1:8 scale RC Avro Arrow restoration thread now....

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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

Che wrote:
ConnieMan wrote:HMMMMMM, not a single comment so far from anyone on here, i guess you just just like PIA models and stuff but other historic Icon's models don't attract anyone, well no problem. I'll wrap it up now and continue restoring it as those pics are from November last year....
I'd imagine not very many people are aware of Avro Arrow's history, otherwise they'd comment on it...

Couldn't you have used fiber glass to mold a part to replace the missing fuselage section instead of the foam?
I suppose you are right, if guys on here read on web about this magnificent aircraft, i am sure they will like it more and more. It was worlds first supersonic Mach 2 aircraft back in 1958 and 1959!, if projects wasen't canceled the way it did by Diefenbaker Government and none of the 6 prototypes had been destroyed the way they did, it would have been different story now and then!.

Guys do a search on "Avro Arrow" and read about it, plus do an image search and see how big of a deal it had become now as not all all destroyed as government wanted it...

Che, Your answer to why i used foam and not fiberglass is coming soon...
Key word here is "PLUG"...
Last edited by ConnieMan on Mon Feb 16, 2009 6:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

Here i was making forward section of the plug, this was critical and difficult task of this section rebuild, i had to make both compound curve section of the engine compartment in the foam, for this i marked the outer lines and side lines on that piece, then i poked couple of dowels so i can hold it in position from outside and place blocks under it.

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Here i have made the curves in the foam, this wasen't easy to do so as one side was highly curved in deep and other very light plus i had to watch side profile curve also at this time.

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Once these curve were made, it was time to take out the middle block and flush center section on one end with fuselage and other end with the plug.

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This wasen't easy to do. I started to slice off the this middle block and when its roughly 1/8" from the actual shape, i started to sand it smooth to flush both ends.

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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

Once all was blended and sanded smooth, i started to fill all the holes and imperfections with light weight Spackle!, this stuff is great filler and once dried fully, it sanded very nicely and smoothly...

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Now comes Che's answer...

First layer of 4oz weave cloth is cut to match the curves of this plug from one side to other. I had to make sure cloth would pick up the center curves and flat center section also before i did resin lay up.

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Aeropoxy resin mixed and ready to apply..

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First full application, layer 1 applied on the plug, i made sure i had about 3/4" extra on all sides so it could attach to the original structure and then later on sanded and blended in once fully cured.

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PIA10141
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Post by PIA10141 »

nice repairs! inform me when the baby is ready Sameer bhai! :lol:
REGARDS--
Mohsin Naseem - PIA10141
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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

PIA10141 wrote:nice repairs! inform me when the baby is ready Sameer bhai! :lol:
Well Mohsin what you are seeing was just the start of the restoration, it's ground up restoration with implementation of scale landing gears at scale locations on the wings which i will do down the road a bit. Presently i'm doing weight and balance measurements in regards of CG point. Then i will make ducted fan mounts to twin set up. Once that's done and my fans are installed i will start making the internal ducting both intakes and thrust tubes. Keep watching it as lots more to come. I hope you guys will enjoy seeing it as a lot of time, energy and work is going into this model.
kamalla
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Post by kamalla »

Its clear that you are dedicating alot of time to this project. Keep up the good work Sameer and keep us updated as to your progress. :)
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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

kamalla wrote:Its clear that you are dedicating alot of time to this project. Keep up the good work Sameer and keep us updated as to your progress. :)
Well you would have to once you get one of kind model in the world at this scale and type, this is THE ONLY 1/8TH SCALE DF MODEL OF AVRO ARROW in process of getting in to the air presently. You will soon hear about 5 other Arrows soon to be in existence that will be turbine powered but then they are totally different internally then mine and are from brand new tooling made from resurrected original plug of my model. I am proud to have the original grand father Arrow to the new 5 comers...

Thanks for the kind word Kamalla and i'm happy that you are following the resto....:)
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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

First layer went on and i had to wait for 24hrs before i could apply 2nd layer. I always find first layer tame more time to fully cure on foam for some reason.

