1:1 KG13 grip\control stick

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Wow that's great. I bought a F4U Corsair stick grip last year with wiring, so it'll save me having to do what you're doing.
 
A real grip would be great, but KG13's are very expensive I can't even afford a resin copy...

I finally found my 'good' camera so I took some more pics. I'll just upload one though. The black paint was just a quick guide coat to see what it looked like.

 
If it works for you, that's all that matters. You're doing a great job, looking forward to seeing more progress
 
Got some more done today. I bent the tabs on the button holder to conform to the grip, made and installed the pushbutton and gave it a coat of rare and authentic matt black cockpit equipment paint ( which I found in the shed when we moved here. I'm sure the tin says ' rare and authentic RLM paint ' on it )

 
Bomb release button assembly fitted. I still have to cut some screwdriver slots into the dummy screws I machined to retain it. They are really close fitting pins which will be epoxied in place eventually.

 
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Airframes said:
Excellent ! It's just occurred to me, you could possibly use the basic grip to make a mould, then produce resin replicas for sale. Just a thought ..........
Click to expand...

There are a few already on the market and the quality varies from really, really nice to " I can't believe they dare sell that misshapen piece of junk "

The big failing of my grip is that the checkering isn't accurate. Rather than being raised diamonds, they are inverted because I used mesh to create them. I'm not sure that would be acceptable.
If I do cast some then it will be in aluminium. I haven't done any metal casting before but I have almost everything I need here already to set up a small foundry. The startup costs with resin would be pretty large and unlike metal you can't recycle your mistakes. And I know there will be a LOT of mistakes

What I may do is make the pushbuttons and triggers available for people who want to use one of the nice resin display models as a basis for a flight simulator stick. Maybe a complete conversion kit ?
 
One thing I tried as an experiment before settling with gluing the mesh on with cyanoacrylate was to use epoxy instead. Then when the epoxy was 90% cured I pulled the mesh off, which created a raised diamond pattern. The mesh is incredibly strong and withstood that, but it left a few too many voids behind, where the epoxy tore away as well. I did that on a test piece rather than risking messing up the grip.

The original grips had a synthetic rubber coating applied but I don't have a clue how it was done or if you could reproduce it on a one-off or cottage industry scale.
 
Just a note to say the project isn't stalled. I have made the PTT pushbutton for the base of the grip but it isn't really worth a photo until it's fitted.
For now I'm re-organising the workshop a little and thinking about creating some tooling for the other stuff I am going to have to make.
It looks like we'll be moving house next year so I'm holding off on any thoughts of a cockpit structure for now.
That might change if I can find a way to make it modular and bolt together.
 
Thanks !
Are you able to remove any of the pushbuttons from the grip without fear of causing damage ? I would love to know the exact dimensions of the large ones fitted to the top and side. I am thinking about producing replica's of them. Mine are simply scaled from photographs and a drawing I don't really trust completely.
 
Here are some pix of mine.It has the later black anodise that tends to fade. My favourite WW2 KG grips are the early 12's.
 

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