Part 2: The connecting piece between the fuselage and the moving leg
Once the damped leg was prepared, I started work on the connecting piece between the fuselage and the mobile leg. You can see this part circled in red on the picture below.
When I built the fuselage, I had put a through piece made of hardwood grooved to allow a steel rod to pass through it and to receive this part of the landing gear. To make it, I used 5 mm piano wire which is inserted into the hardwood piece. It is covered with a 6 mm aluminium tube that is also inserted in the wooden piece. The visible part on the outside is made of an 8 mm aluminium tube. This tube is drilled to allow the passage of a 3 mm threaded rod which will be screwed on the damped leg.
The assembly parts are glued together with epoxy. The part is then glued with epoxy again in the groove in the fuselage. Below is a view of the fuselage with the parts on each side.
Part 3: Preparation of the inner legs
What I call the inner legs are those indicated by a red arrow in the picture below.
They will consist of steel piano strings welded together. It is absolutely necessary to be rigorous on the angle between the 2 legs. It will also be necessary to add an axle for the wheels and the fixation on the fairings. The legs have been cut to the right length in 5 mm piano wire.The parts to be welded have been stripped with dremmel and the area degreased with acetone.
The two piano wires are positioned at the right angle. I used a third hand to put the wheel axle at an angle of about 30 degrees.I heated the piano wire with a gas soldering machine and melted the tin.
To consolidate the weld, I made a nylon wire ligature and glued it with slow epoxy. The next step was to drill holes on the hardwood parts of the fuselage to position the landing gear at the right angle and identically on both sides.
The Potez 58 is on its legs. Of course, there is still a lot of “scale details” work to be done, but already I am happy to see it standing. A few photos and a video to illustrate the achievement.
