Hi Saul and Hal - and to any other Adam A500 builders - I've now 'really' discovered how crap the wood and undercarriage installation is. On a previous post I didn't think much needed to be done to the u/c but I now know it needs attention. It is my belief that after many many landings (or curse it - one that ended up sideways like I did) there is potential for this area to fail. Maybe I should be more thankful to discover what I have found so far with as little damage as there is.
G.. only knows what the rest of the inaccessible areas are like. Having said that I recall no wood behind a rudder hinge point and only 'half' wood behind a wing mounting bolt??? This thing (as I suspect most ARF's) are built to a price - not a formula. (enough of the 'editorial')
From the pics below you will see: 1st pic - crack across the join of the LH u/c platform to the front former - this is now loose and will have to replaced/strengthened. Other pics show the gaps between the wood and fibreglass 'inside' the rear former. I've stood the rear former back in postion for the photo for you to see what I'm talking about. The wood was not shaped to fit flush to the inside of the tail boom, therefore the glue line you see from the rear looks ok (not inside like I'm now seeing). On the inside only the rounded top is glued (sort of) to the boom, not the vertical sides of the rear u/c former.
Another pic shows how the tongue fits into the front former and you will see the weak area at the corners. The triangular piece of balsa that supports these corners broke free so it seems to me this area also was not very strong. There was very little glue that was effective - or maybe it was ineffective glue?
It looks to me all the u/c platform areas should be strengthened. I will now make new right and left u/c platforms and 'break' out the LH u/c platform to replace it. Next will be to fibreglass each rear former in place, 'glass the entire inside area' and try and glass as much as I can where the tongue goes into the front former and along each horizontal side to the inside of each tailplane boom when I replace each u/c platform. And I haven't looked at the front u/c leg platform yet.
Why is all of this important? as I understand it only about 50 or so of this model were made for a worldwide market and if a model gets badly broken because of undercarriage support failure (notwithstanding the crap u/c supplied with the kit) there aint no more.
deal with the above info as you wish
cheers - maxiemac
smile it don't hurt
PS: good to see all the recent activity on this thread. Maybe a few more might like to have a say - then we'll all learn more?