BIG F-14 Tomcat scratch build project

[invertmast]

Lots of CAD time on the F-14 gead. I have essentially redesigned 80-90% of the landing gear and have been printing parts like crazy.

Everything red is essentially done with its design work.

[invertmast]

The main design for the main landing gear is done and all but two parts have been printed in their final form. All i have left to do from this point is mirror the parts for the left side and draw up all the steel hinge pins and either source air cylinder for the retraction and down lock, or design and draw my own.

Here's some photos:

[invertmast]

Im slowly beginning to get the gear fit into the fuse. The mount is just a wee bit to wide, so another update is in order... Which is actually already printing.

[DominicD]

Tom get some vid of how the gear rotates 90 while it retracts, love seeing that.

[invertmast]

I poured the first prototype tiresa today. The main tires are utilizing a machined aluminum tire mold with a 3D printed cavity plug. The plug is used to decrease material useage and reduce weight. The tire has a slightly thicker area newr the tread and thinner walls in the side. My hope is the hollow nature of the tire will allow a scale squish to the tire but the hardness of the rubber will allow it to spring back to shape.

The nose tire is using a 3D printed mold and cavity tool. This is more of a test to see what kind of quality i can get out of the tire with a $6 mold compared to a $500 mold.

Molds and cavities assembled and material poured:



main tire with the cavity plug removed prior to clamping the two halves together:

[Russell Harding]

Ok. Custom tires! My brain just exploded. Keep it up.

[invertmast]

Will do, i need to fine tune some aspects of it of it first though.

[invertmast]

Here is the main gear tire. I waited a little to long (about 5 minutes) to pull the cores and join the molds so it didnt join together 100% around the seam. I figured this would happen, but the test was a success with the cavity core mold. Ill do the second one here in a bit.




the nose gear tire printed mold produced a pretty decent tire. Most of the layers from the printer are visible, but i believe it i use a smaller nozzle and thinner layer height, i can produce reasonable finished tires. This is encouraging as it will allow me to do alot of one off designs for wheels and tires without having to invest in expensive aluminum molds.

This photo the tire still has the mold release in it which makes it look much worse than it does in person.

[silas3d]

Originally Posted by Code3Medic

Ok. Custom tires! My brain just exploded. Keep it up.

+1 absolutely incredible!

This is without a doubt my favorite long term subscribed thread.

One just wouldn't be enough so...

[DominicD]

A build that took so long they invented 3D printing !!

[invertmast]

Originally Posted by DominicD

A build that took so long they invented 3D printing !!

And thank god they did! That has saved me over $3,000 in machined parts and MONTHS of rework on just the main gear. The nose gear should be fairly simple after this.

[invertmast]

Over 5 years later this thing is finally sitting on something other than foam. Lol. Both main gear are mocked into place. Everything looks great, now its time to get the cylinders and the nose gear designed so i can get some useable gear for this thing.

[sarpilot]

Very, very nice....


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[badfrog]

absolutely incredible!
I have been following this build for a while... every time I check back in I am truly amazed!
Incredible work and craftsmanship... keep the pics coming!

[[X]Outlaw]

Haven't checked this thread in a while, but glad to see the awesome progress Tom!!! 5 yrs has it been that long! wow!

[Elios000]

been almost 2 years now since the last update

[Slyster]

Well.. 1 year.. but I was wondering about this too recently.

[kiwi320]

Yeah, really hope this isn't over yet.

In the years I've been following this thread, I've learnt to fly fixed-wing, picked up several new disciplines. I've gone from a 450 Heli to owning mini-quads, flying wings, slopers and DLGs.

Tom, I hope you're well. I understand a lot of things can get in the way of a hobby, but I really hope to see more on this build at some stage.

You've been inspiring to say the least.

[Slyster]

Yep almost 7 year old thread now

[invertmast]

Im still around and doing well. We had our second child (A girl) in September of 2014 and my son started pre-K this past August. Life has just gotten insanely complicated and busy the past year or two.

The F14 is still in progress, it has just taken a small set back while im finishing up some commissioned jobs.

With the way life has been, ive been offloading projects and future projects to eliminate the road blocks on getting more important projects done. Im currently down to just a few projects needing finished, with the F14 being very high on that priority list.


Not much has really been accomplished since the last update. What i have accomplished is the Nose landing gear design is essentially complete and I started 3D printing the mockup assembly...