Toy Boeing Stearman Kaydet Bi-Plane #7: Landing Gear and Struts

As I mentioned earlier, another LJer, nitewalker41, had modified my plans (see the earlier notes) and I liked how he did his landing gear struts better than my original design so I followed his lead.

I bought some 1/2” dowel from Lowe’s. That wasn’t hard. I cut off 3-1/2” lengths and then set my miter to 30 degrees and made another cut on each strut so that the end would be parallel to the “ground” when the plane was at rest.

Next I needed to drill holes for the axles. They also have to be at 30 degrees and I set them up 1/4” from the bottom of the dowel.

To drill that hole, I tilted my drill press table to 30 degrees. I marked the axle hole and positioned one of the struts. I set up a stop on the fence in order to repeat the process for each strut.

Note that I had to lay the fence on its side in order to clear the drill chuck. I just clamped the fence to the table.

I decided to drill the holes for the rear “wheel” at the same 30 degrees (I didn’t have to move the table that way). It ends up giving a “trailing” effect to the rear wheel that I think looks better than if it was perpendicular.

I centered the hole on one of the bodies, then set the fence and stop on the drill press table and made all 5 holes.

You can see how the landing gear will fit together in this picture – the body at the top of the picture has the landing gear in it for a dry fit.

-- Randy Morter, Phoenix, AZ