Quandry

Canopy progress - with the legs glued in place I followed the Rebel Instructions and marked cut outs on the fues while sitting the canopy close to it's final position. No big deal here easy enough to do with some painters tape, a ruler, pencil and some patience.



I found that a 2mm drill bit would give roughly the right size opening so a hole at either end and then open out the slot with a small dremel grining disc. It's useful here to have a second person to hold the vacuum pickup so that you can get two hands for cutting an make a neat job.



Seeing as my technique worked well the second side was much faster than the first and before I knew it it was time to look at the front pin. The Rebel kit comes with a (4mm?) carbon dowel approximately 10cm in length, it's already sharpened at either end which is a nice touch.

Quandry

Using the seam as the centre line I drilled the mounting hole several times starting at a small bit and moving my way up. I was careful here to try and send the bit in at the same angle as the fues so as to make it easier to dock the pin without having to twist the canopy in. When I was happy that the hole and pin were sitting correctly I used a conical Dremel bit to open out the hole a little at the opening to make it easier to dock when assembling at the field.



I then drilled the corresponding hole in the canopy, used some 15minute epoxy to get the pin in to an initial position



Once that was dried and the canopy fitting off and on the way I wanted to I then mixed up some Hysol to really lock down the pin and left it overnight to dry. Of course I used some strategic bits of tape here so that if the glue did happen to run in anyway the whole thing would not be glued together when I woke up in the morning. As it turns out it set and dried perfectly



Overall the canopy fitting is not a hugely labour intensive job but it does take a long time because you have to wait for glue to dry several times before moving on to the next step. So I've put in three nights already and still to make up the locking rods and I'm considering a locating magnet at the back also so more effort to come...

You can rush these jobs and do them much faster but it does annoy me when I get to the field and the canopy sits crooked by some tiny amount. Probably doesn't make a massive difference to the flying trim but just once of those nagging things that play in the back of my mind (I find).

bcovish

My Feedback: (8)

Just found some wire that fit snug in the nyrod. Don't know what size it is.

Quandry

No build update from me today because I was visiting the Weston Park RC show over the weekend. But I did take a few sneak pics of the installs behind the impressive performance of the Horizon Hobby Rebel Pro display team (Azza and Sonny). For interest here are the pics...

Quandry

I'm still waiting on one servo to come in but in the mean time figured I would fit the rest.. Starting with the elevator halves I made up 3mm links using Intairco hardware and screwed them home in holes I preset earlier.



I will be running my own servo leads so decided to convert the servos to Ashlock style lock connectors. The hitec connectors are normally pretty good but having the latch on the connector to ensure a positive lock is worth it for peace of mind (for me)



It's a little while since I ran the crimping tool so I figured I would make a short extension with the tail end I cut off for practice



That all went well so I changed over the servo connector and you can see a comparison of the two below, very discreet looking. Then it was just a matter of the same job on the other side and now the elevator halves are complete and put aside ready for flying!



Hopefully this weekend I can do the same on the main wings, and with luck should get the turbine/pipe installed also...

Quandry

A little delayed but still making progress.... I ran through some setup of the aileron servos. 3mm rods with aluminium ball links one end and clevis at the other.



The Hitec servos I have are a good fit for the wing and come with a few different horn options. Their thick (premium) horns are well up to the task and with the help of a single m2.5 washer glued in to place the M3 clevises are a perfect fit. The aluminium balls links are great, very light, precise and high quality. Their only downside is cost. I sourced these from Intairco in Australia but I found the same units available at Grumania also. If I see them for a good price at Jetpower I will scoop up a handful I think because they're handy to have!



The Rebel kit comes with a nice carbon composite retaining strap for the servos which holds them in place via a pinch grip. I found that the gap between the bracket and the wooden mount block was a little wide and by adding M2.5 washers it gives a nice solid surface to screw down on and a more compelling tolerance for the whole assembly without distorting the bracket.



Forgot to take a picture of the whole thing screwed down but I will take one of that and also the flap servos mounted - while I am tackling the wing wiring...

Quandry

Here's the aileron servo screwed down. Epoxy glass covers are included in the kit, they just need a little trimming to fit. I've purposely left a nut loose here to allow for adjustments when i'm dialing in the radio.



Flap servo installation is very simple, I did need to enlarge the opening for the control horn a tad. This was (I think) due in part to the height of the servo, if your chosen servo is not as high as these Hitecs probably no grinding is required





I then spent a little time making up wing harness with locking connectors. There's a few nice things you can do here with solid wing joiners etc - I will come back to that at a later stage - eager to get this bird in the air first!

Quandry

After bolting in the retracts I moved back on to the fues to tackle the tail wiring and tail pipe..

The Rebel kit has formers pre installed and nice fitment, good gluing throughout. I just needed to add a couple of small ports for the wiring harness to route.


The wires are HD and run through heat resistant sleeve but I also added some plumbers reflective heat tape, trying to keep things simple and lightweight here.


