Intensive work

That's how it looked before...










And that's 2 1/2 months later.











The masterpiece is finished! I think I can say that without exaggeration. In no other part of the cockpit I invested so much time and work and I hope that will not be necessary anymore.
Sometimes I had some doubts if I really will finish that work. It's quite a mental thing and you need a lot of patience.
I painted many parts twice and triple because something went wrong. Acrylic paint on synthetic resin for example makes some funny things. Doesn't look good but it looks amazing when all the paint shrinks like the skin of an old apple.
You never stop learning....





Sometimes I wondered about the constructions of Lockheed. Many nuts are riveted to the metal and easy to drive a screw into, but others, especially on the most difficult places not. I don't know how they assembled that unit fifty years ago... I suspect that they must have had some very little workers, maybe four inches high, with at least five elbow joints on each arm.

A new part is ready to be connected - the wing flaps lever. First I feared to have not enough space to install the four reed switches (magnetic switches) but during the disassembly I had the idea to simply glue them to the cover next to the lever. Then glueing a small magnet to the lever itself and finished is the job.

Well, it worked not that fast. I broke some of the tiny and fragile glass switches and had to repeat the process.
Today I installed the cover on the console again and it works very fine. The switches switch exactly at the moment when the lever locks into it's positions.

I still have to wire the gear switch andt the whole trottle pedestal is finished. Maybe also the auto pilot... maybe not, we will see. I think it makes not much sense to let the computer fly alone. But future will show it. I can add that feature later if I want.

A new part again - The Spock-unit for the throttles is built and wired. It's waiting to be mounted into the pedestal.

Spock-unit? I called it so because "potentiometer-unit" sounds so boring... :-)

I almost forgot it... I finished something important today. The elevator trimmer is working, is electrified and ready to be hooked to the interface. I did it in 1950 style with rolls and cables and springs - fly by wire in the old fashion.

Rats in the cockpit... Snakes on a plane? No, no, not a Hollywood phantasy product, just a landing gear knob with some teeth marks. I first thought that this may have come from some careless pilots scratching it with his shoes. But after a closer look I saw that it must have been a little animal like a rat or a Guinea Pig. Do they live in the Dominican Republic? Maybe... Or tiny little midget leopards.

That explains why the landing gear lever smelled penetrantly like shit when I sanded it. I first thought it was some strange sort of paint but....

What a shitty blog entry today.