G'day

I hate joining the wing halves of ARFs. Epoxy is smelly and messy, things can get out of alignment and some are hard to clamp together while the glue dries.

So ...

If it really looks like being a pain, I used to use old fashioned 24 hour Araldite - the original epoxy. It is very slow but it is also very strong.

These days I have gotten better at it and I usually just use the 30 minute stuff but it may go off rather quickly in hot weather.

My most recent pair of wing halves was for a World Models Skyraider Mach 1. This turned out to be an easy one. The wing joiner fitted with no need to adjust it. The wing halves fitted together perfectly (they don't always), the two halves each have small tabs at the front which when joined become the locating pin to hold the wing leading edge into the model and finally because it is a bolt on wing, there are two convenient holes at the trailing edge which I used to clamp things together.

After checking the fit of everything, I mixed up a generous amount of epoxy and started to coat the insides of one of the wing's locating tubes. Next coat the outsides of the wing joiner and slide it in. Hopefully quite a bit of epoxy will be squeezed out and I spread this over the wing joint. Next fill the other wing joiner with more epoxy and then coat the other half of the joiner. Slide everything together and some epoxy will squeeze out round the edges. At this point I wipe most of the excess off with scraps of balsa and put a clamp on the tabs at the front of the wing to pull the halves together. At the trailing edge I put a couple of pieces of wire about 3 inches long through the two holes then put rubber bands on each ends of the wires to pull the two halves together. Now it is clean up time and I use a rag soaked in what we call Metho which is denatured alcohol. This rag will be a throw away item. Go over it until everything is clean then check the alignment of the wing. I also put a small clamp at the trailing edge to stop the halves from slipping up or down relative to each other.

I stand my wings on their end until they dry. This way there is no real load on the wing joint and my clamps and rubber bands are strong enough to keep the two halves together.

I still hate doing it but after several dozen it is getting easier.

If you can't use the wire trick because there are no holes, then I use masking tape or similar to pull the halves together and keep things straight.

Have fun.

Mike in Oz