Same trick in the back to cover the elevator wiring. The tape would probably prefer a solid surface here rather than the ply formers but hopefully should stick and stay OK - time will tell



The pipe that is included in the kit is a very nice dual wall unit and has an impressive bell mouth included. This just needs drilling and I found some smallish M3 bolts to use for securing it.


The turbine rails are too tight for the bellmouth so time to cut some wood with the Dremel...

Quandry

After trimming the rails a little bit I got on with making the bell mounts. I set the bell centrally to the rails (note that the rails are not central to the turbine as it sits on mounting plates but it's a good start). My approach to finding the centre is set the string out reasonably taught then position the bell mouth until you have the widest width of string covered. Then you have the centre



I'm using the Grumania pipe fitting kit here, which includes aluminium straps that are in a handy size and also pop rivets. After marking the centre point, I create a rivit mark for the bracket.



One rivet would hold the bracket but I'm playing safe and going with two per side. The aluminium strips are easy to work with pliers, but be careful if you bend them too many times in different directions they snap in two - which turns out to be a handy way to adjust to the length you need



After some fiddling around due to the precise fit, the bell mouth is mounted to the pipe and the brackets ready to find a final resting place.



Before I screw the pipe down, I'll make up turbine mounting plates, matching plates for the pipe to get it nice and central to the turbine and also CG the whole plane to the in case I need to locate the turbine forward or aft in the model.

More fun to come...

Quandry

Didn't have a huge amount of time available last night but wanted to make a start on fitting my Merlin 140XBL... Should be a good performer is roughly the same size and weight as my k100G but circa 40% more oomph :O



Unfortunately the rails are not wide enough for the bell, but too wide for the turbine - they are solid and level though so that's the main thing.



I had a dig through my materials to see what I could make some mounts out of. Unfortunately I'm all out of carbon ply :/ so I relegated to 3mm epoxy glass. IMO it doesn't look as nice but holy smokes it's strong

There's some fierce amount of dust kick up when cutting this stuff though so I moved outside (sorry neighbours for the 9pm power tool run!!). The 45 degree Dremel head and a reinforced cutting disc went through the G4 like a hot knife through butter



Turbine mounts and spacers for the pipe ready to move in to phase 2 of fitting and drilling.

Quandry

I changed my mind on wing connections and decided to go back to a single locking connection instead of two.



Aileron, Flap, Retract, Brake in one connector with two spare pins for a light add on later down the track



Starting to work on the fueslage side harness. This is retract and brake connections for the Electrons

Si_B

Looking good. I've sold mine due to just taking on too many projects. Will enjoy watching you build yours.........works out much cheaper !!

Simon

cmjets

Geoff, why you jot use MPX 8 pins ? I used that Conectors in my Ultimatun and perfect !
4 pins for gears and brakes and + - and 2 signals for aileron and Flap.

Quandry

Sometimes a good idea to thin out the hangar a bit Si, never know what the future may hold

Cheers Carlos, I did look at those connectors they seem very good but I prefer to have a locking connector. Also I still have capacity for another 2 pins for lights in the future

Quandry

Moving along with the fueslage end connectors I marked out a slot to cut with the dremel, and also ran the wiring for ailerons and flaps:



With just a small dab of canopy glue or silicon I can hold these in place, making assembly/disassembly at the field that little bit easier



Then it was time to drop the wheels, put everything in to the model and put it on the Xicoy CG meter for the first of probably 3 meter checks through the assembly.


With the canopy fitted I received a total weight of 10.4kg (dry) and CG back about 10mm behind the centre CG point. That's OK because I plan to use slightly bigger RX batteries than what I have in there now and also I'll be using a slightly bigger tanks and also smoke tank. So overall it's heading in the right direction.

After gaining some confidence on the layout, I wanted to push ahead on finishing the turbine/pipe install. Test fit and marking:



Drilling the mounts, I'm using 4 x M3 stainless bolts with plain nuts +threadlock.



A few more jobs to do on this, should hopefully be locking down the turbine for good tonight or tomorrow night

Quandry

The Rebel rails needed a little trim to fit the bolts holding the adaptor plates. The Dremel was HOT cutting these. It seems that the wood used for the rails is good and solid, yet still fairly light - impressive



After roughly setting the tail pipe exit length, I borrowed a trick from Alex at the Little Jet Co and made up a 30mm measuring plate to check the pipe to turbine clearance. The bell mouth on the supplied pipe is huge and the M140 is a compact turbine, it nearly disappears in there!



Drilled some holes, installed captive nuts and bolted it down - so far so good!



Tonight I hope to finish the tail pipe alignment and hopefully kick off either some fuel plumbing or wiring layout. Wish me luck!

Quandry

I set the pipe last night, no new photos because it was just basically take a final measure and screw down what I'd already set out. Using a piece of string to extend out the eflux line it *looks* like it's all heading in the right direction. The next checkpoint will be to fly it and see if there's any unusual thrust vectoring with throttle on...

