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Joined: 2/2/2004 From: San Antonio,
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I had submitted the power setup to Danny at JR in the "Ask Danny" forum for my Spektrum radio Rx and the servos, etc. that have been planned in, and he told me that with this setup the voltage regulators wouldn't be needed at all, and gave the thumbs-up to the rest. So we're good! I have some time today too......
Jim
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Coming toward you, rightside up or upside down, the low wing gets the stick. Thats THE LAW and it never changes, EVER.
Posts: 684
Joined: 2/2/2004 From: San Antonio,
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Got quite bit done yesterday!
I'm following along with the manual and recommendations and trying to stay right with the sequence of events. At the same time, I constantly was double-checking with the Addendum with the specific Edge-related information. It's not really a BIG hassle having to constantly refer to the addendum, it's just an extra step here and there, but it makes me a bit nervous that I'll forget to check during that ONE crucial moment and get ahead of myself. In reality it was a big help in choosing my additional hardware and servos and power requirement items. Would it be easier (and less stressful) if it were in a dedicated Edge 540 V2 manual? I'd have to say Yes. But has it been a real issue? No. Wild Hare did a good job on the way the manual and the Addendum are put together, and I'm finding myself relaxing and getting in the groove with it in no time at all.
General assembly comes first, and covers a lot of small details that make sure you have what you need, and help you to find out what you might NOT have or what is not correct. This helps Wild Hare to address any issues you have earlier rather than later. I liked that. I found two items that I thought might not really go in that section and might be done later just as easily, the Hardening of the Fuse Holes and the Canopy Hold-down. Neither is a big deal, of course. But all of these details being done before you proceed...THAT'S very important, and you realize it once you've had time to really see the process through. A lot of thought went into this. In fact, I may well find before I'm done that these other two items are right where they should be. That's why I'm following it all step-by-step.
The first item... Check the fit of the Wings and Stabs.
Okay...one of the issues I had read about before was a problem with the wing tubes. Mine was absolutely perfect, with just enough drag to know it was a good fit but not enough to struggle with. The wings fit beautifully to the fuselage(photo), but I noticed that the aft end of each wing it was not tight against the fuselage and showed a gap (photo). Is this the way it is supposed to fit? I don't know. In any case I do not believe it will affect the flight characteristics, so I moved right on. The wing dowels fit in VERY firmly, which I liked (photo). There is enough length there to make drilling for the cotter pin easy.
The Horizontal Stabs....the tube for those fit just as nicely. As I slid the Horizontal Stab over the tube, I thought that I was in trouble, though! The dowel set into the Stab was at a funny angle, and I thought to myself; "Well, THIS isn't gonna fit right!" (photo) yet, as I slid it in against the fuse, it popped precisely into the hole and the fit was absolutely beautiful! (photo)
Next Item. Go over covering with a heat Gun and/or Iron. They recommend that you go over everything with a heat gun, and suggest that you might want to use an iron on the edges first. I agree with that. The iron helps to secure the edges so that they will not pull away when you're stretching the rest of the covering with the heat gun. They also recommended that I use a soft cloth and follow up my Covering Iron and my Heat Gun (photo) with the cloth, and I press gently down to make sure that the activated glue gains the best purchase on the framework. Wild Hare points out that this has historically been something that can bear following up on, and we all do it anyway! (Don't we?) I had my buddy Andre helping me with this today.
Next...Cleaning out the hinge holes. This is a small thing, but REALLY important. Most glues don't like to stick to covering (unless you don't want it to!), so clearing the bits of covering flash out of the hinge holes insures that your glue of choice will have real wood to hang onto and soak into.(photo)
Wild Hare says that checking out the hard Points is important because the factory has been known to go too light upon occasion. As you can see by the photos, we gave them an impressive strength test. We found no problems on this bird.
Following up the gluing of other wood-to-wood joints...Okay, HERE we found a problem. As Wild Hare recommended, we checked the servo tray and the gluing there was pretty much nonexistent in spots.(photo) Certainly no problem to get to, though. We just soaked some thin CA into both sides all along it, and then followed up afterward with a nice bead of thicker CA. If I wasn't in a hurry I could have used some Polymer or aliphatic glue for that as well. No problem correcting this at all. A good tip from Wild Hare.
So far this manual has been right on the money and kept me moving forward with no hiccups. Ans Wild hare's building tips have made it easy going. It's been a breeze.
Next up we'll be fitting up the engine and cowl, probably later today. I already have the photos waiting!
