Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Now that that's handled. Up next is the elevator install.
First off at the rear of the fuselage, making sure the bottom is facing up, measure forward 11cm, (yes CM, not MM), from the end. Not the tongue portion of the rear, the "step" part. Do it on each side. Connect the dots. That is the elevator rod center line. From the edge of the fuselage, in line with the center line, measure in 60 mm, again do it on both sides. These will be the location points for the elevator rod brackets. Make sure they are parallel with the fuselage center line not the strips, or the elevator rod line, otherwise the rod will bind when it's installed. Dig out the piece of aluminum plate included in the kit. Remember that part? Hopefully you didn't toss it. Anyhow you need to do a little fabricating, as this is to become the two elevator rod brackets. Mark the center of the long end of the aluminum, as that is where you cut it in half. Now you have two squares. Again mark the center of each, that is the bend line. Bend the squares on the line to a 90 degree angle. Pick one end of the angled pieces And mark the center of it, from edge to edge with it facing you. Confused yet? Look at the pictures and follow along and it will make sense. You need to drill a hold in the end of the angle to let the rod through. You already have marked the center of the angle, but you need to mark the height of the hole from the bend. It's 8 mm up from the bend. So now you have your center point and height point to drill your holes. In the manual it says to make a 4mm hole, since I don't have metric drill bits, I used my limited math skills and came up with a 5/32" bit.
Chucked it into the drill press, and set up one of the angles. I stumbled on this, so I can't really take credit for it, but I had the drill press set up for the slowest speed, As I slowly drilled through my mark for the center and height, the drill actually made a shoulder in the angle when it went through. The hole was sorta pushed through, instead of a clean cut. I was going to file this off flush with the metal, when I had a revelation. The shoulder hole would actually give more support to the elevator rod then a clean cut one. When I though about it some more, this would actually be better, as a clean cut would tend to saw into the rod as it pivoted. BRILL!!!
Score one for the home team. Back to the build. Now you have to 90 degree angle pieces of aluminum with a hold drilled in one end of each. Time to install them. The 60 mm lines I laid out are just a slice for the angle to slide up through, use a new xacto blade to cut these, if you don't, you take the chance of the Depron sticking and it will roll as you cut it, and look nasty, also taking several shallow cuts helps to make a smoother cut. Now that the slots are cut, push the holed end of the angles up from the bottom, which is actually the top of the fuselage, but since the bottom is facing up, the top is now the bottom.[sm=spinnyeyes.gif]
The ends on the top/bottom should face in toward's the center line of the fuselage. Look at the pictures if you don't understand.

Edit: Jeeze it's getting late, even though I told you not to measure from the tongue, I diagrammed it wrong on the photo. It' fixed now.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

I'll finish up with the rod install and that all for tonight. I've spent more time documenting then building, and I have to get up at 5:00 AM for work.[:@]

