Couple of questions about the Ruffe/Zero 500 series (again)

[joecrouse]

The Cowl that came with mine doesn't have a crisp edge on it. it looks like either the plastic didn't heat up enough or the vacuum wasn't nice and tight. Is this Normal for the kit (my previous attempt got crushed when i fell through my hobby table) if its not normal but common should i bother with procuring a new one from Guillows? or should i just trim the 1/8th of an inch that is rounded and just accept it?

Also does anyone have a suggestion as to how to keep the cowl from slipping way down the model when putting a nice tight motor on it. as I am building mine as the Zero with no landing gear rather than the Ruffe with the floats or with wire landing gear.

[ADW 123]

Joe, pictures detailing the oddly shapped cowl would be helpful so then we could determine what the issue is. also, the cowl on that kit is supposed to slip past the B1 former quite a bit, unless you are experiencing something different. like i said, pictures would be very helpful.

[joecrouse]

Yea I guess you guys Seeing what I am seeing would be helpful. As tech support I should know that...

[Xanadu]

If you look really carefully at the bottom edge of the cowling, you should see a very faint line, that is where you need to trim the cowling to. They always leave a little extra during the vacuum forming for the reason you described, hence the cut line further up.
At least the Guillow's I have built all seemed to have this line indentation, although sometimes very hard to see.
As far as the cowling sliding back too far when winding tightly, you need to build what is called a nose block which does pretty much what you require.
More or less a square box mounted on the firewall, that the bearing block rests against giving it support. You cannot rely on the cowl to hold it back, being only flimsy plastic.

[ranarc]

Search for scigs30's 500 series builds for examples of nose blocks.
I found one thread here ....
http://balsamodels.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1307
About half way down the page you can see the nose block.

[joecrouse]

Ive put a 6x magnifying loop on it Xan I dont see any trim line.
All the other cowls have all come right out of the sheet with a nice near 90 degree bend this has almost a 3/16 inch Fillet.

[Xanadu]

That is odd......either way at least the full size plan will allow you to measure where to cut it then.