prole

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Hey All,

Well, this is moving right along. I've never built a plane with Foam Wings and I just can't believe the amount of time it cut's.

So far I haven't run into any problems, it was strange at first but after I realized that the sketch is for reference only and while it is close to scale, it is NOT a scale drawing. Once I got that out of the way it was smooth sailing.

Thanks for all of your help on the thread about sheeting and covering wings. I've got one done and I think it looks great. I did it like Bipe Flyers LE/TE and Cap strips on the top and just sheeted the whole bottom. I used 1/8 x 1/4 balsa for the leading egde and 1/32" for sheeting.

I'm feel really satisfied at the amount of strength that it added for the added weight. I don't have a scale but I was stingy on the glue and once I got it all sheeted I sanded it till it was smooth leaving even less sheeting.

On all of the wings that Bibe Flyer posted for us the tips were straight, I wanted to round mine and I thought for a while on how to do it. I stopped the sheeting about an inch and a half from the tip and blended it together continuing to round around to the LE and TE. It worked good and looks nice. I was thinking that I might get some thin fiberglass cloth and glass the tips from where the sheeting ends around the tip, but I'm not sold on the idea yet. I'm not even sure it needs anything else.


What do you guys think about the tips, glass yeah or nay?


Also on the sketch it shows them using thread hinges on all of the control surface. I can see it for the rudder and elevator but I don't think it will work very well.

What did you guys use for hinges, thread/CA/ pinned??? Which ones and where???


Thanks guys, I'm gonna post some pics.

here is half of the wins so far

prole

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here is another view of the wing

prole

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and now the fuselage

wild fred

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prole; the fig. 8 hinges work fine, used to use them in c/l days. but they look kind of funky. I use continuous covering type hinges on most of mine, with ultracoat on bare foam. Since you sheeted, not a problem using monokote. have also used ca hinges with yellow glue, it worked but I didn't trust it as much. as far as glassing tips; probably just extra weight as light as these are. ultracoat plenty tough enough for protection. I belly my combat stuff all the time, it holds up well. monokote will rip, though.
as far as sheeting wing; I did it on my last project, a sukhoi I built for my son, but later sold. it flew fine, might have slowed up a little faster when throttled back. was wildly aerobatic. have fun, hope you can use some of this info! -wildfred-

prole

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Hey WildFred,

Thanks for the info, that Sukhoi is really nice looking. Is that a kit or the M.A.N. plan? What size engine? Those wings are foam - they look nice.


As far as hinges, I was thinking about using the plastc pinned hinges, the small Du-Bro 1/2a ones. I like them, haven't had one fail me yet. Was just going to epoxy those little guys right in, do you think it will hold in the foam?

I don't know how to do the covering kind, I've heard people talking about it but never seen anything printed explaining how it is done....


This last photo I'm going to put up for you all is entitled -

**Zap CA - Friend or Foe**

flyinrog

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hahaha how many times have we all done that????
anyway dont spend toooooo much time on that plane,, it may be the one I take outta the sky, I got one of those too ya know, well mines a 230 extra,,maybe I'll finish it up and put the cox or norvel on it....Rog

wild fred

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actually, it is something I made up, with ace constant chord foam wings, a pint milk bottle cowl (ironed the ultracoat right on it!), and a 2-liter bottle canopy! I bash stuff like that all the time; am working on an 074 cap 232 like the big sig one now, and have a giles too. Stuffed fox bb 15's w/ 8-3 props in the sukhoi and giles, they honk. Norvel 15 bush. works as well, less revs but lighter.

pinned hinges epoxied work just fine, I just hate cutting slots! Ever try sealing the hinge gap from underneath with clear ultracoat? no flutter, better roll response. just iron it into the gap so it doesn't bind up when deflected up.

