GREAT! elevator and rudder replacement tips!

Through much trial and error....I have found a cheap, easy, light way to GREATLY improve the strength of the foam used from "grocery store" foam plates to fab replacement elevators and rudders. It is well worth the extra couple minutes of prep for the the results. You'll see will be that the foam will actually cut cleaner leaving nice sharp, strong edges/tips that are MUCH better than the original stock parts. The replacement parts are much less likely to crease, bend, Frey, slip.....basically wear out from use and abuse.

Use an X-Acto knife (new #11 blade works best) to roughly cut out the bottom of the plate.......the flat part....(a glass table top works best) Take packing tape...like the rolls that fit on tape guns....I like the Office Max brand....it seems a little thicker and more rubbery, ply-able than some I tried to use. Cut a piece roughly the length of one half of one side of the plate. Being careful as to not stretch the tape as you lay it down (stretching the tape will cause the foam to bow).......starting from one end of the plate, slightly, slowly, evenly press the tape onto the plate.....gently rub out any air bubbles as you go until it is all nice and smooth against the foam. It takes 2 strips of tape per side. A seam really won't matter as you will cut around it and use it as waste. You do however want both the slightly overlapping seams, on both sides of the plate, going in the same direction.....matching them up down the center as closely as you can "eyeball it" to leave you the most usable foam to use.

For this part I use the 1/32 inch basswood elevator and rudder I fabbed (strong, but too heavy for flight I found).....you can use the old worn foam parts just fine as well. Trace the patterns onto the tape/plate\tape sandwich with an Ultra Fine Point Sharpie. I use a small metal ruler as a straight edge to guide the X-Acto. I have found that it is best to cut the 'leading edge only!' of the elevator and rudder short by about 1/8 inch from the trace. This accounts for the added weight of the tape and still leaves plenty of surface space for the two. Using very slight presser on the blade, you want to "score" the material using several full length motions, rather than trying to cut through it in one pass. It takes me about 4-5 scores to cut all the way through. I find that I can either fab 2 elevators, or 1 elevator and 2 rudders with one plate sandwich just by tracing on either side of the seam.

Since the material is just slightly thicker than original foam material......it fits easily, but snuggly, into the T-Frame. There is no need to tape the elevator to the T-frame as was it was from the factory.......it just simply won't fall out without a slight tug.

To replace the "bendable aluminum sticker thingies", the easiest thing I have found.....so far.....is by using aluminum foil and packing tape. I take a small square piece of the foil and make about three to four, 3/8th inch ......flat, consecutive folds......pressing it flat with no wrinkles as you fold. Using a piece of business card inside is a good way to start it off perfectly flat...slide the card out when your done. You should now have a 3/8th inch flat miniature aluminum burrito. Cut this to lengths of about 5/8th inch pieces......about the same size of the original stickers. I spread these out on glass table top (or something similar) and place a piece of packing tape face down over these aluminum pieces. Then cut about a 1/2 inch x 1 inch area around these pieces. Use the pointy end of the knife to car fully lift an edge to pull up from the table. The tape sticks to itself like glue. Maybe not the prettiest hinges in the world, but they work pretty well.

Take that Bob Villa!...lol



Happy Flying,
-Bud