Where were we? Oh yeah, the rod install. According to the manual you need to push the elevator rod, remember there were 2 CF rods in the kit? Well this is the one that's left.
So, push the rod through the Depron strip into the bracket holes and out the other strip.
HUH? It took me a while but that's what it meant.The rod lays flat on the fuselage, which means it has to go through the two strips to line up with the bracket holes. And speaking of the bracket holes, the reason you drilled the holes 8mm from the bend was to allow for the thickness of the fuselage and the rod, when you installed the brackets. Sorry wasn't another moment of revelation there, I read it in the manual. Ok rod in place, check that it rotates easily in the brackets. Less bind means less work for the servo to turn it. Mine was good. Remove the rod and the brackets. The half of the bracket that touches the top of the fuselage, which is the bottom right now, needs to be sanded as it gets epoxied to the fuselage.I did both sides of each half of each bracket. Partially installed the brackets, leaving them sit away from the fuselage. At this point the top of the fuselage is facing up. Remember how I told you to mark the top and bottom of the fuselage? 5min epoxy is best for attaching the brackets if you work quickly, if in doubt, use 15. A dab of epoxy between the bracket and fuselage, and push the brackets into place. Flip the fuselage over and reinstall the rod, to keep the brackets lined up.
TIP: if you wedge some spare Depron under the rod, the pressure will keep the brackets tight up against the fuselage, till the epoxy dries. Flip the fuselage again, see I told you that you had to work fast. Cover the rest of the now exposed braces' bottoms with the left over epoxy to seal them into place. Flip the fuselage for the hundredth time. Check to be sure the rod still rotates easily and that all is in line. Let it dry.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Morning all. Well as tomorrow is the Super Bowl, and yes I am in Steeler's country, work today is pretty much at a standstill. So I'll add the rest of what I've built to the forum.
Ok locating the piece of 1/32" liteply included in the kit it's time to build the elevator rod control horn. Slice the lite ply diagonally, and CA the to parts back together to form a triangle of now 1/16" liteply. In the manual you will cut off one corner of the triangle to give you a straight piece with one corner cut off. There is no dimension listed in the manual for width, so you have to eye ball it. Drill a 5/32" hole in the lower corner,furtherest away from the clipped corner. Then a smaller hole(I used a finish nail) in the corner across from the clippped corner.
TIP: Coat the lite ply with thin CA it your drill spots. This will keep the wood from splintering when you drill it. You'll see when you build yours that mine looks a little different then the one in the manual. I just made mine a little less choppy looking. Just me being me, doesn't affect it either way. Anyhow, remove the elevator rod from its brackets, and slide the newly made horn on. It will hang from the bottom of the fuselage with the small hole for the clevis mount sticking up through the top of the fuselage. The clipped corner of the horn faces rearward.
TIP: Mount a clevis to the hole in the horn, and check to see how much movement you have.
You don't want to get all installed and find out you have no up elevator as the horn hits the clevis as it turns.

Crash One

My Feedback: (42)

GG, Ray, I was thinking the same thing about the brackets sawing through the CF rod. Would bushing out the holes help for those of us who accidentally make clean holes? I'm sure the 4mm holes would need to be a little larger.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Okey Dokey, time to cut out a slot for the control horn in the fuselage. Per the manual you need to cut a 10mm by 40mm slot, 15mm to the right of the fuselage center line, centered on the elevator centerline. Just look at the pics, you'll see.
TIP: When you cut the Depron, start at the middle and cut to the corners to get a sharp looking slot.
Bottom of the fuselage facing up, reinstall the elevator rod, and slip on the control horn as you do. Center the rod and mark spots for center and horn location for later. Remove the rod and horn, lightly sand the rod where the horn will attach and the horn to remove any excess CA from it. Epoxy doesn't grip well to CA. Reinstall all making sure the horn is facing the correct direction. Mix up some 5 min epoxy. I just mix enough to tack the horn on. Tack the horn on making sure the horn is 90 degrees from the rod and dead straight parallel to the fuselage center line. Once it's dry and you double check that all is right, now you can go back and and epoxy the horn on fully.
TIP: When doing the tacking of the horn, slide the horn off to the side and put the epoxy on the rod. Then slide the horn into place. Will give a good bond to the hole and rod.
TIP: Tape the rod in place, so it is centered side to side. That way you don't end up with the horn glued and find out you have 6 " of rod on one side and 2 " on the other.[X(]
Last photo shows how it should look when you are done. NOTE: in finished position the horn will be hanging down, 180 degrees for where it's pictured here.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Time to hang the elevators. Per the manual you need to add lite ply or CF strips, to the edge of the elevator that fits up against the fuselage, for strength. Lite ply is for stock, Cf for speedy versions. Since mine is eventually going Dark Side. I opted for a little more. Actually the lite ply comes in the kit, CF you have to buy. I was going through my stash of CF and couldn't find any strips wide enough. But I did find an old Slo-V fuselage. Ok I'll just cut off what I need to make strips. Well, call it dumb luck, but the CF fuselage was split on one side so I figured I would just split the other side and sand off the edges. When I split it, I looked and LOW AND BEHOLD, I had two C channels, the exact size for the Depron to fit in. Well a quick trip to the band saw and I had two nice channels for holding the elevators. Little 5 min epoxy and it was rock solid. Now for the mock up. The elevators line up with the tongue on the rear of the fuselage, NOT THE STEPS. Slide a piece of 3mm Depron between the elevators and fuselage to give clearance. The manual says to tape the elevators in place, on the top side of the fuselage.
Then flip it over and glue the rods to the elevators with epoxy.
COUPLE OF BIG ITEMS!!!! #1 Make sure the elevators are dead on level with the fuselage line. I ended up making jigs to keep all where they should be. Also check to be sure the elevators fit tight up against the CF rods. Otherwise I don't want to think about how this bird would fly.
#2 Make sure the control horn is in the correct position, at this point with the bottom of the fuselage up, the horn needs to be pointed down and at 90 degrees, or the 6 o'clock position.
All good, so on to the epoxy. I try to be somewhat neat, so what I did was just tack the ends of the rods to the elevators with epoxy, after sanding the ends of the rods where they will attach to the elevators. Once it was dry. I used the tape trick to lay out boundary lines on each side of the elevator to rod joints. Rechecked all positioning of the elevators, and laid the epoxy over the rods and onto the elevators. Squeegeed off the excess, let the epoxy start to set up and removed the tape. Nice looking fillet joints, if I say so myself. Left it all to dry over night. And that's where I ended up last night, before spending more time typing then building.

