The Flying Maige - Slider Assembly

Frame 1 Frame 2

tail boom h trim fin slider assm vert. trim fin tail rotor

mount shaft tub split body panels final fit

cyclic collective foot pedals

main sprocket secondary drive motor clutch exhaust heat shields

alternator & wp radiator and fan fuel system

The tail rotor bearing slider assembly is really a simple design and should be easy to construct. However, I made several mistakes that caused me considerable time reworking the assembly. You can see in the photo the template used to make the cross brace shaped like a sideways hour glass. There are angle brackets attached at both sides of the cross brace that the slider rails attach to. I made the mistake of thinking the template for the cross brace was the dimension required for the angle brackets. BIG MISTAKE! The angle bracket dimension is longer than the dimension of the cross brace. The cross brace template is 4-3/8" and the dimension required for the angle brackets is 4-1/2". It became obvious when drilling the holes to mount the slider rails that they were too close to the edge of the brackets. When I referred back to the schematic drawing, I could see the 4-1/2" dimension clearly marked. Lesson Learned: Make sure you assimilate all the information between schematics, video, manuals and templates before making any part. Relying on only one as a reference will catch up with you.
I enjoyed fabricating the bearing plates that mount on the slider rails. The band saw I used made the job of cutting the aluminum from templates easy. I used double-sided Scotch tape to hold several pieces together to be cut from the same template. It was a nice trick for cutting the pieces but getting them apart was a minor chore. I will use tape more sparingly next time.
I don't have a picture of how I cut the hole in the center of the bearing plate. That's probably a good thing! I used a hole saw made for cutting doorknob holes in wooden doors. By the time I finished cutting the two pieces, the hole saw was done for. Hey, it got the job done. It left the edges a bit rough which I smoothed out with a file and wire brush.
In the foreground you see a slider rail and in the background you can see a completed bearing plate mated to a pair of slider rails. The slider rails are made of two strips of angled aluminum. In the photo you can see a gap between the two strips that join together to make the slider rail. As I discovered after I made the first set of slider rails, that gap is not a good thing. If you align the edges of the slider rails that mate with the bearing plate, that gap will occur when the two rail strips are riveted together.
This is the correct way to align the two slider rail strips. There is no gap but the edges of the two rail strips are uneven by several thousandths of an inch. It seemed odd to me, but it accommodated the bearing plates better. I will probably file the rail edges even. This was another rework job.
Here is the completed bearing slider assembly. It was more work than it should have been. I learned some valuable lessons. I realized that building a RotorWay is not just assembling pieces. There is truly significant manufacturing required.