Droopy

[Guest]

Building a Wessex Helicopter 1/48.

The Rotor blades coming off the spue are flat.

Wanted to get that nice droop in them.

Clipped them at the end onto a flat timber then weighted them at the other end & place them in 70 degree heat.

Also thought of flattened fishing lead shot glued to the u's of the flappy end of the blades.

Any body any better ideas as I suspect that they will go flat after releasing the end weight.

Laurie

[Guest]

make a jig out of balsa (or whatever you have handy) to the shape you require, secure the blade at both ends then blast it with a hairdryer until it retains the shape.

[spanner570]

Another method which I have used, is to just take the blade between your thumb and forefinger and gently pull the rotor through them, the heat from your fingers is enought bend the blades the desired amount......Trust me Laurie, it does works, it's safe and is great therapy in times of stress!!

Cheers,

Ron

[Guest]

Hi laurie, I built the revell 1:48 chinook and found once the rotors were assembled and fitted they had the droop naturally!!!

Cheers, Andrew

[Guest]

Hi Andrew. Thanks for your info.

This is a Revell may be different to yours. Tried suspending them for a day & they took a very small droop but they remained in a passive position after that.

Took Ron & Colin's info & devised a method. I got a piece of foam pipe insulation taped the ends & pulled into the profile required & taped. Then taped the extreme ends of the blades together & slightly fanned out the rotor ends.

Then heated up the pipe insulation until really warm (but obviously not destructive enough to melt plastic "like radiators do"). Strapped the blades to the warmed up pipe insulation & left for about 3 hours. Now got a nice set of droopy blades which have retained their shape over night.

Thanks all for your inputs & as usual on this forum in express delivery mode.

Laurie

PS just going down to check that I got the rotor blades up the right way. Typical of me to get it wrong. Even been known to get my underpants on back to front !

[Guest]

("but obviously not destructive enough to melt plastic "like radiators do")

I wish i'd never owned up to doing that now....lol

[Guest]

yup gaz u opened a big door there lol

mobear

[Guest]

Worse than that Gaz. As a teenager put a pan on a gas ring with water to boil to get a rubber gasket on a motorcycle part.

Forgot all about it, unusual for a teenager, came in the water had boiled away. The gas had melted the bottom of the pan. The flames had spread up to the overhanging grill where the kettle lead caught light & overhung the draining board, wood of course, which now had a black patch & a large pit but on that were 4 knives with ivory type handles, mother's best, but the ivory had disappeared.

I did not know if emigration was best or to get locked up in a police cell before dad got home. Either would have been better than what was to follow. Father could find no consolation in the fact that the knives other than handles were still in tack.

Laurie

[Guest]

I had to read that through twice, that's some calamity - it reads like a game of mousetrap.

However you did have the excuse of being a teenager - i'm 43 and allegedly a responsible adult.

[InFlames]

My method is to just take the blade between thumb and forefinger and slowly and gently bend it. You have to be carefull not to snap the blade but this method gives you quite good control of how much bend do you want and where should it start - not all helicopters have the same rotor drop so reference photos are required for accuracy

Here's how my Ka-29 looks after bending the blades by my method

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f99/DoktorTomcat/makete/Ka-29/33s.jpg

[Guest]

Thanks Seb. did try that but regret I became a coward. My patience is not equal to the forces of NOT snapping.

Like your model Seb very nice indeed. Hope mine looks OK going OK, for me, at the moment. Really enjoying building it.

Laurie