Next move is to make up the Electronics plate and I'm also expecting some CMJets tanks (yay!) in the post and have some ideas to explore on making pump mounts etc... more to come

Quandry

My CMJets tanks arrived (thanks Carlos!), so I figured I'd switch over my tank plumbing to the larger size. The tank that came with my kit is the standard 3L size but now I am changing up to 4L. I use a 2.9L tank on my Xcalibur and get about 6 minutes of flying on a K100G. Because I'm using a Merlin 140 in this jet I figured an extra litre of fuel would be handy. If it turns out that 4L is too heavy for the grass runways here then I will just fill it less. By having the bigger tank it allows me to experiment and see what works for me.



CMJets supply a super size bullet for the pickup, I am sticking with my felt setup though as they've always worked well for me. Just a matter of switching over on to the new fuel pipe though and making sure the clunk is at the right length for the new tank and then screwing on my 6mm Festo connections. I'll be doing a smoke pump tank install with 4mm connections but that's at a later stage.



With the tank sitting in place we have to find a way to make it stay put. I figured I would mount my air trap right in front and also some arresting hooks on the back of the tank. Starting with the air trap it's time to break out the scroll saw and make up a 4mm carbon ply plate.



After some scuffing of the glue surfaces a clean coat of hysol and strapped down for the glue to dry.



Next step is to make up a dual use trim/accessories panel for behind the tank. Time to source a Cornflakes box and some scissors to put the cardboard to good use as a template...

number27

You will find 4 litres perfect. I get approx 10 minute flight mixed throttle settings with my Rebel and 140XBL. CMJets tank and smoke as well Geoff.No problems with grass either.I also use the Xicoy fuel telemetry device. Alarm set to 30% so as if I am on the gas more so one flight I know that the same amount of fuel in case of go around happens I have enough left approx 700ml.

cmjets

Hi, i will install a Merlin 160 and I will install the 4L too and smoke tank of course !!!

Regards from Spain
Carlos
www.cmjets.com

Quandry

Hey guys, sorry for being silent on the build for a few weeks. I was waiting for parts to come in so I tackled a Mini Avanti build and also had to do some DIY on my new hobby room setup in the house. So I'm just back for air now, my parts are in and it's time to get this Rebel back on track.

Some good stuff done but quite a bit of work still to do...



The CMJets smoke tanks is nicely shaped to the cavity directly in front of the turbine. This should be good placement when considering the CG, the only problem is that it's not a drop in fit with the turbine rails placed where they are.



The easy fix though is to trim back the rails on one side and then it will slot nicely in to place



I considered the idea to even up the rails, but I have the feeling there will be some valves or smoke tube mounted on the other side so figured I will leave it be for now and I can always even it up later when the build is more complete.

Next step is to come up with a mounting system for the smoke tank, I'm considering gluing on some aluminium tabs to make it easy screw in - screw out.

Quandry

Moving on with the fuel tanks install, I broke out the scroll saw last night and started making brackets to make sure everything will be secure. The first job was a large piece suitable for holding the fuel tank from the back and also mounting Turbine/Smoke controls on to, this is locked down with Hysol as it will protect the wing tube and also hold some weight.



Then I made up a securing mount for the tank at the back. I already have a tab at the front and will compliment this with a top brace also





Using tape to isolate parts that need to be removable from mounts that are glued in to place



I hope that will be enough to hold the tank, this is the plus size - 4 litres so I am concious that there is a lot of weight in 4 litres of Kero and you don't want that to break loose in the air! :O

Quandry

Getting back to the CM Jets smoke tank we can see it's a conformal shape to the body.



In order to get a good fit and give some grip I'm using TREX 600 hook and loop under the tank, this is great stuff super stick, although it does perish pretty quick if Kero gets on it so needs to be backed up by solid mounts also - especially considering that the tank holds 1.5 litres.



I made up some G10 mounting brackets front and back and also mount blocks to glue in, these will make sure that the screws get a solid hold in to the fues formers



Tanks mounted, screwed, and glued - setting over night



Lastly I put some coats of sand and seal on the Turbine rails to get them ready for paint.

Quandry

Sand N Seal looking good on the rails so I masked up and sprayed in Metal Coat Polished steel which gives a nice effect.







Next steps are to put the tail wiring back in and start installing fun stuff like the Turbine ECU, Pump, Smoke pump etc.

Quandry

Well the tail wiring is now re-installed, routed in protected braid, and taped down with aluminium tape. Also locked down the pipe and glued in the turbine blind nuts - getting there!



Before installing the turbine I want to finish any dusty work at the back, this means canopy pins and wing retaining bolts. I'm going to follow the suggestions of BobC and others here and go with the two long pin method. I picked up some Carbon rod at my LHS with accompanying sleeve.





Measured out where I want the rod to run, drilled the canopy first, scuffed up the mating surface and glued the guides home - first with some 10min epoxy to locate them and later seam stiching with Hysol for the full overnight cure



If everything went well then tonight I can drill the fueslage for the pins and may also look at installing a magnet to make sure the whole thing sits nice and secure. No harm having belt and braces