wild fred

My Feedback: (3)

1/32" sheet is plenty, the wings more than strong enough stock, and weight is an issue on them. 1/32 will give you a nice finish, too. I sheeted an ace foam wing l.e. and capstripped it, then cut foam out of the bays on a scratch built sukhoi I had once, worked o.k. but not necessary. best to keep them LIGHT than to beef up; most 1/2a are seriously overbuilt anyway. my boy flat spun our first norvel 25 one into a tree; the nyrod strut mount broke, and it went wild, so he spun it in. took off a branch, and took a chunk outa the wing, but no damage otherwise! we split the strut and epoxied all thread from top to bottom w/ nylon nut attatchment, but on my last one I used a long 4-40 bolt, epoxied it into stock cutout, enlarging cutout to clear bolt head, and grinding head flat on both sides w/ dremel. worked well. inlaid 1/16" ply circles drawn around penny at strut mounts, as others compressed after a while into wing. ultracoat covered w/ ultracoat hinges, mounted aileron servo protruding from bottom w/ 2 horns; preferred hs-225 mg, although used 2 hs-81 (flaperons!) on the saito 30 one. would like to try a saito 40 on one sometime.... is on my list, but so many projects! haven't even started beercat, and my 1/2a ucando is not done either! did finally finish my phaeton 90 w/ ryobi 31 cc, am test flying it tomorrow. ucando next, then the bada--ed beercat! got some 55's coming for it, should be fun!

John C

I must say I like the capstrip idea. I'll look into this further when the kit arrives. I don't like the looks of raw foam painted/covered over. With capstrips I could use moneykote and cover like normal as well as gain some strength with the leading and trailing edges sheeting .

I've also been thinking of paper bag covering and then paint, but I don't think it's likely to come out as well as either sheeting or capstrips [].

Bipe Flyer

I've done capstrips a few times and it works very well while keeping additional weight to a minimum.