bcovish

My Feedback: (8)

I made some adapter plates out of 1/4 ply. It gave the right height to center the turbine in the tail pipe

This is the small Rebel

roger.alli

This is a great thread Quandry.. . Thanks for posting your progress.. I think however, that you may be understating your building skills. It looks like you have these nose doors well under control..

At risk of hijacking your thread,, (I was going to post this the other day when you were not going to install doors.) Here are some pics of a nose gear door conversion of my Bobcat.. I used a similar technique to a Bandit I built a few year back. A different method to what you are doing, but I find it interesting and quite useful to see different techniques.

I do like models with doors..

Quandry

My kit came with adaptor plates for the turbine so it will look something like Bob's when finished.

Quandry

Thank you for the compliment Roger - you are very kind, and thank you for the door pictures. Like you said it helps a lot to see different methods up close to give ideas and also much needed encouragement. Btw, it's not my thread so hijack away!!


Last nights Rebel progress - a quick update:

Having discovered that the pump inlet on my Merlin 140XBL is 6mm and not 4mm, I decided to upgrade the fuel chain to 6mm fittings which involves just a little bit of rework and some different fittings in from Intairco. I also managed to source a very nice hi flow felt clunk from Nexus Models:





The Festo 6mm connectors are immediately recogniseable next to 4mm they look BIG. I am changing out pickup and vent fittings on the UAT and Tank and will also fit a 6mm breather from the fues. The fill line will stay as 4mm - no real need to go bigger as it would mean changing around my whole fuel station. This is a nice feature of the Intairco setup, you can scale up and down or customise as it suits because you can also run straight connectors or nipples - whatever you want really.

Quandry

The UAT fittings are very easy to change up.


The large clunk is a TIGHT fit through the Intairco filler neck, and I found that I had to move the o-ring on to the felt side of the clunk to actually get it through. Just something to keep in mind if you're buying those fittings it might be better to use a neck with a bigger cavity.



Fuel pickup remade, safety wired, and 6mm fittings. Tank leak checked and it's ready to roll



As a final touch I did some light dremel work blipping the doors here and there so they open without getting caught, this required little notches at the hinge points because of the extra door width with the hinge foot glued in situ. Time consuming, but satisfying and stress relieving work. I have a nice cup of tea and radio playing in the background to drown out the sound of Eastenders or Coronation street which is playing in the front room.... LOL

bcovish

My Feedback: (8)

Geoff, ditto on what Roger said about your build. Even though my Rebel has been flying for a while, I'm following your build.

Quandry

Thank you also Bob

Out of interest, does your Rebel require elevator down trim with flaps on for landing? and lets have some pictures of you model at the flying site for motivation!!

cheers,
Geoff.

bcovish

My Feedback: (8)

Geoff, yes my Rebel requires a little down elevator with full flaps. Don't have the plane with me right now. It's in Dallas.

Quandry

Thanks Bob I'll plan around that in my TX programming.

Last night I finished trimming the bay doors and installed the front door. Also took a look at how to mount the servos etc, seems like a bit of work to be done but we have a long weekend here this weekend so hopefully get it all put together as the tail pipe and turbine are calling me....



I think it looks good

Quandry

Been busy with flying and family activities so only a quick update..

The hinged door system leaves some gaps behind so I've been making up internal skirt pieces to close the gaps. I found that .4mm epoxy glass is a good size because it will conform to the shape of the model but still be strong enough to help seal the door. It's also possible to cut with a stanley knife and can be adheres strongly with CA. I've got those trim pieces in place now and will start on retract door servo mounts soon.



For a change of scenery I took a look at trial fitting the tail plane.



The kit comes with aluminium dowl tubes that are supposed to align the body with each elevon wing. I took some measurements and everything seemed to line up so I just went with drilling and hand finishing the factory marked holes



I then found that the tail plane control surface fouls partially on the body at extreme throw.


You would never use this amount of throw in the air but I wanted to make sure it was fully clear and would never have a chance to bind so I trimmed down the offending part and made up a blanking plate to be glued in



I then ground down the pins on the gluing surface and glued them home. This morning when I checked the plane one side was perfect, the other side is out by 1 or 2mm :/ Unfortunately the pin moved, no big deal though I guess some adjustment with the dremel and re-inforcing plates will soon get everything lined up 100%

Quandry

Carrying on with the elevator halves, I tackled the fixing. The manual shows two options, one with a carbon tube which uses a screw in to wood and one with an aluminium tube that uses a screw in to a taped hole method.. My kit has the carbon tube but I will use a hybrid of the two approaches:



First step is to draw on a center line using tape and a piece of string. The manual gives the prefered depth as being 1cm shorter than the end of the tube. It takes a quick bit of simple math and a measuring tape to work out where the hole sits but nothing too taxing



Then it's just a matter of carefully drilling a hole through the outer skin and wing tube. While a wood screw could work perfectly fine here, I prefer something that looks a bit nice so I used an M3 bolt and captive nut system. I tacked this little plate in place with CA, and then later came back some Hysol to make sure it really didn't want to move. By the same token I epoxied in the captive nut because it would be very frustrating to be at the field and have that pop out of the plate while trying to attach the elevator to go flying:



Once the first side was done it was easy to repeat the process for the other side and the finished result is good:



I am considering gluing a tapered washer in to the wing to take the load of the bolt because it does distort the wing a little bit when screwed down tight. Another consideration would be to use a spring washer to avoid the bolt unscrewing in flight - although this can also be mitigated by 'dirtying up' the threads a bit with blue locktight. Some things to think on..

