ORIGINAL: Pete1burn
Each time I put the rod back in, the control surface was like 10 degrees off from center, even though the bend was perfectly at the place I marked. So I would have to work with the clevises to get the surface perfectly even at 0 trim.
Yes, you bend your pushrods and make the connections on the servos first. Then you use the clevis to adjust the pushrod as you attach it to the control surface. The is when you clamp down the control surface.
The nose wheel one will be tough because there are no clevises threaded on to it, so the bend has to be perfect. Once I get that in, I simply have to glue in the control tube guide and it's pretty much done.
Use an easy connector for the nose wheel pushrod. Put an easy connector on the servo arm for the rudder servo. This way you can make quick adjustments on the nose wheel. See attached picture.
They recommend attaching the antenna to the top of the vertical stab with a rubber band and a T-pin. Any tricks of the trade regarding that? Do I have to use a pin?
No, you can use whatever you want to attach the antenna. But for beginners I do recommend a T-pin and a rubber band. Let's face it, a trainer is going to get a lot of rough treatment during the training period. So you want to make it so that it can handle a lot of rough treatment. Using a T-pin will make it easy to pull out of the vertical stab in the event something hits the antenna wire. The way that I normally secure the antenna is this. I will exit the antenna wire on the bottom of the fuselage and run to the back of the plane. If this is a tail dragger I will use the tail wheel assembly to anchor the antenna wire, if not I will set a screw in the fuselage to anchor it with. I will use a servo arm that has been cut off as an anchor of the wire itself, run the wire through one hole in the arm and then back out the next hole. I then use a spring from the servo arm anchor to my anchor point on the fuselage. This will hold the antenna wire tight, but the spring give is a little bit of flex in the event anything snags it. I should mention that it's very very important to put another servo arm on the antenna wire where it exits the fuselage, this is done so that there is no pressure or tension pulling directly on the receiver. Without an anchor inside the fuselage the antenna wire will more than likely pull out of the receiver. Look at the second picture I've attached. You can see how I anchor the antenna wire to the tailwheel assembly
Hope this helps
Ken