Simviation Forum - Towerguys Baron pit

Mar 31^st, 2009 at 11:51pm

Towerguy Offline
Colonel
Auckland, New Zealand

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Posts: 47

Got bitten by the bug about 9 months ago and started in with a hiss and a roar. I have no prior wood working or metal working skills so this is a lot!!! of trial and error - mostly error and retrial. Wink

Well first I needed a place to put this so it was a full day spent clearing out the garage - 3 teenagers - so plenty of accumulated debris - and I'm a bit of a hoarder according to the wife! Huh

Then it was off to the local Bunnings store for MDF sheets, screws, glue etc etc etc.
Started with the base and plenty of holes to run cabling etc through later on - also helps to keep the weight down.

finally a completed base - yep looks just like a Beech Baron already!!! Grin

more in the next part
cheers

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Reply #1 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 12:10am

Towerguy Offline
Colonel
Auckland, New Zealand

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Posts: 47

Part 2.

Time to start on the shell - some of the ideas are from another Baron project underway and modified to suit- the rest is made up as I go along ( oh and some planning here and there!).

First I made up the rear wall as close to the real measurements that I could find to give me a reference.

It is hot and thirsty work and went on well into the night - I do shift work and things have to fit in where and when they can. Roll Eyes

I had an old car seat under the house that one of the kids dragged home during a hard rubbish collection one year, so it was used to give an idea on seat sizing and positioning.

Then it was onto the start of the side walls - again reducing weight where possible and leaving space for wiring runs later.

That was it for a little while due to work and commitments with kids.
More in part 3.
cheers.

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Reply #2 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 12:42am

Towerguy Offline
Colonel
Auckland, New Zealand

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Posts: 47

The next part was the shaping and building up of the nose area. It had to be strong enough to support all the gear to go in later and small enough to not take up all the room. Huh

Probably an Aluminium or steel frame would have been better but I didn't have a welder at the time, or steel, or the know how. Embarrassed

It would have to be wood.

the roof taking shape

The overall shape so far

Those canopy arches were the biggest bug bear so far in the project and more in the next part.
cheers.

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Reply #3 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 1:00am

Towerguy Offline
Colonel
Auckland, New Zealand

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Posts: 47

The canopy arches on the Baron had me stumped for ages! They are beautiful to look at on the aeroplane but boy oh boy - they curve inwards and backwards and twist over at the top as well ! Undecided

Try to get a peice of wood to do that!

Eventually I settled on a tetris type of arrangement and some caveman quality working. I stacked a series of wooden blocks with each successive one slightly off placed - very elegant (I thought) - then the caveman part - take one electric planer and ... Wink

... whotta ya know - arches!

starting to look something in the order of a Baron now - if ya squint with one eye closed after 2 or 3 beers...

By this time I had decided on the main board to be Opencockpits and ordered the main board and two display boards.
Ordered it over the internet and they duly arrived and are on the shelf upstairs awaiting their time.

More soon
cheers

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Reply #4 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 1:28am

Towerguy Offline
Colonel
Auckland, New Zealand

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Posts: 47

Now it was time to try putting some skin on this machine. 2mm mdf was used along with glue and screws. First I measured sizing and shapes using old cardboard - saves a fortune in time effort and frustration. Then the cutouts were traced onto a sheet of board before being cut with a jigsaw and given a rough sand.

Again - it's thirsty work! Cool

Once the pieces are secured in place and the glue sets then it's good ole builders bog - this stuff is great - if it had been invented earlier then the earth would have only taken 3 days and mountains would be sandable! Grin

starting to take the proper shape now

had to leave it there for a while due to work commitments - short staffed again (as always).

cheers

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Reply #5 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 1:33am

beaky Offline
Global Moderator
Uhhhh.... yup!
Newark, NJ USA

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It's really shaping up nicely... impressive, given your claim of no experience with these materials.
The stacked blocks made for a lot of labor, eh? But simple to figure out, and no fancy tools or jigs needed. Good idea.
Ahhh... the smell of Bondo and Bacardi in the wee hours... Grin

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Reply #6 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 2:52am

HarvesteR Offline
Colonel
F/A-18 HARV Almost
has my name on it!
Mexico, DF :D

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Posts: 707

Wow, i would welcome you into SimV, but it seems you're more at home here than i am!! Grin

you just joined (right now you're the newest member) and dove right into the most insane part of the forums... i salute you! impressive work so far

what are your plans for display? projected? multi screen?

