Stearman build

Initially the exhaust kits were not available so thought i could just make one out of wood. :silly: (in order to do the fuselage prep)

Now the kit has arrived. The super lightweight can is made by Zimmerman.

The header is now complete and ive fabricated a clamp for the exhaust can from S Steel strip

Should sound lovely on that Zim can Kevin!

What are you doing for an air outlet for the can cooling?

Ive built a balsa box to reduce heat transfer to to fuel tank and will make 'suitable outlet holes into the Fuselage aft of the tank.

Stearmans are open cockpit so there should be plenty of exit area.

Updated - see balsa box for can and planned cooling

One bright side of being outside the EU is if the shop is set up to export to us they dont charge German VAT - a real blow. If you keep the invoice < £135 keeps you below the UK import duty threshold. The exhaust kit was sipped Thursday and arrived Tuesday.

When commencing this project, i was determined to make the field assembly easy which seemed easy in theory but putting my ideas into practice has stretched me somewhat. I also wanted to avoid having 12 chunky and unrealistic clevis to constantly adjust.
My solution was to create intersecting boxes in the wing structure. One box to accept the interplane strut and a second to accept a fitting which combines the paired flying wires and secures everything with a single screw. The wires are cosmetic only so will be tensioned by springs in the fuselage & upper centre section. The fittings are fabricated from stainless strip & half round brass block silver soldered in place. Then m2 bolts & commercial brass spacers.

Nice work Kevin, looking forward to seeing the model at Cashmoor.