EDIT: Note: When you look at the second photo, it looks like the elevators are not lined up correctly. I had to look at it hard to figure out why. The Depron shims I used are not flush with the top of the fuselage, so trick of the eye, it looks off.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Ok I lied. Well not really, the befuddled state of mind from less then 4 hours sleep and way too much coffee. I did do something else last night, just didn't remember it till I uploaded the last shots and saw the extra photos. Man I need a nap.
Well somewhere last night I started the ailerons, I just don't remember doing them.
Per the manual, measure 40 mm from the TE at the end of the wing tip. Then draw a line from that point to the inside of the wing. That point is already there for you. Remember way back when I glued up the back half of the fuselage to the mid section and said to only glue what I showed? Now you know why. The unglued portion is the aileron. Heaven help you if you glued it. Anyhow, line laid out, I used a straight edge and another new xacto blade, and made several light passes keeping the blade 90 degrees to the cut. Ailerons removed, I marked each one. Just to be sure they ended up back where they belonged, and that I didn't toss them thinking they were scraps. Now the manual states the LE of the aileron needs to be chamfered at 45 degrees on each side so it will move without binding. The manual states to cut them.
I couldn't cut a straight line, at a 45 degree angle, only half the depth of the Depron, to save my life. Now what? I could just imagine trying to route them in or use a table saw to cut them.
Hey I have all ten fingers yet for a reason. Hmmmmm. I grabbed a scrap of Depron and a piece of 320 sandpaper and tried to sand it. It worked! Nice and smooth. Ok I can do that.
I taped the aileron to the bench, put the sandpaper on a sanding block and holding the block at 45 degrees to the aileron, made a couple of passes. Flipped the aileron over and repeated.
Slicker the snot. Two 45's and they met in the center of the aileron.
And that's where I ended up last night.

Crash One

My Feedback: (42)

Now that double 45 sanding and Slo-V trick is great.

cadetman

Crash One

i am sure there are lots of ways to scoop up and modify
i looked at lots of different method from plastic, nylon, plywood and a C/F tube epoxied but in the end i went for the aluminum plate because its easy to adjust and glue in position,
also the ammount of wear and tear is acceptable and will probably out live the F16,

there may even be a dedicated thread in the future for anyone to upload pics, ideas, mods and even como themes and decals [8D]

there are not many stock kits that remain stock for Long

all comments are feedback in my book of rules

keep the feedback comming

Ray

cadetman

Brad Glacier

You are doing a First Class Build


Keep up the Excellent work and this Baby is gonna be Brilliant [8D]

Ray

Loubud

GG,
Pay no attention to him. He says that to everyone. Even Hazy.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Lou,
What can I say. Hoo Rah.