Here is have applied 2nd layer, while i was adding these layers i was trying different directions for the cloth to go on, this is to the get full strength out of this material plus to avoid getting air bubbles between the lamination/layering process. If you look closely at the edges, you will see that with this layer i didn't extended the sides as i did with first layer!. 2nd layer is basically filling the step which is 1/16" between this new section and old fuselage.

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Unfortunately due to compound curve and flat angle in the middle of the this section couple of air bubbles did formed as seen in last picture, i made the slits where the bubble were and added small piece/strip of cloth over the slit as patch to fix the open cut and regained strength.

Soon as 2nd layer fully cured, i applied 3rd layer, you can see layers are building as color of resin is getting darker and darker..
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I took few days off once 3rd layer went on, i wanted to see if all the layers cured properly and there are no cracks forming in the first two layer underneath. All went well, by now this structure was strong as a "ROCK"!!!.

This is the Aeropoxy resin i use mostly, it's very good resin with medium viscosity and goes on real nice with old credit or any other plastic applicator. You can use 2 or 3 types of hardeners, i use PH3630, it gives 45 min working time before it starts to cure up.
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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

After 3rd layer i went and bought a container of milled fibers, this is used to make putty when mixed with resin to do filling or making thicker layers.

If you look closely at the fuselage in last ^^ picture, you will see both side edges had bit of higher step, well to over come this step i mixed milled fibers with resin and started to apply this on the engine compartments of new structure. Started from front and worked on to the sides to fill cavities there also.

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This i did faster but realized i can't do it any faster then original speed since curing process takes it's own time, plus i also found that many dips, clumps were forming when i was applying this putty mixture, so after this had fully cured in 2 days!!, i took grit 60 sand paper and started to hand sand it, i have nice 12" and 6" bars that i stick my paper on to do it.

Once this sanding was done and i could see actual needed shape forming, i mixed fumed silica also in this putty mixture, this silica really smoothed the putty and when i applied it, it went on real nice while filling all the imperfections and dips...

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I applied 2 layers of this mixture to fill as much as i could, by this time i was getting tired of filling, sanding. filling, sanding process by hand, trust me this material is Rock hard when cured and it takes a lot of paper and elbow grease to do it by hand.
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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

After this creamy filling job i took few days off and then did final Spackle application on the new structure. Then with a friend's help we flipped the model on its belly/right side up and i went in from the back with hot knife and started to cut the foam out. This took 3 hours as i didn't wanted to take all out. The reason being that i will be adding another vial of carbon fiber from inside with 1/8th thickness of the foam left.

Initially when i started to make this section i didn't exactly knew where my engines were going to be mounted, so i did this as non structural strength build, now it's different story, my engine and fan units are going to be mounted right behind CG point and this are will be prone to vibrations and exhaust's sound resonance.

Here are couple of pictures of before and after foam plug was cut out from the fuselage.

Che now you can see why i chose foam plug route and how i rebuilt this part without spending few hundred if i was to get it re moulded it from newer tooling.

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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

Arrow had few very distinctive features that no other aircraft had for good ten years after the cancellation of the program. One of them was the air condition exhaust outlets just behind the cockpit. On my model is was not made into plug and was not moulded originally. I took this advantage over other models and made this feature on my model by using my old plastic model's modification skills and close up photos to my advantage.

3 views of Arrow Mk 1
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Chief designer of Arrow his highness Mr. James Floyed on the right with this Arrow when it was first made slightly over 10 years go. You can see in this picture and compare with 3 views ^^ that there is no outlet of any kind on the model.
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Here how i did this modification on my model.

