Sport Scale. The interior is not judged in Sport Scale, so I am not going to put much effort there.
The spinner that you see is going to be the flying spinner, not the static spinner.
Photo 002 is a view down the right side of the airplane.
There are no louvers on the right side of the engine compartment.
The dzus faster openings can be seen here also.
The body looks a little bit pinched because I still need to flesh out the area below the cockpit. After that, I will get into the details of the wing and the landing gear.
Photo 003 is a view from the rear.
This view shows my iteration of the tailwheel (while not complete yet).Two things caught my eye about this airplane. It has the sexiest windshield and tailwheel. And yes, the real tailwheel rides on a bolt going through flats on two steel tubes (hey, it was the early 1930's).
Photo 004 is a right side view of the model. Obviously, it is still lacking landing gear strut covers and wheel pants (oh, and an exhaust stack. That will be fun). I think it is far better looking than the Piper Cub, which was it's competition (hey,it was the early 1930's).
Jim Fruit