Tailplane fairings, Rudder cable fairings

Tailplane fairings

I got another decent days work on the Bearhawk today, mainly concentrating on the horizontal stabiliser fairings. To begin with I used a piece of cardboard with paper-clips along one edge and pressed it against the fuselage to get the correct shape, then traced this onto a separate piece of cardboard and cut it out. I then traced this on the ,025 Aluminium and cut it out.

I used a soldering iron to melt the holes through the fabric where I had previously installed nutplates on the end rib of each tailplane. This evening I made a hole duplicator, then marked and drilled the holes. I then dimpled them. The left side is now complete. Tomorrow I’ll finish the right side. Once they’ve been painted I’ll glue a rubber edging strip on the side that sits against the fuselage.

While I was doing this, I used a 3/16 tap in the electric drill to cleanup all the #6 screw holes since painting.

Home made hole duplicator below, worked well.

Rudder cable fairings

I had previously ordered some black plastic cable fairings from AircraftSpruce. I used the soldering iron to widen the cable exit through the fabric, then glued the fairings in place using silicon as an adhesive.