Crash,
Yeah I'm sure there are going to be items that folks are going to want to make better.
Heck isn't that why we are all here. We love to take something and make it better.
And faster.
On this one I'm trying to keep it as stock as possible, that way it will give us some basics to start with on mods. I've already looked at different power to get more out of it. But without known performance, at least by me, I don't want to go crazy on it. Yet.
I need to see what she does in the air, you know, how far can I push it, before I add a power plant that will rip the wings off. Also I want to look at the possibility of things like a rudder, and maybe even landing gear. Once she's built and flown, then the gloves come off. We'll see what it can really do. You know, the fuselage is so big inside it would be a heck of a candidate for an EDF.

Ray,
So far so good. You've done an excellent job on this.
Other then some final trimming on the plastic parts, everything has been dead on perfect in fit.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

That said, Now I get to flame. The LHS has left me sitting again. They neglected to get in the stuff I ordered over a week ago. And this was not odd ball items, Hitec 55 servos. Come on, they should stock them. Oh but if I needed Gold fish, or parts for an r/c truck, well then no problem. Ok rant over.

Due to unforeseen problems(see above), I'm going to have to do a little jumping around on the build. Next per the manual is the install of the motor mount. If you are going pure stock, follow the manual. I on the other hand have Mega motors in my blood so I have to go a different route on my install. Instead of the tube mount, I'm going to be using a clam shell version.
I'm going to work on that later today, so I'll get back to it.

Now then, first off I couldn't wait any longer. I had to see a tail installed, got tired of looking at a big old flat wing. So a little Beacon glue, and 15 min later the upright fuselage was installed.
Good tip in the manual, mark the centerline of the fuselage, then run a line on each side of it 3mm out. You now have the guide marks necessary for laying the upright fuselage in place.
The Depron, especially when it's nearly 5 feet long, tends to get a little wavy, so you need to be sure it's lined up as you glue it in place. Like I had said before the Beacon glue is like a contact adhesive, once it touches something it sticks. Go ahead, ask me how I found out.
Well let's just say when a piece of Depron fell off the bench, it of course landed glue side down.
Was like the old super glued quarter on the floor. I had to use a flat bladed scraper to get most of it off, and acetone to get the rest.
Lucky for me this happened in the shop, and not on the wife's hardwood floors, or kitchen table.
Had that happened, you would be reading the rest of the build from Ray. LOL
EDIT: I wanted to add a tip on gluing the upright fuselage into place. The last thing you want with the Beacon glue is to get the fueselage mispositioned, as you will have some work on your hands to get it back off. What I did was lay several toothpicks across the centerline of the flat fuselage, one about every foot or so. This kept the glue up off the bottom fuselage. Was then a simple matter of starting at one end and lining up and pushing the upper fuselage into place. Just pulling out the next toothpick in line as I worked forward.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Alright have to admit the first mistake in the build. And I take the blame for it.
Per a message from Ray. I have the strips on the top side a little off place. The inside edge of the strips need to meet at the wing to fuselage point, not the outside edge. [&:]
Ray assures me it's ok and can be fixed easily, so when I get to that point. you'll see how it goes.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Oh well, Let's see how I do here.
The upright fuselage has a cut out in it for the battery tray location. The first plastic part is about to be used. It's a combo of fuselage, with the battery tray already formed in it. Cool.
The manual shows you where any leftover flashing from the vac formed part needs to be.
TIP: Take your time doing any trimming, small amount only to get a nice tight fit.
The manual suggests taking a small square of material out of the flat fuselage where the rear of the plastic fits to make a better finish. Well on mine it looked pretty good with out it. So for now I'm going to leave it alone. I'm dry fitting a lot of this section together, that way I can do any tweaking necessary. I must say the plastic once it's trimmed fits like a glove.
Now then the manual goes on to install the support formers for the plastic. There are 6 total, 3 per side. There are no dimensions listed, but from the photos it's pretty easy to see where they go. The fore and aft ones meet the corresponding points on the plastic, the center one is an eye ball to get it where it needs to be. What I did was using the plastic as a guide I simply marked the spots where it met the fuselage and used those for my outside markers for the formers. More Beacon glue and put them all in place. These formers added all kinds of strength to the plastic fuselage. Now then, refering to the manual, it states you can cut slots in the battery tray for running velcro straps to secure the battery. Since mine is initirally going to be stock, and since my packs,TP3s2100, already have velcro on them, I'm just going with a velcro strip on the bottom of the tray. With that mocked up you need to add a hole in the battery tray and rear right fuselage to run your power leads. I drilled a hole in the plastic, and used a CF tube to drill a hole in the former. An old Stryker tip, A sharpened CF tube will go though foam like a hot knife in butter. Leaves you with a nice round clean hole. And the waste is trapped inside the tube.
Well all thats left is glue and paint. And the manual gives you a nice tip on the paint. Paint it from the inside. That way the paint is protected from any type of hanger rash.
A tip I'll add. When the paint is dry, lightly scuff any glue joints, to give better adhesion.
Well that was about it for last night. I'll work on the nose cone and motor mount areas today and get back to you later.

