Steve108

My Feedback: (36)

I'd like to get this post filled with repair tips for slow sticks. Just add any advice you have.

My first tip is that when your tail foam breaks you can fix it with hot glue and this works very well.

AndyL

Tip 1: Replace the aluminum wing braces with brass. I kept putting this off till I folded the wings while doing a loop. It flys really badly with the wings folded! Brass is incredibly stiff compared to aluminum. The best 89 cent repair you can make.

Tip 2: When you break your prop just reglue it with medium thick CA. I have done this many times (last night in fact) and never had one fail in flight. They may break easier than new but you can just keep repairing them. Sure beats waiting for the mail or for the LHS to restock props.

Tip 3: Ad thin monofilament guy wires to the tail. Make 1/8 in slits just forward of the elevator and stick a straight pin in the top of the tail. Run the monofilament from the pin to the slits and tape it on the bottom. The wires should not be tight enough to bend the stabilizer, just to prevent the rudder from flexing, especially after it's been broken and repaired.

PhoenixM3

New to the RC plane thing. Excuse my ignorance, but what is hot glue.

Thanks,

Jeff

Bill G

As for the aluminum boom joiner collapsing, your LHS should sell aluminum tubing that fits directly over the original diameter tubing. This doubling of tubing solved my strength problem. It is kinda funny, however, when one wing goes up, and the plane goes down.

RandyT

It's not an R/C item, he's talking about a hot glue gun, the ones your find in the hardware store. Uses a glue stick heated in a glue gun, pull the trigger and you have a line of hot glue.

bryris

Is there an online store that someone can link to for me, that contains the brass joiners that can go right over the stock aluminum joinder?

Thanks,

Time Pilot

Bryris,

The brass tubing usually sold in hobby stores is from K&S Engineering.

Tower Hobbies sells it, but I don't think you can order just one. I would order from www.greathobbies.com (a Canadian site). I know you can buy one piece from them.

The tricky part is knowing what size you'll need to fit over the existing tubing. I think the 1 800 number for Great hobbies is a line in the store. If you have the OD for the aluminum tube, they may be able to help you get the right tube. I don't think you need to double up on the tubing if you go with just straight brass tubing--I've never heard of that being done, though it wouldn't hurt, I suppose.

PhoenixM3

Thanks for the tip, Steve. I was thinking that hot glue was some special foam safe glue, that I'd never heard of before.

Jeff

nick.wright

My Feedback: (16)

Trash the stock foam tail. Cut new ones out of 2 mil coroplast. The coro doesn't weigh much more than the foam, and will last alot longer!!!!!

RandyT

Over in RC Groups, they were mentioning that actually the new SS's come with a thicker aluminum wing brace. I have some laying around and I'd have to check, but it was mentioned that these were actually stronger then the K&S brass tubing which can be bent by hand, while the new braces on the SS couldn't be bent, or it took alot of pain to get it to bend.

Time Pilot

If true, nice to see a company taking care of the small things!

AgCat1982

Everyone may know this, but, here is a tip for those who do not.

If you bend the fuselage stick, you will most likely break it trying to straightening it. When this happens, take the two pieces and cut the bad parts (the part you find you cannot straighten back to a square) off smoothly. Then, using a screw driver, knife or any piece of metal that is flat and can be inserted into the square tube, to make the edges as straight as you can leaving no burr's. File the open ends of the tubes to a kind of knife edge on all four sides. This will help cut the balsa. Next take a piece of your strongest balsa that's at least same size or larger than the hole in the tube and about 3 inches long.. You can push the balsa into the hole about half way, remove it, align the other end directly with the fresh cut end and push the tube thru it until it meets the other cut.

You now have a perfectly cut plug to use to put the fuselage back together. Attach with one small screw on each tube (preferred) or glue it. If you lost much of the tube in the breaking, leave that much exposed between the two tubes. You can then wrap the patch with nylon reinforced packing tape to make it stronger. That's your choice.

There. If you break it in the same place, just make another one in a couple minutes and away you go!

I love mine.

Good winds to you[8D]