Jim
< Message edited by Mainer_Jim -- 2/19/2008 5:36:59 PM >
_____________________________
Coming toward you, rightside up or upside down, the low wing gets the stick. Thats THE LAW and it never changes, EVER.
Posts: 684
Joined: 2/2/2004 From: San Antonio,
TX, USA Status: offline
Thanks, Keith. I appreciate it. I'm trying to be objective, honest I am. The problem is that I LOVE this 540 model! I guess that's what one would call a "Good" problem!
Okay, moving right along here....
BEFORE anything else, before you do another thing, and ESPECIALLY before you mount the rudder to the fin, this step comes next...
ENGINE MOUNTING. Wild Hare has this down to a science. I have struggled countless times trying to hold engines and mounts and god knows what else while I marked firewalls, hoping I was not shaking or holding it wrong before I drill and mount. See that little plywood plate that says 53CC on it? (photo) Well, friends, that little bugger fits onto the front of the engine mount box slicker'n all gitout. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
You take the fuselage and you simply stand it on the straightedge that the back of the vertical fin makes, and you strap it to a table with some good masking tape (photo). I use 3M 2060 Lacquer Masking Tape, it really holds well and doesn't leave gooey stuff behind, even if it gets wet. Also good for sheeting foam, but that's another review. I use it on all my modeling stuff, and you can get it at any Sherwin-Williams paint store, they're everywhere. You'll need to strap the Fuselage to a STRAIGHT edge of the table, it will stand there much better than if you try a round edge (trust me). Our building table was JUST high enough off the ground for the turtledeck to tuck under the edge and allow the plane to sit square and solid against the table, and this way the fin was also under the table and out of our way from kicking it. It's a pretty normal height as far as tables go, you should be able to do the same thing. You can't do this on a round table edge because the X's that form the framework of the fuse upper won't allow it to sit right against the edge.
This places your firewall flat and acessable. I used a small step-up kitchen stool to get positioned right. On the front of the engine mount box there are small crosshairs. I wish they extended across the whole firewall, but they didn't, so I extended them and matched them up to the crosshairs on the plywood plate in the photo below. I was supposed to mark the holes and remove the plate and position the engine, but I needed about 1/8th of an inch more height then my Oak spacers were giving me, so I decided I would mount the plate to the front of the firewall. Suffice it to say, once I had my engine height and position I could be pretty sure where my holes should go now. I could have gone with machined standoffs, I just had these handy and this is the hardest, densest Oak I've ever seen (photo). Should be fine. I needed to add 1 1/8" to my firewall to get my engine spaced out far enough to approximate 1/8" clearance between the cowl and the prop hub plate.
A couple of notes here. First, I used the screws and the front prop plate instead of the hub because the extended screws and plate gave me something more than just a shaft to grab onto (photo). It really made moving it around easy! I also felt that it helped a lot with getting even clearance all around it visually. Second, I am SO glad that I went with the Combo package here, this TOC 53CC engine (without the muffler bolted on) fits inside the cowl WITHOUT ANY CUTTING OUT (photo). Obviously, for cooling you're going to need to do some cutting later. But while aligning the engine within the cowl initially, it never came any closer than about an inch to the cowl inside! Taking the cowl on and off as we reset was a breeze. I took my time, and this was an EASY process thanks to standing the Fuse on end and because of that Roomy cowl. The cowl itself has a rear mount plate built right into it, and it simply sits right in place on top and a couple of screws hold it still. FANTASTIC.
Once the position was established, the cowl was removed for another once-over, and I noticed that the offset for thrust is just visible, and you can just see it in the last photo here. I didn't know if it would show in the photo, but I think you can see it.
One last note. If you get ahead of yourself and mount your rudder first, you're not totally screwed! I read another review where the guy mounted the landing gear and then HUNG it and secured it to the side of a 6' ladder. You WILL need an 8-foot ceiling for that, though!
I have a few things to finish up here before I can move on, I need to actually bolt the engine down securely and I have some additional gluing and bracing I want to do to the engine box, although it probably doesn't need any. Once I have that done I will publish the photos of the details for you to see, and then we'll move on with the build from there.
Jim
< Message edited by Mainer_Jim -- 2/20/2008 12:24:09 AM >
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Coming toward you, rightside up or upside down, the low wing gets the stick. Thats THE LAW and it never changes, EVER.