Cheers

NEW PC SPECS: Intel Core i7 920 - 6GB Corsair DDR3 PC12800 RAM- Intel DX58SO Mobo - Geforce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 - 3x LG1952h LCDs through Matrox's TH2Go - 640GB Seagate Barracuda 7200Rpm - 200GB Maxtor 7200Rpm - Microsoft Sidewinder X6 Keyboard - 5.1 Surround and a Saitek X52 Pro and Pro Flight Rudder Pedals -- Running Windows 7 Ultimate x64

My 8800 GTX has at last retired... may it rest in peace in GPU heaven.

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Reply #7 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 7:24am

expat Offline
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Deep behind enemy lines!

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Matt

PETA People Eating Tasty Animals.

B1 Boeing 737-800 and Dash8 Q-400

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Reply #8 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 10:58am

JBaymore Offline
Global Moderator
Under the curse of the
hombuilt cockpit!

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HarvesteR wrote on Apr 1^st, 2009 at 2:52am:

Wow, i would welcome you into SimV, but it seems you're more at home here than i am!! Grin

you just joined (right now you're the newest member) and dove right into the most insane part of the forums... i salute you! impressive work so far

what are your plans for display? projected? multi screen?

Cheers

Towerguy,

Welcome to both SimV and the Homebuild Forum Section.

I echo Harverter's comment above. Impressive entrance. Shocked

Personally, I'd say you might have picked up a saw once or twice before.

Keep us posted on the progress, you are sharing some nice techniques for others to use for their R+D ("rip off and duplicate" Wink

).

To keep threads from going over the limit for the weight of photos in them (see upload page), as you add new information on this build please start some new threads to hold the new images. Thanks.

best,

........................john

Intel i7 960 quad 3.2G LGA 1366, Asus P6X58D Premium, 750W Corsair, 6 gig 1600 DDR3, Spinpoint 1TB 7200 HD, Caviar 500G 7200 HD, GTX275 1280M, Logitec Z640, Win7 Pro 64b, CH Products yoke, pedals + throttle quad, simpit

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Reply #9 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 3:29pm

Towerguy Offline
Colonel
Auckland, New Zealand

Gender:
Posts: 47

high all and thanks for the welcome

I thought that by making each part a seperate reply I was keeping below the numbers on the upload page etc but I see it has to be a seperate "thread" for each part - sorry about that - will keep it in mind for the future postings.

my handyman skills are purely from home DIY sort of stuff around the house - certainly no 'trade' skills - just the good old Kiwi attitude of "a piece of string and some number 8 wire and we should get that going".

For the instruments I had originally planned to try and make my own and to that end I invested in Mike Powells' superb book "Building Simulated Aircraft Instrumentation". but after a good read I came to the conclusion that it's just a tad above my skill level at the moment - maybe once I've learned more.

Then I investigated getting ready made from Simkits etc but they are so hideously over priced that it's just not going to happen - not in the life of this mortgage anyway!

It was about then that I read JB's thread on these forums and that lead me to FsXpand. I have downloaded the trial and later this month will get the registered latest version of FSUIPC to get it going - I have an earlier registered version on FS2004 so don't understand why it didn't pick it up??? but will need the new one and widescreen(?) to run FSX anyway.

For the main display - ideally - 3 projectors on a triple head unit Cheesy

- practically - 1 projector off the graphics card

- in reality - maybe my 22" widescreen monitor jacked up on the nose Sad

In the meantime I just keep going to work, paying the bills and buying the lottery tickets!

talking of which, it's time to hit the shower and go stir some more aeroplanes around the skies.

cheers till next time

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Reply #10 - Apr 1^st, 2009 at 11:32pm

Sir Crashalot Ex Member

Impressive.

Crash Wink

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Reply #11 - Apr 3^rd, 2009 at 12:23pm

G-Marv Offline
Lieutenant Colonel
Fly FS
Reading, England

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Posts: 7

WOW

Nice work there, I'm just starting my pit too and have to say I'm more than a little humbeld by yours.
Now if only I had the time and skills (sigh)
Keep up the photos, they're good inspriation

Cheers
Martin

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Reply #12 - Apr 3^rd, 2009 at 4:58pm

hsvfan Offline
Colonel
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
Wellington, New Zealand

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Posts: 262

Very nice indeed. Good to see another kiwi taken the plunge in cockpit building. I am currently working on a MD500E simulator as soon as I have some new pics I will post.
Love the job you have done on yours so far

Regards

Rhys

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Reply #13 - Apr 4^th, 2009 at 10:47am

ermias Offline
Colonel
KPHL/HHSB

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Posts: 79

Towerguy,
It looks great and and seems moving fast. A nice space to play around too.
I am thinking to pullout my simulator from the basement and put it in my garage which is full of ... what can I say?! This frightens my wife who thinks if I get a little more space I would start building a cockpit shell and forget everything as I used to and going to bed by two.

I will try to post some pictures of my simulator which I haven't touched for several months soon.
Regards, ermias.

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