Quandry

In the meantime I wanted to finish up work on the nose gear/door system. First job was to come up with a mounting for the forward door. I decided to make up a side mount plate from carbon look ABS. The Hitec 5070MH servos I am using are very compact so give a lot of options for mount design.



And mounted in place for the M2 link system (Intairco ball links). Note the forward facing screws so that the servo is easilly removable.



Then the bomb bay doors, these were a little easier to build as there is more room on the other side and it's easier to get to the servo screws if you need to replace a servo



Gluing in to place with Epoxy. Once I know this all works well I will lock them down with hysol.



And then it was a case of hooking up the Electron GS200 controller box, running through a fairly simple initial config and my door sequencing works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sAxhd37C2M I am going to do some tweaking on the sequence to see if I can reduce the time involved in the doors closing after the wheel, I'd prefer not to have them hanging out in the breeze unnecessarily...

roger.alli

Nice Work! Much better than a big ugly hole in the bottom of the fuse

Quandry

Thank you sir

I know this is moving at a snails pace, but unfortunately I only have a small bit of time each night to do a bit. Would be great to be able to build RC planes all day but that won't pay the bills so I have to be content with the snails pace

The latest activity is that I started work on fitting the canopy. From an initial look I think it looks good, can't see any issues coming as the fitment seems spot on:



The manual calls for a former to be installed. There's no measurements given and it does not seem to just drop in to any particular spot.... hmm



I went with this location, it seemed to make the most logical sense - caution is needed here though because I found that it can distort the form of the canopy which makes it fit funny.



The way to make sure it fits well is to tape down the canopy before the glue has finished setting and then we can be sure it fits well when the glue dries.

Quandry

Another couple of quick tweaks... the canopy secures via hooks and a single front carbon pin. The manual calls for a re-inforcing plate to be glued in to the bridge of the nose. Although it gives the shape of a piece there is no piece included in the kit. I decided to layer up some carbon look ABS and flight ply. That will give a good hold and decent look to it. This was just a matter of tracing around the shape with a piece of paper and then cutting out the material.



That's glued in now so I will make a corresponding piece for the canopy itself and try my best to align it precisely before drilling. This is one of my least favourite jobs because a misaligned canopy is annoying - *queue sweating and heavy breathing*

In the meantime I fitted, aligned, and glued the wing incidence pins. The body will be drilled to suit later, and this is made easier by trimming back the pins a little bit, they only need to be long enough for the wing to nudge up against the sadle and not move.



A bit of scuffing of the pin to make sure the Hysol will grab.

gbarnes

Quandry.... Excellent work and a great job of documenting everything.
I personally have been waiting on a replacement fuse as mine was damaged during shipment and have not had time to get started. I have paid close attention to all of your enhancements and getting excited to get started. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to look at a rebel up close and found that they attached the canopy in the same manner as they do the larger rebel. This is using two music wire "pins" running through nyrod. One on each side which is accessed through the gap in the canopy. Very clean and very secure. I liked this much better than the spring loaded latch the instructions call for and did not include in my case. Here are a couple of pictures I took.
Keep up the great work and the photos.
Thanks,
Gary

Quandry

Thanks very much Gary I hope your fuse gets replaced real soon.

I have some latches on hand but have not been super impressed with them. I am going to the Weston Park RC show this weekend so hoped I might see something a bit more heavy duty there. I like the photos you shared - will have a good think about this system and see if it's right for me.

cheers,
Geoff.

bcovish

My Feedback: (8)

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The two pictures of the hatch above are from my Rebel
Originally the hatch was held on by a BVM type latch. Changed to the rod system which is so much more secure. A friend made a antenna with a 3D printer and was glued in the slot.

Quandry

Yes the Rod system looks very good, how do you secure the rod from moving in and out in flight? is there a little clip that holds the part of the rod that is turned at 90 degrees?

Quandry

I only had an hour to tinker on the build last night so just a quick update.

Made up a flight ply reinforcement plate for the inside of the canopy and glued that home. Once the canopy legs are fitting well I can fit and glue the main pin



Taped and measured the slots for the canopy legs. I checked this against the fues but in the absence of any cutting marks etc, I'm just using the 'eyeball it' approach.



They're sitting square and where I want them so its time to glue them from the underside with Hysol



I checked the glue and everything dried well and where I wanted it this morning. In hindsight though I thought of a better way to do this would be to make some discreet mounting blocks glue the leg in to the block (through a slot) and then glue the block to the canopy. Would have used less glue and been an overall neater setup... If one of my friends builds a Rebel or I build a Pro in the future I will do that. I might try and grind away some glue and retrofit a block in behind the leg anyways...


Tonight I want to cut the slots in the fues for the legs, that should be carefully measured, drill a hole each end, then use the thin cutting disk (deep breaths lol) to try and get a clean cutout.

Si_B

The retaining rod on mine just pushes backwards into the inlet area. I don't think any but airflow and friction stops it from moving (can't see how it could slide forward).

Can have a look at how it was done from factory tonight and post a few pictures to help you decide?

Ran out of funds, so don't think mine will be touched till next year.

Simon

gbarnes

Yes,
I think with the slight bow in the wire friction holds it in place. Seemed to operate smoothly.
GB

Quandry

Sure all pictures welcome

The only reason I thought of a retainer clip was in case they slide forward if you're in a dive and then the canopy blows off. Could be exciting!! :O

bcovish

My Feedback: (8)

retainer clip not necessary. No way they are going to slide forward. If you are in a dive where the rods COULD even begin to slide, you have bigger things to worry about.
Mine would have to slide about 3" before coming out of the fuselage

Quandry

Sounds like the way to go alright Bob. Do you recall what diameter the rods are - M2?