Posts: 684
Joined: 2/2/2004 From: San Antonio,
TX, USA Status: offline
I took a few more photos after I got the engine mounted. Some things I did with this are that I used hardened bolts that were 1/4", not so much for the holding power of bigger bolts, smaller bolts for sure would have worked, I actually wanted to use the larger lock washers and the larger nylon lock-nuts that went with them. I had to take just a touch of material off the engine holes to get them in, but I didn't feel I compromised the integrity at all, it was so little I took out when I drilled. I used 3" bolts and ran them from the engine back into the box and nutted them there. That was harder to do than the other way around, but the reason I did that was to keep the nylon lock nuts away from the heat of the engine. I washered everything inside the box when I nutted them. When I tightened them down the engine sank into the blocks just a little (The wood was so hard that just a little was as far as it would go anyway!). Once everything was done, I soaked and soaked thin CA into the wood around the nuts and washers in the box, and after that was well done I did the same to the blocks around the engine stands. Phew! My eyes are still burning, that thing soaked up some CA ! We placed the cowl back on and double-checked our positioning and made sure we bolted the cowl on, and I couldn't be more pleased with how it came out. Almost exactly 1/8" clearance all around! Follow the instructions laid out by Wild Hare, you'll be glad you did.
A side note: One thing I did that helped was that I started two bolts and bolted it down, then drilled the other two with a foot-long drill bit right through the mount-hole on the engine, so the last two bolts went in perfectly with no "convincing" needed and no "rattle...they were a good tight fit! Another side note. If you don't like fishing for parts down inside the fuselage or untaping and retaping it to the table, you'll probably want to stuff some newspapers into the fuse near the servo trays, covered with a cloth and with a decided lean towards the OUTSIDE of the fuse. Or tape some plastic inside leaning outward like a little slide. I happen to have an extendable magnet retriever-device, but I figured out it would be a lot easier just to do that first. After I went fishing a few times, that is! It's pretty easy to drop bolts and nuts, and that's where they'll go...straight DOWN into the fuse. ***SIGH***
On the "Cheers" side, the cowl is SO easy to mount on this, the cowl mount holes for the Allen screws are all easily accessible from the outside underneath, and from the top inside when the top cover has been lifted off. I'm amazed at the amount of pre-alignment that has been planned and engineered into this bird. You simply cannot advertise that kind of foresight and care, and as many different examples of it as I'm seeing here, a manufacturer would have to take out a 5-page ad! I very, very pleased with the quality so far. I've had a few PM's telling me that some of these things are common now and that I shouldn't make such a big deal about it. That may be, but I've been putting some ARFs together and I haven't seen anything that has even come close to having these features. I'm delighted with what I'm finding. By the same token, if I did not like what I was finding here I'd have my say that way too.
As it is, I'm excited enough about it that I hate waiting until the next time I can squeeze some spare time from my schedule to continue working on this build review.
Jim
< Message edited by Mainer_Jim -- 2/21/2008 7:06:41 AM >
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Coming toward you, rightside up or upside down, the low wing gets the stick. Thats THE LAW and it never changes, EVER.
Posts: 172
Joined: 12/24/2003 From: Herndon, VA, USA Status: offline
Jim, can you measure from the center of the exhaust port to the end of cannister wall inside the fuse? I want to try to squeeze a rear exit cannister in one of the extra's using the 53 and was curious how close it is going to be.
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Joined: 2/2/2004 From: San Antonio,
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Hi MLC...I can do that, but you know this is an Edge, right?
Here you go....from the center of the exhaust port in the engine to the rear of the canister hole at its closest point, the measurement is 16 3/4" on mine. If I had my clearance a little closer to the cowl that might be a bit less.
Are canisters a lot quieter than regular mufflers? I've never used one, I've always been curious about them though. And I haven't cut out the cowl yet here, so this is the time if I were to decide to have one!
Jim
< Message edited by Mainer_Jim -- 2/21/2008 12:37:55 AM >
_____________________________
Coming toward you, rightside up or upside down, the low wing gets the stick. Thats THE LAW and it never changes, EVER.
Posts: 172
Joined: 12/24/2003 From: Herndon, VA, USA Status: offline
Oh, and yes, the cannisters are pretty quite compared to the stock exhuast. I live in an area that is not friendly to noise so I try to keep all my planes as quite as possible.
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Joined: 2/2/2004 From: San Antonio,
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What are the preferred canisters or brands of canisters for the TOC 53CC engines? Keeping them as quiet as possible just makes sense to me. I'll have to read up some on them.
I'm probably going to go with the stock muffler initially so I won't have to stop this build review. I have some good momentum going with it and I'd like to keep that rolling.
Jim
< Message edited by Mainer_Jim -- 2/21/2008 7:08:57 AM >
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Coming toward you, rightside up or upside down, the
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RE: Wild Hare Edge 540T V2 Build / Review - 
