Making it Spin
So I finally put together the engine booms that also serve as the rear landing gear housing. I noticed that this model WAS NOT designed to be built “gear-up.” IE it was difficult to reshape the landing gear doors and glue them in the right position. I also added some filler putty to the inside to make it stable.
Problem 4: The propellers do not spin.
This really irks me. It’s not that hard to cast a plane with spinning props, not to mention that it’s almost commonplace in all prop planes. No matter; I’ll fix it. So first, I took 2mm brass wire (looks like coat hanger wire) and cut off two 2″ lengths. Then I took 3mm styrene tubing and cut off two .5cm lengths after drilling out the inside of the tube a bit more. I attached the tubes to the ends of the wire. These are the new spinners for the propellers. Because they must attach to the propeller cones, I cut off the circle attachments on the engine booms and glued them inside the prop cones. I then drilled all the necessary holes. Now, they are ready for assembly.
The idea with the circle hinges in the propeller cones is to isolate where the glue will be. I don’t want glue getting on the engine booms because then the props won’t spin. If I give a small area enclosed by the circle hinges (minus a hole for the rod spinners), then I can ensure a good connection without glue leaking everywhere.
These are the engine booms with filler inside.
This is the way the booms look unaltered. Notice the circle hinges that glue the props down.
Everything is cut and ready to be glued.
You can see the spinners I built compared to a penny.
These are the cones that attach to the propellers. I glued the circle hinges in them, and I later drilled a hole to allow the spinner to glue onto them.
