bandit357

hi Hank, what looks like a bike lane, is the taxi way to the runway.. Apollo field is quite large, and the taxi way is almost longer than our club runway, they have a 900 ft runway at apollo. as for the wind, we had 60 mph here at home all week after a great weekend. the weekend before we had 30 mph winds, the good news was it was right down the runway, so not much a problem, and my new SIG skybolt flys great in the wind.

final note here, does anyone know where to get the scale wheels for the fleet? i will need to replace them soon, and i cant seem to find the ones to replace mine. ( no brand name)

bandit357

my wheels almost look like williams Bros smooth baloon? maybe?

HOT COALS

  Bandit 357. I have 3 set's of wheels that I use. Depending on the field I fly out  of. DuBRO 6" inch ( ballon, & cub wheels) . Depending on how much you want to spend , you can look up ZEROLI on the web. Not cheap. But scale looking . Hope this helps some. I mostly fly out my field in the back yard. 50x500 FT. 10 acare land.   HANK # 20

Kinner

I use DuBro 1/3 scale Cub wheels for mine.

Ray W

retransit

My Feedback: (18)

Bandit I use these:

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXD787&P=SM

Other choices could be these:

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXD804&P=SM

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXD770&P=SM

Bob

retransit

My Feedback: (18)

I don't know of an RTF, but if you have the urge and not the source, take a look at Hostetler's offering:

http://www.hostetlersplans.com/voyager108.html

Bob

dgliderguy

Hank #20,

I have the ECOM R/C Stinson 108A Voyager (91" span), that I got from Troy Built Models in Florida. Currently they are out of stock, but the next batch of ARF kits from China may have some of these in the shipping container. I haven't started mine yet, but it looks to be a nice model, with good scale fidelity and acceptable laser-cut thin-ply construction, covered in Oracover. I will be putting a RCG26 in mine. Keep an eye out for it on the TBM website, or give them a call.

Don.

bandit357

thanks guys, i have thought of using the 6 inch balloon tires, however, as you can see from the pic, the scale landing gear may not have enough axle length for the balloon wheels, i an thinking of getting them anyway, they will fit my CUB.

check out the pic, you can see where the wheel is held on from the inside of the inside hub half. the outer half has a socket over the end of the axle, soooo, for now i have tried to fix the tire with SHOEGOO, i will try it this weekend and see if it holds up..

retransit

My Feedback: (18)

You can easily fix the short axle. Take a piece of brass tubing that fits snugly over the axle and cut the length you need to clear the hub with a bit left over to allow a hole to be drilled through it beyond the existing axle. The drilled hole will allow a cotter pin and washer to secure the wheel. A small stainless 00-80 screw can also be used with a nut to secure the wheel. I have used this on a number of models and it works. I have my wheels on the 24 lb. Fleet secured in this manner.

Bob

bandit357

if needed, i might go for it, i am still hoping the Shoe goo does the trick. and for more pics, thanks to Mike Gaasch for the great shots, she is a beauty in the air for sure.

Kinner

Nice color scheme.

Ray W.

HOT COALS

Thank's Don. For the info.. I have been watching TBM. to see when they are availibile. I wished they would come in different colors. Right now I am in the process building one nown. From Holster plans. That my DAD had built some year's ago. The plans are old & faded some. I will be using F&MENTERPISE( sitls) covering on her. And be putting a saito twin gas eng. in. It will be modify some like my dad's. I already had cut the wood. Almost finished with last fleet I am building for a friend. Thank's again HANK # 20.

HOT COALS

 Thank's for the info. BOB. I do have a set of Hostetler plans. They are old and faded some. ( like me). I was thinking of getting one from Hobby Lobby. But the Frght chrg is out of line. $250.00. For what they are charging for the plane & frght.. I could build  4 complete.  Since I do my own F/G parts. And cutting wood.  Thank's Again. HANK # 20.

HOT COALS

 GORDON. I rec, your CK, today for the fleet plans. Will ship out  tomorrow 4/23/ 2013. I do have one that is built. IT needs to be recoved. If interested  E MAIL me . It can be broken dwn, for shipping. Very good shape.  HANK # 20.

dabrown

Now doing the last bit of diddlying around before painting, since it's been windy and other things going on. I did the gear struts starting with the triangular piece from the kit then added around the wire legs using the same method as the cabane struts. Then a 1/4" ply piece on top of the triangle piece to screw mount the aluminum. Struts painted silver for fill but will be green. Wheel hub caps will be green or silver...can't decide.

