Hey guys! Now that I finished that Huey, my focus has shifted back to this fat little bird. Made a good chunk of progress over the past couple days on this.
Bought a soldering iron and started teaching myself how to solder in order to do the wiring on the motor, and I learned that you can solder more than just wires - so I ripped apart the crappy little smash job I did on extending the prop shaft and re-did the whole thing by soldering tube & rod together to make a pretty nice little shaft extension. Okay so it looks a little mickey-moused, but it works really well and is pretty balanced and straight!
Next step was to come up with a mounting solution... which was accomplished with some foam core board...
With some more tweaking, here's the end-result of the silly-looking soldering attempt on my shaft extension, equally silly-looking engine mount, the engine with a brass rod lining for the shaft, all put together! (dry fit only at this stage). The mount will be installed just before closing up the fuselage, using epoxy.
Hole for the wires made with files - angled for a sleek exit of the wires. Fits my two wires like a glove!
Preliminary look at my "rough draft" of the base/diorama. Just going to do a very basic hangar wall - possibly with a door but I am not sure on that yet. Still trying to figure out how I will set up the switch/wiring at this point... but you can just barely see the wires behind the rudder.
I've come up with the solution for placement of the motor switch - I am going to install an electrical safety switch box with the plane's motor switch disguised as the electrical box's power switch. Sort of like this one:
So here's what I came up with...
I know, I know... not exactly accurate for 1930's but I had to come up with something, and wanting to be creative, that's my best idea.
As for the wiring, which I have not started yet, what I think I am going to do is drill a hole through the base directly below the rudder of the aircraft, run the wires down, then through a channel to a battery box behind the hangar wall, then up to the electrical box. This way the only sign of wiring is about 1/8th of an inch or less directly underneath the rudder - however I am thinking of doing a grass layout, so I will probably just add a touch of tall grass around the wires to conceal them.
'Til next time, gents!
