Hello Guys,
Not been able to get much done this week due to one or two distractions at home plus the first 'plastic model' show of the year (for me)
Ha - I got a 'first' at the East of England show on Sunday. They awarded my 1/48 scale model of an Su-27 'Flanker' best in class - only trouble was it was the 1/32 scale class
- it's a big subject as aircraft go and they thought it was 1/32
- at least it was a red face on the judges part and not mine
Thanks for your kind comments re further posting so, as you seem keen for more
- without further ado then.........
After screw cutting the back-plates to a successful fit in each case I finally got to grips with the cylinder heads. Did the bores first and as the second ops would be on a mandrel these were done to another quickly turned plug gauge for consistency. They were drilled through and tapped at this stage too to give access to the mandrel screw
The issue of whether to drill the bolt holes before or after machining the fins was settled some time back. I prefer to drill the holes first as though this does give interrupted cuts as the holes are passed by the tool the burrs are thrown into the holes rather than into the fin gaps. De-burring is then a simple matter of running the drill back through to clear the burrs. The holes are drilled through in two stages to limit run out and simply counterbored using an FC3 cutter
The tool for cutting the fins was just a piece of HSS ground on the off hand grinder to give the required 1.4mm gap. It cut the 6mm deep slots along with the interrupted cuts where it passed the holes without any pick up issues mainly due, I'm sure to using lots of paraffin lube.
The tops were shaped by a series of flats formed by shaving on the side of this 'favourite tool' - I think I've said before but when it comes to grinding tools I'm the most idle of machinists and will just keep tweaking the ends of previously ground tools until little is left save the very tip (which is fundamentally the only part that does the work anyway) This is one that seems to survive that process and retains it's shape for the long term for some reason
The tops were then finished by gentle filing followed by emery, then wet and dry and finally a smoothing with a GarryFlex block and a polish with fine ScotchBrite
Finished ready to fit
That's state of play as of tonight, a start has been made on the Prop drivers and the Prop nuts are next - the last of the 6082 ali so it won't be long before the internals are tackled
Regards for now - Tug