I mentioned before, but for reference, this is aluminum sheet from Home Depot. Cuts with scissors and overall easy to work with. $3.49 for a 24" x 12" piece; used for dryer vents, etc. #2 screws from Microfasteners these may be slightly too large for scale. They also sell smaller (much smaller!) but that's going beyond my fingers', eyes', and drill bits' capabilities.

Dave

retransit

My Feedback: (18)

Really neat work, Dave.

Bob

Kinner

'Tis a nice treatment for a difficult area.

I'll remember that one.

Ray W.

bandit357

Shoo Goo WORKED.. i put several flights on her, and even bounced her sideways down the runway during a cross wind landing... tire is still perfect.. ( a little history here with Shoe Goo, while racing sprint cars, we would use Shoe Goo to fix our fuel cells, so i figured it would work on a tire.. YEP, sure did) now i know what to use on these foam rubber tires..

here are a couple pics from this weekend, check out the new plane, a Bridi Rearwin Speedster, this baby flies like a pattern plane, just a thrill.

retransit

My Feedback: (18)

Does anyone actually use Shoe Goo on shoes?

Bob

Kinner

I did. A long time ago family member was an avid runner. He ran daily 5 miles on his lunch hour. He used the goo alot to get his running shoes to last longer. He routinely wore the sole off before the uppers were broke in.

Interesting, all the running led to hip fissures and he got grounded for a spell to see if his hip bones would heal up. They did heal, he retired , got a job with NorthWest Airline and within the year , doctors found a heart fault that took his medical away for good.

There is your shoe goo story with a moral in there somewhere.

Ray W

dabrown

The weather's been good so I've been doing some painting over the last few days. The fuselage color is Forest Green Randolph dope. I sprayed one coat then wet sanded then a second coat. That turned out OK. The sheet metal fuselage pieces were painted separately the pics show them installed with the screw heads unpainted which I plan to do with a small brush.

Then I went ahead and laid down a coat of clear on the cowl but that didn't turn out well. Since it was a small piece, I used my Preval cannister sprayer. But for some reason, the clear didn't flow out well and it came out blotchy. Don't know if you can see it in the pics, but it looks crappy. I think the problem is that this little sprayer can't put out enough pressure and the atomized paint droplet size is too large. I also hadn't used any retarder. So, I'll ending up sanding it all down and redoing it with my regular spray rig.

Next is a stripe down the side of the fuse which will be Tuscon Cream color to match the wings.

I'm also trying making decals for the Fleet logo to go on the rudder. I'll post some results of that when it's done.

Dave

dabrown

I tried the decal logo this morning and it seems to have worked well.

I see this method as another option to vinyl or laser cut paint masks. I used the logo drawing somebody posted a while back (can't find it now but it's here somewhere). Then used it in my CAD program to draw it in vector format. Then I was able to fill the color the paste into Word to size and print. You can also color fill in Word if the drawing is a metafile and has line grouping info. Word allows you to ungroup and it should work such that each fleet letter is a separate group so it can be color filled.

One limitation with this method is that the inkjet printing doesn't produce a totally opaque result. In this case, there is no way to print a cream color to go on top of the green paint color. So I first painted a cream color disc on the rudder then sized the logo to fit inside the disc some fleets were done this way.

I got the decal paper at www.decalpaper.com. The process is to print the artwork on the decal paper then spray it with clear acrylic. Then you soak the decal in water until it can slide off. I trimmed the decal to a circle just outside the round logo.

I did a test of doping on the decal and there didn't seem to be any problems with the decal wrinkling, etc.

Dave

retransit

My Feedback: (18)

Good work, Dave. Looks like a very doable method for insignia, etc. Thanks for posting the info.

Bob

dabrown

Hi folks,

Got the rest of my painting done over the last few weekends. Overall it was 2 coats clear, 1 coat Rand-o-fil, three coats color and 1 or 2 coats clear.

Worked on the tank and throttle installation today and just need to install the battery, receiver, and the expensive little
futaba servo reverser for the elevators. Waiting on a new battery from Tower, aka, ARF Superstore. For the wing what remains is aileron install and flying/landing wires.

Almost ready to fly. The instrument panels and cockpit details will have to wait...although I don't think I can fly it without windshields so maybe I'll start them this weekend while waiting for the battery.

Took it out in the 100+ heat for these pics.

Dave

Kinner

I like the tires.

Real nice work overall

Ray W.