The covering kind is really easy once you've seen it done, but hard to describe. the 2x4 glider plans have the best expanation I've seen. basically, you bevel the front of the elevator from the top back at an angle, so it hinges at top of surface. flip it over onto stab, and cover bottom of stab, ironing it all the way around onto bottom of elevator (which is on top of stab). some people use 1/32 spacer between them, I just hold it back a little to give a little play in joint. then flip elevator back down and cover top of stab and elevator with one piece. top covering should bond with bottom piece along hinge line. if it has very little down elevator, you got gap too tight, but you can push down while ironing to get it loosened. on ailerons I do the same, but with 1-1/2" strips running spanwise, as it is hard to do the whole wing and aileron in one piece. if multicolored trim scheme, I hinge in clear.

try on some scraps, and you will figure it out. there is probably a description with pix somewhere on the net.

well, I'm gonna print a cap pix and start covering. hope this helps, wildfred.

soarrich

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Looks good!

You may want to try this on the tips. Get a brown paper bag from the grocery store, tear it into 1" squares, soak in mixture of white glue with water, 50/50, then lay it on the exposed foam overlapping the wood 1/4". I works kind of like putting a layer of veiner on it and it molds well. It's important to tear the edges to feather the paper.

The hinge like Wild Fred wrote about is very quick and easy, and seals the gaps which is very important. Sometimes the hinge line will pucker and stand proud of the surface though.

Another way to hinge is to cut to strips 3/4" wide out of your covering material then turn them so the sticky sides face each other, over lap the 1/4" and run your iron over the part that overlaps. Cut the combined strip into 1/2" lengths then iron on to the wing top to the bottom of the aileron's bottom, then the aileron's top and the wings bottom. You can do this for the whole length, or do a set of three then skip a length do another set of three and on as if you where putting plastic hinges in.

If you use plastic hinges, put them in without glue, then sand the area which will be raised slightly, take the hinges out, cover, then put the hinges back in and glue.

fastlash

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Nice job T, been their, done worse than that with CA, had my hand glued in side of a 40 size fuse and had to drive to Kragens to get some brake kleener to get my hand free and still lost a lot of skin,Looked kind of stupid walking in to an auto parts store with a plane on my hand, yet alone trying to drive my little opel manta with a 4speed trans, thanks for the wise *** pic you did for me I figured you went thru all that I would post it for a while you should forward a copy to Milt I am sure he would love it

wild fred

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the over-under hinges soarrich mentioned are the least binding, most free hinges there is, and great for .15 and under. I have had some problems w/ ultracoat fatiguing and cracking on the hinge line with that method, but NEVER with monokote; it is great for that application. I used the patch hinges w/ flitekote (econokote clone) on my bonanzas flaps, and they worked fine but used continuous on ail. and tail.

the main reason I use continuous on most of my foam stuff is because I use ultracoat on it, as monokote goes on hot and I tend to melt foam with it. on my duffer type stuff the over-under can't be beat! and if you are using monokote it is a lot easier to do.

the bonanza flaps were not beveled; they butted flush against t. e. until lowered. wouldn't have been possible w/o the over- under hinges!

I had a cs-21 cirrus on each aileron instead of the long torque rods the h.o.b. series uses, and thought, hey! would flaps be cool or what! installed torque rods and a y- pushrod and there it was.

prole

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WildFred and Soarrich - Thanks guys,

I'm going to do a search here, maybe in the trick+tips or the beginners forum for a complete write up of the covering hinges. I can kind of see it in my head, but not clear. I'll get a few scraps and play around... that is usually the easiest way for me to get new techniques down. I'll play around a little this afternoon and let you know if I have anymore questions.

Soarrich - So this brown paper mache thing is intriguing to me. I was just wondering a few things before I play with that as well.

1. Can you sand it???
2. is it heavy once the water dries?

So should I just do one layer around the whole tip, or is multiple layers better. It seems like something like that would be perfect, that is why I was thinking about using epoxy and thin fiberglass cloth.

Do you have any experience with this? Is it strong or what???



Thanks guys, I'll let you know how the experiments go...


-timothy/prole-

MrMulligan

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I've used both methods Wild Fred and Soarrich have outlined. I used Wild Fred's method on an RCM Joystick with Solarfilm and used the 1/32 balsa as a spacer for the rudder and elevator. It's still a good working hinge. I used Soarrich's method on ailerons once as I had problems using the other method. The length of the ailerons seemed to be the problem. Done right, you have a good free hinge.