ORIGINAL: MTK
I can't speak to the composite brace that Eric Henderson is using Derek, but I can to the balsa brace that Brian Billings has installed. It added about 1 1/2 ozs all up to the tail and made the tail very firm. Hardly any wiggle side to side and very good in torsion. His pictures are a little further up in this post. Note that the sides of the ladder have considerable width, covering greater side area. Good luck with yours
MattK
ORIGINAL: Derek.Koopowitz
ORIGINAL: Eric.Henderson
The more I looked at this rudder hinge set-up, the more urge was to change it. One hot-knife later and some balsa wood and it was done. I had to sand the elevator cut out angles to clear the rudder swing near the center, (but you can't really see it).
Eric.
Looks good, Eric! Did you replace the tailpost as well or did you leave it as stock? Did the foam ladder stiffen up the fuselage at all? I'm planning to do one out of balsa instead... I've mounted the stabs but haven't put the former in YET - will do that shortly. I did notice that the fuse does flex quite a bit when I grab the stabs and wiggle them around... so I'm hoping that the crutch will stiffen it up quite a lot.
Matt,
Thanks... I've assembled a crutch using 3/8" x 1/4" balsa and the 3/8 is going to be against the fuse. I will also put another former in right behind the canopy... easy to do. The big difference is that I'm planning to use wing adjusters instead of the anti-rotation pins and based on the comments by the manufacturer that the solid carbon tube adds that stiffness across the rear of the fuse (by the canopy) I definitely think the former is needed.
-Derek