Not shown are the mains and nose gear, rear intake, exhaust and spinner (all different than the front). 2nd pic is a 1/10th scale spinner which is designed quite a bit better with snap fit for the spinner to the backplate, and lightened backplate.
Back to work - a little at least.
This is the 5th set of this gear I've made, each getting more scale.. I think there's one more round on this gear before its done, but not for a while!
Ok, My prototyping went well. After I got everything working like I wanted, I went through and optimized the design to greatly reduce the unique parts count. I was going to have to make lots of fiddly steel parts, so simplified the attachment of everything and reduced the unique parts count and some machining. Mostly the steel is just cut to length now except the fork mount and hand winding the castoring spring. I got most of the materials I need today, and hope to build a "A0" production assembly tomorrow, then back to the Do-335 mains I think.
This is a fully scale Fw-189 Tailwheel assembly in 6th scale. This is a "Hybrid", being partially metal, and partially 3D printed. It has a working shock and is also semi-castoring. Wheel will likely be an off the shelf Dubro as the design is close enough to scale to be credible, but couldn't resist modeling a scale one here.
In order to do a proper scale model with the unique features intact, the Fw-189 needs both scale landing gear and prop spinners. It was a lot harder than I expected, but I've modeled up scale spinners with no visible attachment screws, and a free, contra-rotating nose piece with curved vanes, just like the original. I've got some hardware on order and then I can try it out and see how it works.
Ok, nerd delight I guess, but I'm tickled to be able to make scale design gear in this small scale. the 3d printing is still a bit crude, but sure beats a piece of wire! The plastic is very strong, and the Oleo is stainless steel tube. Only 12g total, and mounts to the airframe in scale manner. Should be stronger than the rest of the plane.
Here's the latest enhancements in the works. The more scale I make it, the more I want to make it. Would like to get another one and start from scratch. I've been messing with the front spinner to get it exactly right and print with a minimum of clean up. I also caved and made backplates too. In this picture is the orignal spinner on the left (no backplate), then after more research, the middle one, but more sources didn't agree, so then what I think is my final design with backplate on the right. I use a GWS reverse rotation prop cut down to scale size and shape (which is required for the spinner to fit). I played with the gear doors, but haven't figured out how to model them properly. Those will be better in sheet styrene I think, and I have plenty of that. Working on fully scale landing gear now, scaled down from my 1/6 scale design. I'll use some printed, and some metal parts. Should be cool and a lot faster/cheaper to make than all metal.
For once a part came out on the first try. Design is close, but until I see better source pictures, not sure about the mount to the airframe. This is a scale type thin wall inlet that can be used to vent the airframe.
Working on the exhaust shields and exhaust stacks. Having to learn some new CAD skills to do this right. Here's the shield so far. As I looked closer, the shape at the back is wrong. Fixed (CAD image is correct), and printing another.... Back to working on the exhaust stacks.
** Update. Scale exhaust feature are just too small for the resolution of my printer. Had to pretty much totally redesign, but looks good enough. Certainly better than the original foam blob.
Google this one.... Some folks at RCscale wanted some big flapjack gear, so did 5 sets of these. Main legs are stainless steel which is no fun to bore and mill! Overall length is over 17" for the legs!
Took a break for a while, and am dabbling a bit this weekend. Finally got around to making all the tiny little fasteners necessary to finish the Fw-189 gear.... Tedious! Decided that's my least favorite bit. Here's the 189 gear in ready to install state. I decided the spring rate was a bit too stiff, so will order different springs, and use two different springs to give variable rate - softer for realistic looking ground handling in the grass and the little bumps, and a stiffer one to soak up the big hits when the softer bit bottoms out.
Did some nose gear updates and the nose retracts last week, but forgot to post.
Put a bit of time on the 335 today, getting started on the nose gear.
Almost got it..... lots of little details to actually make it production worthy yet though.
Maybe one more work day and "Round 1" will be done.