Hey Mike are you still flying or are you done for this season? I haven't been to the sod farm in about a month.

I think you can rotate the cylinder down past horizontal a ways so that the muffler ends up centered under the fuse. This usually results in less removal of material from the cowl and the engine is still mostly horizontal for easy of access.

"i have the 1/32 lyin' around, but i will need to get the 3/8 sticks. i'm still not sure what you mean by building it with 3/8. what structural changes did you make? I don't get it... "

Mike, I built the stock stab and elevators out of the 6mm balsa sticks provided. 6mm is just a tad smaller that 1/4". Then I read about the elevator failures guys had. So I trashed the stock elevators and built new ones out of 3/8" stick. I just used the plans and tried to basically follow the layout using the bigger sticks. It's not too complicated, just don't build out into the rudder area which would reduce rudder throw. Then I took the stock stab and sheeted it on both sides with 1/16" balsa. This makes the stab within a gnats eyelash of 3/8" thick.


Does that help?

Chuck

thanx, for the xplana., CHM. Barry, i would like to fly more at Leon's, but i have had my saturdays all booked. up until last saturday i had soccer games, and last weekend i was in key west. i might make it this coming saturday. C ya

Question: what did you people glue the servo mounts together with? medium CA? thin doesn't do it. Epoxy? i am tryin' to build it light. (trying)

another question, what do you do with that big ole' slot in the leading edge? do you sand down until it meets the leading middle leading edge piece? that's what it looks like in the plans. confused. help. pic below for posterity. what to do?

Crazy Mike.

I glued my first wooden mount together with 12 min epoxy and used the same to glue it to the firewall.

As for the leading edge, yup, I just sanded it flush so that the ridge vanished

yah, i figured it out by looking at the wing in the fuse side view. it shows it all flush with the ridge/middle section on the leading edge. i took most of it off with a razor plane, and i will do the rest with varying sandpaper grits...

report later...

Crazy Mike

I made a big mistake, and I always do. I heeded your advice to not glue anything until everything was dry fit and ready, and that worked great. I did it, got everything lined up, tacked it, then glued it, and now it's STRONG. However, the stupid servo tray wing rib is in upside down! Frustrating! They never mention this is the manual, I only found this out after looking at the pictures a couple pages ahead! They tell us about the notch, but not this other rib that needs to be oriented a certain direction too. Ugh. So, now I'll have some modifications to do later. I'm sure this will be fun. The right half of this wing is certainly going to be much better than the left. That's for sure. Let me hear your experiences on this issue.

Reid

Yap the instruction are not the best......I have completed my wing and figuring out the fuselage, will put it together tomorrow.

Daniel D.

i sure notice the lack of instruction clarity/posterity too. to help deal with all this, try reading ahaed a little bit in the manual and thinking through what you are gonna do and how it will all fit together. this is even more important in kits where things don't interlock so nicely like this.

Crazy Mike

Whenever I build, I always sit down and try to carefully do just that....PLAN. I just always seem to make these kinds of mistakes. I think I just need more experience. This is my fourth or fifth kit, so I'm definitely capable, but I think you just need to have seen everything to make a model without a mistake. I'm only 19, so I've got some time. Loving the thread!
Reid

I was just pointing this out, of course this is not a beginner airplane either, I have been flying RC for about 17 years, so I have built a few models before, arf did not really exist then.....

I find that for a laser kit the fit is rather loose in the balsa but good on the ply pieces, my wing took me about 5 hrs to plan and put together, the sanding is the only thing left....and I won't do it until almost ready to cover.

I have built the wing tip on mime.....I can always remove them later

I have been looking at the engine mount, and using my gram scale the wood mount is about half weight compare to commercial plastic mount, so I'm going to used this wood mount if it doesn't work I will just cut it of and use my long plastic mount.

I have took a few digital, I will post them tonight.

Daniel D.

Mike,

Just happend on this thread, I'm just completing the build of my Laser 3D and will probably remove the wing tips based on the comments.
Beware that engine mount / firewall. On my first in-plane test of my new OS52FS, the firewall detached on one side! I have reinforced the engine mount to the firewall with triangular fillet throughout but I'm still scared it will disintegrate in the air.
Do you have a view on the best way to connect the tailwheel to the rudder so as to ensure that both don't get ripped off in a heavy landing?
Also I am not happy with the amount of 'throw' on the rudder using the suggested closed loop arrangement, I'm tempted to replace with a single pushrod?

Regards
Frank

Change of mind here: first, i will leave wintips on for a while; two reasons: 1. i need the practice covering. 2. I am no that high level of a pilot that i couldn't gain an advantage by having the plane fly easier for the first while.
second, i will try the wood mount first. i will carefully check the firewall everyfliught for the first while to make sure. if it cracks, i will replace it immediately! my enya doesn't vibrate a whole lot so we'll see...

