Mockup

Flying Pig

This is about the mockup...

Must make jig for top of frame (fuselage) excluding shrouds. Drilling holes and making dowels would have helped with the glue-up of the mockup! Oh well--next time/iteration. It's not relevant to the final object, but for this step... Ah well.

This jig is for the shrouds. It was a pain to make, because I'm learning as I'm doing. Anyway, it's for aiding the construction of the shrouds of the mockup. The jig for the full scale shroud will have to be mounted on a basement wall. I'll have to measure the height of the basement, but I won't try to make it as a single unit. The shrouds will have to be interlocking quarters. I verified that the bulkhead is not wide enough even diagonally to allow passage of a full scale shroud as a single unit.



The jig for the full size shroud will be a quarter round plus some armature to define the interlock mechanism. I will make the same jig at model scale first for the little prototype/demonstrator. At the moment, I am thinking of it as a sort of question mark shape that I will wrap the aluminum over using hammers and any other relevant metal forming tools. I think I do not need to use steel for strength, but we'll see how it goes...

The shrouds will be affixed to the motor mounts at the ends of the fuselage arms.

Will make jigs for each meaningful shape.

Trying JB Weld epoxy one last time for the mockup shrouds, but it looks like brazing is the way to go.



I've already tried brazing and it is not easy for me so far. The one messy attempt gave a bond than the epoxy. I just have to learn to braze, I guess.



The epoxy has firmed up, but it is nothing near what I want, so I will peel it off and braze the aluminum circles after considerable practice. The next iteration will primarily be like a surfboard, material wise, but I still want to learn the brazing technique.