replacing styrene landing gear with metal

Tojo72

 

 

Don Stauffer

I did an article many years ago for fsm about working with metal.  I'll see if I can find the issue.  One of the things I showed was a landing gear from brass tubing.

 

 

 

 

Interesting,how did you get the fine details on plain brass tubing

 

I used  two telescoping pieces, one for the strut and one for the oleo.  I also cut a short piece of the larger one for the bottom of the oleo for the axle mounting, which was smaller yet.  I cut the scissors from a piece of sheet brass.  Everything was then soldered together, although if you are not good with soldering CA holds reasonably well on brass.

I've always replaced mg's, pitot tubes, gun barrels and  antennas with various sized tubing as fermis described above. I also use S.S. syringe needle tubing of various sizes which can be bought in 6 ft. lengths. i've repaired broken lg by drilling into both pieces, inserting a length of stiff wire and used 5 min epoxy.

Jim 

Stay Safe.

I have never had a gear issue...that was the fault of its own weakness vs. weight of the model. They've all been "pilot error"...when my hands somehow turn into feet!

I have had to scratch a few, due to very poor representations provided.

I keep a stock of brass tubing as well as aluminum tubing. (Albion Alloys...Sprue Bros.) I keep, on hand, everything from 0.1-1.0. The .1 fits perfectly into .3, which fits .5 and so on. .2 fits in .4 and so on. Great for pitot tubes and hydrolic actuators! (Larger sizes, I get as needed)

Here was my initial thought. What if say I had a 1/48 landing gear  and I wanted to do it in metal. Wondering if I could  just disect the piece by cutting perpendicularly thru the strut, and save the parts attached to the strut. Drill thru these to remove what was once the strut. Then, with a correct diameter piece of metal, slide the styrene parts over your new metal strut and glue them down with minute bits of epoxy. I know its crazy and would take forever, but I just might be crazy enough to try it. Or I could just stick to mainstream airplanes that I can easily find white metal replacements for.

   When I mentioned landing gear breaking, its not when I am building the model , its after its done. A kid, a cat, earth vibrations from my busy intersection,  a too heavy planr or just cheap plastic to begin with. I have tossed more than a couple models in the trash because of this.

Don Stauffer

I did an article many years ago for fsm about working with metal.  I'll see if I can find the issue.  One of the things I showed was a landing gear from brass tubing.

 

Interesting,how did you get the fine details on plain brass tubing

I did an article many years ago for fsm about working with metal.  I'll see if I can find the issue.  One of the things I showed was a landing gear from brass tubing.

I remember articles in FSM where people before joining two landing gear halves would hollow out and insert stiff wire into the landing gear.As far as the other things,there are metal replacements or you can make your own.

I just wait till I can't wait anymore and add most of these things at the end and be as careful as possible.