damifino

Here are a couple of pictures of my first float plane. I finished my Venture 60 in the spring of 2005 and put around 70 land based flights on it last summer. This past fall I purchased a foam core float kit from Niagra Custom Model Products and here is the result of my conversion. It has scratch built aluminum struts, retractable dual water rudders, and scale-like rudder rigging. Power is Saito .80. First flight off of water is to be tomorrow morning, Jan. 29.

Wayne22

My Feedback: (2)

Looks really really nice! They make great float planes..your set up looks good Have fun with it!

damifino

Thanks! Really looking forward to seeing it on the water. The color scheme looked great in the air without floats so I'm excited that it's time to go to the lake with it.
Yee haaa! 2 Flights, no problems! 4 touch and go splashes. Floats and plane seem to be a perfect match. I can't wait for better weather. This morning the wind was 15-20 mph, starting to rain and 55 degrees, other than that it was perfect. At least the water was not real choppy. The dual water rudders made taxiing very easy even with the wind. Take off was effortless, no prop splash, just a very smooth and quick departure. Also used flaperons for the first time today. Set them about 30 degrees down and in the breeze we had today she would land at a walk light as a feather. Float flying- I'm hooked!!!

cf-drg

My Feedback: (1)

Great job and nice finish....With building skills that good your going to have to build a scale floatplane now...

damifino

How about a 1/4 scale Super Cub from a Sig kit, Balsa USA floats and a Saito 150? That's in the works! Thanks.

Oregon Craig

If you did that nice a job on a set of those floats, you are a hell of a builder.
I tried to build a set once, but I am all thumbs. I'll stick to ARF or kit floats.
Whenever anyone comes on RCU asking about those, I always warn them that
they better have scratch building experience. You need to carve a square block of
foam and a square block of wood into something that looks like a set of floats.
You did a very nice job. Mine are sitting here with no plane on top of them. []

damifino

Thanks for the compliments. As for the floats I must disagree with your postion on the NCMP floats. I had never before done anything involving foam core construction so that was new to me. However, I followed the instructions and advice from the manufacturer to the letter- i.e. Use Titebond II glue for the sheeting! I also did the glassing with the Minwax Polycryl method described in the instructions. Again, I'd never attempted glassing a model before doing these floats and I am VERY pleased with the results. The foam cores were shaped from the manufacturer as you see them in the pictures I posted. I did have to sand the balsa bow blocks to a final shape ( they were already roughed out ). The angle strips along the bottom edge are simply Evergreen plastic angle CA'd onto the floats before painting. All in all I give the NCMP floats a 9.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. They look great and perform even better..This is my 2nd kit built plane. The first was a Sig Kadet- 25 years ago.

parkem

Hey, you did a great job on the plane and the float set-up. It looks really sweet in the air! I am looking forward to getting my planes together for the nice weather!

Good job!

[sm=thumbup.gif] George

ACA (Abbotts Creek Aviation)

Oregon Craig

My instructions said to use contact cement. The foam melted. He has since changed the instructions. When I pointed out that they were changed, he said it had nothing to do with my pointing out that they were wrong. He said he was going to change them anyway, (the instructions) and it was a coincidence.
Anything is possible, I suppose.

He has obviously also started to "rough-out" the big blocks, also. That would have helped me a ton.

When I was trying to trim the balsa at the joints, it split up past the joint, and ruined it. I tried to salvage them by replacing the balsa with some from my local hobby shop. The new balsa trimmed beautifully, like a hot knife through warm butter. Perfect. Maybe it was fresher or something.

Good for you, yours look great. I'll never spend another penny with him.

They are not for someone with 11 thumbs, like me. I've never carved or sculpted anything in my life, because I know I can't.

He absolutely refused to do anything for me, so I learned my lesson the hard way.

Fool me once, shame on both of us and goodbye.

I used them once, and the water got all underneath the balsa and it bubbled up everywhere. Probably because the foam was so destroyed from following the instructions and using contact cement.

damifino

Sorry you had such a bad experience with your floats. Sounds like you missed the boat all the way around on that project. There are many kinds of contact cement out there, some work with foam, some don't. I hope you have better luck on future projects.

PARKEM- Thanks for the support today! Can't wait for calmer (and warmer) days.

Oregon Craig

I learned what I am not capable of doing.

My ARC Modelfly floats work great!

And, my kit built planes come out nice. Have 2 arfs, also. No scratch anything for me!

Have fun! Those Ventures are cool.