I hope that I don't cause any cardiac problems with anybody reading this out there. I mean look at this, 4 posts in just a few days. Wow!!!! I bet you didn't know that I could do it did you?? I do want to make a small note and an apology though. I am starting to get to were I am being affected by the pictures that were lost on my memory card. The pictures for some of these posts won't be as complete as I would have hoped, but I'll do my best to explain better and try to use other pictures if I can to fill in the gaps.

Moving on now. As we work towards completely assembling the plane in order to balance the plane keep in mind that a large part of what we assemble will come back off in order to cover the plane, but not everything. It helps to know what comes back off and what doesn't. The reason for this is simple, if it comes back off we don't have to make a “final attachment.” That's a little bit of a goofy term, but I hope it makes sense. For instance, the landing gear needs to come back off to cover the plane so we can just kind of slap them on there and we don't need to make sure they are completely tight. The same thing with the engine, it comes back off so all we need to do is mount it there. But things like the engine mount will stay in place when we cover the plane, so we can go ahead and make our final mounting. I explain that so that parts of this step make sense to you all.

We're going to work on the engine compartment now. I'm going to mount the engine mount and the front landing gear mount. As I said above, these will stay on as we cover the plane so we can mount these as we would on our final assembly. The engine mounts and the front gear mount are secured using machine screws that will tighten into the blind nuts that we installed on the backside of the firewall as we were building the fuselage. On these metal to metal fasteners I prefer to use a little Locktite to secure them so that don't back out with some vibration. Small attention to details like there are what helps build a plane that you can fly hundreds of flights on without hardly any problems. Anyway, in case you don't know what Locktite is , it's a sort of glue type compound that you put on the threads of your screw before you put it in. When it dries it will “glue” the screw in place so it won't vibrate loose and back out. You can find it at any auto parts store, Wal-Mart, or you local Lowe's/Home Depot. There are two types of Locktite, blue and red. You'll want to get the blue because it will let you remove the screw even after it dries. Only use the red Locktite if you want the screw permanently in place, because once it dries you won't be able remove the screw every again. It's almost as good as welding it in place. A bottle the size shown in picture #1 will last you quite a long time. I think I've had this bottle for a year or so and it's still over half full! Picture #2 shows putting a little bit of Locktite on the screw. Put a few drops on the screw, and then wait for a few minutes to let it start to harden a little bit, and then screw it in place. Pictures #3, #4, and #5 show the motor mounts and the landing gear mount in place. I'm sorry I don't any better pictures than this but those are some that were left. Make sure when you mount the motor mounts you get them on the correct sides. They are pre-drilled from earlier when we marked and drilled the mounts. The flanges on the mounts should be on the outside of the mounts (picture #3 and #4).

With the mounts in place we can go ahead and start preparing the front landing gear too. Picture #6 shows the wheel collars that we'll use to secure the wheel on the landing gear. Be careful when you take them out because the have a small set screw that secures them in place, and these set screws are really easy to lose. And trust me, if you drop them and they hit the floor it can take HOURS to find them. Murphy's law, they will always bounce into the most difficult place to see and will be impossible to retrieve if you do find them!!!! I was really impressed with the quality of the hardware that came with this Sig kit, they even included an allen wrench to secure the set screws with.. If they aren't in the wheel collar go ahead and put a set screw into the wheel collars (picture #7). Make sure that you don't put in too far or you won't be able to slip it over the axle on the gear. Just put them in enough to keep them there. When we mount the wheel on the landing gear you'll want to put a collar on each side of the wheel. This is absolutely needed because if you don't the wheel will hit the upright on the landing gear. Reference picture #8 to see what I mean. After you have the inside of wheel collar on axle go ahead and slip the wheel on, and then we can slip the out wheel collar on. Now here is something that I've found really throw a lot of people, how tight to make the wheel collar on the axle next to the wheel. I've seen beginners error on both choices here, they either make it too tight or too loose. If you tighten the collar too tight it will keep the wheel from turning freely. But if the collar is too loose there will be room between the wheel and the collar, which give the wheel room to “slop” around. This will cause undue where on the wheel and cause the hole in the wheel to “wallow out”. You wan to put the collar on just loose enough so that the wheel can spin freely, but not have any room for the wheel to move side to side on the axle.

The last thing I'm going to cover here is getting the hardware together for mounting the nose gear on the plane. Look at picture #9 and you'll see what we need to find. The items here are the control arm, brass insert for the control arm, a set screw for the control arm, an EZ connector, retainer for the connector, and a set screw for the connector. Sometimes the control arm will come assembled with the brass insert already in place, but if it's not assembled you'll need to put it together. Just slip the collar in the control arm making sure you line up the screw holes. The other item at the top of the picture is an extra wheel collar. It didn't come with the kit so you'll need to pick some extras up at your LHS, or order some on your next order to Tower Hobbies. I'll explain what we're going to use it for in my next post, I just wanted to point out now that we'll be using one. Take the EZ connector and push it into a hole on the control arm, don't worry about which one you're putting it in right now because we'll more than likely be moving it later on as we start adjusting the throws of our radio prior to flying. Once you have the EZ connector through the control arm, use the black plastic retainer to secure it in place. Push the retainer on the shaft of the connector and use a set of pliers to set it in place, which will tighten up the connector on the control arm keeping the connector tightly in place on the arm. Lastly put the set screw into the top of the EZ connector.

In our next post wheel continue with mounting the front landing gear in place

Let's wrap this post up because once again I'm out of picture room here.

Pictures
1. Blue Locktite, used to secure machine screws in place.
2. Apply blue Locktite onto a screw
3. Motor mounts and front landing gear mount in place
4. Motor mounts and front landing gear mount in place
5. Front landing gear mount in place
6. Wheel collars, set screws, and allen wrench to tighten set screws
7. Insert the set screws into the wheel collar
8. Mount the wheel with a wheel collar on each side of the wheel
9. Hardware need to mount front landing gear
10. Assembled front gear hardware.


Until next time

Ken