AirfoilZ fuse repair
11-28-2006, 09:52 PM
#1
Thread Starter
AirfoilZ fuse repair
Our club has about a dozen 540 and Yaks. I am fairly well known for being able to patch any broke air plane and have helped keep several our planes air worthy after some pretty serious breaks.
If fuse broke real bad like 90 degree break in front of wing and also behind wing:
1. suggest remove your electric's and do a very light coat of white glue on the skin and weight the plane down so as to have the fuselage as straight as possible and let this dry.
2. Now that the fuse has enough strength to remain in true alignment. you can now add spar patches.
3. Make a "tool" using about 8" or so of a hack saw blade to which you can epoxy a couple pieces of "tongue depressor" size Popsicle sticks to either side of blade to make a handle with about 4" or so of blade to do cutting.
4. The idea is to make a cut through the fuselage either right above or right below where the spars are in the fuselage using the hack saw blade which is just right thickness to make a snug fit of your spar patch with the craft stick . Only about 2" total where you will 5 minute epoxy in a piece of this "tongue depressor" material (you may need to trim if the "hobby sticks/tongue depressor" is wider than your fuse) so as to catch the spar about 1" either side of the break. You will want to do this splice on both the upper and lower spar, but wait and let the first splice dry because you may have weakened the fuse too much and will make a "start over". Only put the patch on one side of spar. This way if the next "break/oops/crash" is where you patch spline ends (it will not break in same spot) now you can repeat the repair on the "clean side" of the spar and it works great. My 540 has had 5 major breaks and is still flying great. This technique adds very little weight.
5. My wing break repair of main spar is a little different but works very well where I use about 4" of the regular size popsicle sticks that I 5 minute epoxy to the wing half and let dry and then do a Gorila glue to atttach the wing where this splices sort of fill in with expanding glue and catch the original wing spar which has been trimmed of broken debree so that you can get a straight and fairly true fit. Skin repair is covered with some .5 ounce glass cloth and foam safe CA.
6. Hope this makes sense as it is quick and these plane really fly great and I think are extremely good value in that you can patch them and they continue to fly good where as some patch jobs are better off not done as you end up with lousy flying airplane.
BTW, The colored "zaggi tape" works very well if you want the patches covered.
Pat Willcox
gpwillcox-at-earthlink-dot-net
If fuse broke real bad like 90 degree break in front of wing and also behind wing:
1. suggest remove your electric's and do a very light coat of white glue on the skin and weight the plane down so as to have the fuselage as straight as possible and let this dry.
2. Now that the fuse has enough strength to remain in true alignment. you can now add spar patches.
3. Make a "tool" using about 8" or so of a hack saw blade to which you can epoxy a couple pieces of "tongue depressor" size Popsicle sticks to either side of blade to make a handle with about 4" or so of blade to do cutting.
4. The idea is to make a cut through the fuselage either right above or right below where the spars are in the fuselage using the hack saw blade which is just right thickness to make a snug fit of your spar patch with the craft stick . Only about 2" total where you will 5 minute epoxy in a piece of this "tongue depressor" material (you may need to trim if the "hobby sticks/tongue depressor" is wider than your fuse) so as to catch the spar about 1" either side of the break. You will want to do this splice on both the upper and lower spar, but wait and let the first splice dry because you may have weakened the fuse too much and will make a "start over". Only put the patch on one side of spar. This way if the next "break/oops/crash" is where you patch spline ends (it will not break in same spot) now you can repeat the repair on the "clean side" of the spar and it works great. My 540 has had 5 major breaks and is still flying great. This technique adds very little weight.
5. My wing break repair of main spar is a little different but works very well where I use about 4" of the regular size popsicle sticks that I 5 minute epoxy to the wing half and let dry and then do a Gorila glue to atttach the wing where this splices sort of fill in with expanding glue and catch the original wing spar which has been trimmed of broken debree so that you can get a straight and fairly true fit. Skin repair is covered with some .5 ounce glass cloth and foam safe CA.
6. Hope this makes sense as it is quick and these plane really fly great and I think are extremely good value in that you can patch them and they continue to fly good where as some patch jobs are better off not done as you end up with lousy flying airplane.
BTW, The colored "zaggi tape" works very well if you want the patches covered.
Pat Willcox
gpwillcox-at-earthlink-dot-net