cadetman

Brad

i have ammended the build manual to make sure a first time builder of the F16 gets it right first time,
i should have put extra emphasis on the lines being the inside edge [:@]
but on the good side i will forward you the new dimensions to trim the top panel to
if anyone makes the error again i can swish out the dimensions for them to follow [8D]

for anyone reading the thread i want you all to know Brad is doing a Brill job and i am giving his build all the support,
he is following the manual to the letter and pointing out any errors in the build [8D]
i admit along the way he is taking the F16 one step futher and thats why i am so pleased he bought the first one
when this kit goes on sale i want it to be Perfect, i am not just talking nicely cut depron.. i mean a build manual that is perfect too,


i cant wait for you to add the skin

then its gonna look like an F16

Ray

cadetman

Brad

You have to admit !.. its easy to eyeball the formers

Drop on the plastic and make a few pencil marks and then put the others in the middle

the dimensions are not critical a quarter of an inch/6 mm wouldnt cause a problem,

but you have them Perfect

dont change the settings on the camera LOL i can Zoom in and check out everything

[8D]

you could glue the cockpit/batterybay without cutting the little small square and it would still look good but cut the little square out and see how it fits
one other point is to cut the flange out from the top upright and it will sit perfectly like a glove,

the more effort you put in you will realise the effort i put into this kit

Ray

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Well error is corrected. It pays to read the label on the Beacon glue.
Water to remove it when it's wet, denatured alcohol when it's dry.
Ok alcohol won't hurt the Depron. So spray down the misaligned upper strips, bend a long xacto blade to 90 degrees. And hurray, the blade went right through the softened glue.
Little alcohol on a rag to clean up the residue, and a re apply of the glue and I'm back in business.
I finished up trimming out the battery tray/fuselage section. Fits like a glove now. And have started work on the nose cones. I'm kinda stuck on the motor mount for the time being, as I ordered the Mega 16/15/3 and Castle Creations 35 Esc from Randy at Dynamo electrics.
Had free shipping but orders are being held until the 6th before shipping. [&:]
I started out fitting some of the Depron panels. Follow the manuals tips. Warm up the Depron before trying to bend it, other wise it will snap. Manual suggests either hot water or a warm room. I came up with my own system. I have gas fireplace in the shop, with forced hot air.
I slide the panels into the air duct on the fire place, and in less then 1 min I have Depron that I can roll into a tube if need be, so forming the half round that make up the outer skin of the fuselage is a piece of cake. BUT A WORD OF WARNING: Don't get Depron to hot, it will shrink.
I found this out on a previous build.