I started with marking tow 6" longitudinal lines on each side of the spine in the area to be modified. Then i took my Tamiya Olfa scriber and scribed on these lines, since this is fiberglass i am working with, i took good time and a lot of patience to keep scribing until lines turned into cuts. Then i took my hand saw and started to cut the rear of the line from one side to other, i tried to pry it but it would be not good as glass would have cracked and splintered bad, so went with cutting it off. Once i got this 6" long rectangular piece, i eye balled the ramp going down into the spine. For the right angle i had to sand of both side edge corners from back of the cut out piece. Then i re glued it back with medium CA on an downward angle from the back, held it for few minutes in my hand till CA dried, then took .20 thou piece of white styrene sheet and made two 1" x 6" strips from the sheet. I inserted both of these through sides to replicate ramp sides. Soon as i got the piece to properly lined up against sides, they were glued in and then i sanded all the edges smooth.

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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

Wanna see another picture how BIG this model is especially standing vertically!!!

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(Took this picture from original ad)
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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

After the air conditioning exhaust outlet was made, i started to peel of old plastic covering from the wings and fin. Old covering was beat up and has a lot of hanger rash, plus since i am going to add scale landing gears on the wings i want as much strength i can get. I will also add strip of CF on top and bottom of the spar from outside, this will support it quite a bit and i can add brace to hold the landing gear frame. It took me quite a bit of time to fully remove this covering, now i am planning to get 3/4oz fiberglass cloth and glass the wings, elevators, aileron, fin and rudder.

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While i was peeling of covering from right wing, i found a strip of while tape at the root of LE, this tape was 12" long into the wing. So i took it off and to my dis belief that someone at some time in past started to cut of the wing!, but good thing is, he stopped well before the spar.

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Had he cut the spar, this model would have good for static display and waste of my time and money. Though i was pissed off at the previous owner as he didn't mentioned anything about this cut to me but i went on to repair it instead.

First i cleaned up the slot from LE to the end from inside and then i cut 1/16" x 2" balsa strips to fill the gap all the way through to half point.
Started inserting couple of strips to see the fit, it works!. Then i mixed more resin with fumed silica and made into smooth creamy paste and started to use this paste as epoxy to glue in the balsa strips vertically in the slot. Before i did this i made couple of reference marks to keep the wing at right incidence against fuselage. This was very important to do in order for the model to fly perfectly!.

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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

Ok here we go again, Presently im way ahead of these stages on this model, i'm trying to show all on here how and where i started all the way to present stage.

Lets continue...

After stripping the covering i went all around to the wings and fin to fix all the dings and dangs it sustained over the years. To my surprise it's in pretty good shape over all. Where ever i found a ding,either i wet the wood and heated to us so it would swell back to original shape. If certain area was stubborn then i simply filled it with Spackle.

While i was doing the wings and fin, i also noticed the whole fuselage is full of pin holes all over it, i started to strip the paint with "EASY OFF" oven cleaner, it worked ok but i was told it's very tough on fiberglass, now i am trying to find "Citrusstrip" to strip off rest of the paint. Once all paint is off, i will fill the pin holes with body filler "Bondo" and prime it with white primer followed by nice automotive paint finish.

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Just before i started to strip the paint off, one night i noticed that nose cone dosen't seems right as it's pointing up instead on 3 degree down!.

I used laser to check it and sure enough it was way off, so i took my hand saw and cut it off from the joint. Once it was off the fuselage, i made couple of reference marks on it so when i reglue it back on, i will know it's proper position. In order to fix it's angle i started to sand it's bottom half of the round mount that attaches to the fuselage with grit 80 wet and dry sandpaper. Now it's looking pretty good as angle it right n it.

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ConnieMan
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Post by ConnieMan »

True cockpit windows were re scribed as original were like deep tranches!, just didn't looked or felt right.

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Look at the cockpit section closely, you will see nice crisp re scribed cockpit windows outlines. This wasen't easiest thing to do, i had to use CA to fill the old trenches and then sand the area smooth,then with my Tamiya Olfa scriber i took my time and made sure all angles, curves and shape is right when i did this process. It took me 4 evenings to do it as you see it. I'll be honest clam shell hatch windows still needs to be redone as there top half curve is not right shape!. I will eventually get to it soon.

You can see how much open space there is from the opening of the nosecone, i am going to make electronics bay in there as i need nose weight in this section for ballast reasons...