ORIGINAL: lthibault
Pictures of the receiver setup and the new bottom. Inside the yellow circles you can see the side plywood pieces that also hold the bottom to the balsa structure on the side.
The result is rock solid. I don't expect any other trouble. Of course the weight has changed but hey! Now I can land on grass and rough terrain.
I ended up doing something very similiar.
There is no doubt that the gear mounting on this plane is very poor.
On a SLIGHTLY hard landing the center area of the thin ply mount used, bent down the middle, as both gear splayed out.
I removed the ply piece.
Of note is the soft BALSA triangle stock used as brace for this... what a joke!
I mode a thick ply doubler for the ply piece, putting holes in for the existing blind nut locations.
I made a new set of ply "walls" for the wing mount area and the firewall and fuselage areas, in effect forming a new stiff "box" for all the gear forces to be exerted upon.
All of this was closed up with generous amounts of epoxy.
To avoid the lever effect of the gear during hard landings, I also put in two thin steel bars with holes for the gear mounting cap screws. This effectively joins the two gear into a once piece unit, when they are screwed in place.
The entire area is much more resilient now.
The changes added around 2oz to the weight of the plane, but it was worth it.