critterhunter

Made more progress tonight. Spent a couple of hours in the garage (first time, remember....should take less with practice) using a hot glue gun to put together the parts I cut out last night. Although Foam Flyer's instructions say to start by gluing the booms to the wing, I followed Fisher's advice and glued the fuse to the wing first. I then used the plane body as my guide to space the booms straight and the proper distance from the fuse. For a person like me who isn't used to doing this kind of work, much of my time was spent scratching my head trying to figure out how to center the fuse to the wing and the booms so they were not crooked. However, I just used a ruler and hacked away at it. Seems straight to me.

Got it all glued together and then realized I didn't have any vertical fins cut yet. Yoked out the meat tray foam that I used for the stabilizer and quickly traced out a pattern. Foam Flyer says in his instructions they should be about 4 inches tall and 6 inches long so I drew a square of those dimensions, then traced an angled line from the bottom right corner to the top about two inches from the other corner. Simple enough. I didn't slit slots in the booms for the fins but rather just glued them right on.

One great thing about using hot glue to put things together is the bond is almost instant as soon as you put the two pieces of foam together because it cools the glue quickly. No need for clamps or such, just hold them together for about fifteen seconds. After they'd bonded I like to then put a line of hot glue at the edges around where the two parts meet, then use my finger to smooth the seam in. Not only does this help strengthen the joined parts more, it also hides any gap between them for a more professional look.

The hard part is keeping them straight, so I would trace a line on the foam with a sharpie to indicate exactly where the edges should meet. Everything came out nice and square with the booms straight and the stabilizer and wing nice and parallel as they should be. However, I did notice that I didn't sand the top of the body quite flat where it glues to the wing and as a resut it is just a hair off in comparison to the wing. Most important part at cutting these parts out is to sand them flat, especially where they are going to meet other surfaces. Not bad for a first attempt, though.

Next step is to cut out the aileron (I know it's easier to do before you put the body together but I wanted to get my feet wet), and to add an elevator to the back of the stabilizer. Then it'll be time to throw in the electronics and finish taping. The only tape on it thus far is Extreme strapping tape put on the bottom of the wing from tip to tip before I glued it to the fuse.

Took it for a test throw and, being tail heavy at the moment, it landed smack dab on one of the boom ends and promptly broke it in half. However, a bit of hot glue and the two pieces went back together in such a way that you can't even tell where it broke. Once those get some strapping tape and perhaps a few carbon robs they'll be good to go. Think I'll wait until tomorrow night to install the aileron/elevator and start installing the electronics.

Thanks again for everybody's help. I'm looking at this thing right now and still can't believe I built it with my own two hands! Excuse the picture quality as it's real bad....but you can see the thing anyway...