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

Alright then, what did I get accomplished today.
Not to darn much. Being without electronics, has really put a dampener on this.
Well jumping all over the build manual, first off I went back to the elevators. It's recommended that you install a piece of lite ply on both sides of the control horn to control side to side play.
As I was bored, I built a spring set up into mine, to allow some give in the bracing to help prevent snapping off the control horn in a prang. Pretty simple, laid out the standard bracing like the manual shows but didn't run mine tight up against the control horn. I took a thin strip of lite ply, and tacked one end, then applying a little pressure to cause it to bow slightly I then glued down the other end. Repeated on the other side. Will act like a leaf spring, holding the control horn but allowing some give. Hey, I said I was bored.
That finished I installed the lower fuselage uprights. A two piece affair that installs just like the top one, right on the center line. Used the toothpick trick to get it lined up before it stuck in the wrong position. An item not mentioned in the manual is that you need to trim out for clearance on the elevator rod. Otherwise you will put a bind on it.
Other then that, I finished up the final trimming of the nose cone half's. And added a surprise, that's not in the kit. I'll show you that later. Finally I dry fitted some of the outer skins that make up the fuselage. In the manual it recommends heating them with hot water or putting them in a warm room, to aid in rolling them into the correct form. I've built a few other things out of Depron, and I found that a warm oven will cause Depron to curl up. So I played around trying different temps to get it at just the right stage for forming. That is till the wife found out.
She was a little ticked off on seeing my experiment. So out in the shop I looked for an alternative. Hmmm, I have a gas fireplace in the shop with blown hot air. Took a piece of Depron and slid it in one of the vents. Took less the 1 minute, and it was ready to go. Cool.
I must add, that you do have to be careful with heat, too hot and Depron shrinks.

cadetman

Brad

it will be NOW

they get upset so easily [&:] LOL

last time i got an ear bashing was when i used the household Iron to put RED solarfilm on my stryker,
the first time it was used after that was to iron a white shirt [:@] Opps ! [>:]

nice touch the wishbone idea

i am hoping to have a CNC cut control arm instead of the need to cut/glue/trim the plywood to make a control arm,
i dont mind jigging up for CNC as i know most jets are gonna use either an all moving tail or similar elevator setup


Ray

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

And the dumb luck continues to occur.
Didn't get home till late last night. So really wasn't going to start any major work. So I decided to tinker with painting the plastic parts. I wanted mine to have a grayish top and white bottom, sorta like a shark. and of course I didn't have any gray paint handy so I figured I'd mix my own, making sure I had enough of it to do the complete bird.
Gray is pretty easy, a lot of white and a little black. Here's where the dumb luck comes into play. Instead of grabbing the white, I grabbed the white pearl and mixed in a couple of drops of the black. As soon as I started stirring it up I knew I had messed up. But all of a sudden the gray started to take on a shimmering effect, the black had grayed the white , but the pearl had made the color, ummm I really don't know how to explain it other then the color now shimmers. Too cool. Fired up the compressor, hooked up the air brush, and painted the insides of the plastic parts. The clear plastic just added to the shimmering effect, by adding shine to it. Man if I can duplicate this on the Depron, it is going to be one evil looking bird.
As for the paint, I did think ahead on it. I mixed up Faskolor paint, it's a waterbased paint for lexan, so no problem with adhesion to the plastic, easy clean up, and should work well on the Depron.
In the air this bird is going to look like a great white, cruising through the sunlit water.

Loubud

GG,
Did you say you were dumb or that you had dumb luck?

Glacier Girl

My Feedback: (4)

In my case .................BOTH.

Loubud

Ok. I went back and reread my posts. Didn't bother reading yours. I'm just soooo busy.

cadetman

Hi All

the First 10 Kits of the F16 will be put on the website at 2 Pm GMT on Sat 11th of Febuary 2006,
the website address is www.DepronJet.co.uk

i will set it up so if the first 10 go quickly you will still be able to place an order for the F16 and i will email you will a expected delivery date,

if it goes crazy and i cant meet the immediate demand i will remove it from the wedsite until i get full production set up and ready to Rock and Roll ,

i want happy customers with Full support from DepronJet.co.uk

Cheers

Ray