Crazy Mike

The Pull pull is very good for the rudder, I used that method on all my pattern planes and on my hovering cobra, and I did get some crazy throw (60 degree), the consideration thing are;

-To have double arm on the servo that is wide enough to give high throw, but for 3D I used large large servo wheel or the dubro Xlarge double servo arm (high strength).

-For the surface I play with the distance a bit since I don't really care if the non pulling end up a bit loose compare to the pulling cable, it won't affect a thing....as long as it's not loose..

-The pulling cable will be tighter compare to the other cable, that is not a problem for this application, on pattern plane we don't need that much throw....so we arrange thing so both cable have similar tension and on the IMAC bird the fuselage is much wider then our's....

-To achieve same tension throughout, you need to have the same angle at the serve compare to the rudder horn, and the exact same total distance between the connection point.

Hope this help Daniel D.

I just started mine today as it was raining here. I got the wing mostly done, but I have a question. Is everyone beefing up the rear of the wing where the bolt holds it on? the balsa piece they provide just doesnt seem like it would hold up very long.
If so how did you reinforce it?

i plan on making the hole and then inserting some fiberclass cloth around the stress areas to make it stronger. i thought it was insane how they propose you do that.

Crazy Mike

just finished the wing today. i'm gonna start on the ailo's tonite. ailos should be easy. this weekend kinda got caught up with me re-powering my electric ElectroStreak (yes i am one of those weirdo electric guys too). c ya'll lata.

You don't need a bigger tank! I used the stock tank, and I'm running an OS 50SX. I set my timer at 12 minutes, fly until it beeps, then land. I usually have almost half a tank left. Remember, you WON'T be flying this plane much at full throttle! We're at almost 4000 feet here, and it flies fine at 3 or 4 clicks over idle for general level flight. You don't use much fuel at that sort of setting. Remember, LIGHT! LIGHT! LIGHT!!!

DITTO! DITTO! DITTO!!!

been workin' on ailo's. those cross braces are really tedious to make. wow. here is the current status: going to fly first with tips (when i said i would leave em off i forgot that i had already put them on, so i will just leave them for now. i am pretty good with an iron so i will have no trouble coverin' them, and if i wanna take em off, just seal over the edges of the last rib, cut, saw sand, and patch a bit; done) won't reinforce firewall (i think you guys are all too paranoid about it). also, has anyone actually broken their elevators? stabs? if so what kind of maneuvers were you doin'?

Crazy Mike

I've broken off my right hand elevator a total of 3 times now. Once was caused by hangar rash that I didn't notice, the other two times were when it caught on snow. (One takeoff, one landing) It was never a big deal to remove some covering, and simply CA it back together, and re-apply some covering. Without drastically changing the design of the elevators, (removing the balance section) you are going to be prone to them catching if you are taking off or landing in deep stuff with a lot of elevator deflection. Building them much stronger will only cause something else to break. The way they break now, they're easily repaired. Sheet them and you'll probably break either the stab or the whole tail off, and that won't be nearly as easy to fix. Think of it as a safety valve. Yes, you break the elevator, but it's an easy fix, and nothing else gets broken. It will fly fine with one side broken off, in fact, it's almost like there's no difference in most cases.
I used the stock mount on the stock firewall with no modifications. I did use 30 minute epoxy to glue it up, since that will soak into the wood better than 5 minute, but with well over 400 flights, it's just fine. I started with an OS 46FX, but on hot days it was tough to hover, so I went to a 50SX. On cold days, it hovers at about 1/3rd throttle, and on really hot days, it's about 5/8ths. The only change I made in mine was to join the elevator, and use one servo for it. Obviously, it's a more powerful servo. Next time I'll use 2 elevator servos, so I can use the features on my radio to use the elevators as ailevators. This will give more control in a hover, but isn't really necessary.

I've also broken off an elevator and another cracked just past the last hing and was only held together by the covering.

So please take our advice and do some sort of reenforcement (gussets or 3/8 sticks as already suggested)

ok, majestic monkey, how did you break it? if all you guys are doing is hangar-rash or takeoff/landing in deep snow, (i never fly in snow, haven't seen any decent snow in 4 1/2 years) i don't see the point. i also agree with Iceberg, it is useful to have a sort of safety valve for your plane.
HOW ARE YOU GUYS DOING THIS TO YOUR PLANES????

majestic monkey?

Can someone that is flying one of these let me know if you beefed up the wing hold down area where the bolt goes in? Or did you build it stock? Im at the point now on the wing to sheet the area and want to know if it should or how it should be beefed up? Im using a saito 72.