The other day at the field, wind was kicking up as Dennis made his approach. As a result, most of us (there were 8-10 pilots there) were shutting down for the day.

Now, you guys all know what happens when 8-10 pilots have to pack up with daylight left...let the BS session commence.

During this thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours, quite a few 'tips' were tossed out...some about building, others about flying, some we'd heard, some we hadn't.

I thought it might be a nifty idea to start a 'tip thread'. I'm sure all of you experienced guys have tons of tricks for us beginners, and we'd love the info.

No big long posts or big sets of directions or anything, just simple, 1 item 'if you're needing to do this, try this method'. Feel free to share tips about buying, building, flying, selling, whatever. Share tips you've learned at the field, through experience, here on RCU, whatever. Just, as said above, try to keep posts to simple 1 item quick tricks.

I'll start:

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To install blind nuts in hard to reach places, run a coat hanger through the hole. On on end, place the blind nut, then a wheel collar. Tighten the wheel collar down, and then jerk the hanger back out through the hole. This will pop the blind nut into place, where you can finish seating it by inserting and tightening the screw.

Wow! That's a great tip. I just happen to have a blind nut I need to (re)install.

#1 Tip to enjoying the hobby:

Don't get married!

But seriously folks, One of the best tips I can tell you about is to look at RCU Magazine's "How To" section.

There are 2 pages of "How To" articles for everything from Installing CA Hinges, to cutting Carbon Fiber.

Just click on "magazine" at the top of this page, and filter the articles by "How To"

Minn, man you said a mouthfull!!!!

Another great tip, if you x-acto knife falls off your building table DO NOT reach out and try to catch it. Why. Murphy's Law states that the knife will fall blade down!!!!

This is a great idea for a thread and as Minnflyer stated the How-To section is a great place to get tips from. RCU has another resource that is a great place to find Tips. That would be the "Tips and Techniques" forum which you can find here : [link]http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/forumid_180/tt.htm[/link]

Hope this helps

Ken

Minn and Ken,

You guys are absolutely right. I should certainly have made mention of those two areas on RCU as well. I only started the thread since I know, from experience running other hobby-related websites (primarily reef and fw aquarium stuff), that so many of our users spend a majority of their time here in the forums, and likely many don't even know the rest of the site has content.

Minnflyer and I discussed this problem and we agree with you, most new users don't' know to look in the other areas. That's why we posted our links. But we also decided that since most beginners spend their time in here that we would go ahead and let this run. It's a great idea to have this tip thread here in the beginners forum because sometimes beginners might not feel at ease posting in the other forums, but have no problems doing it here.

Thanks for taking the time to get this thread going.

Now let's hear all of the tips that everybody has out there!!!! [8D]

Ken

RCUniverse has helped me in several areas, especially via this (these) forum(s), and I do appreciate that! Minn especially helped me with the Solo Certificate, which, by the way, was really accepted and appreciated at our meeting last week. Thanks again, Minn.

Meanwhile, one thing I did that seems to work pretty good is to use a piece of COTTON string to secure the connections on the servo extensions. I make the first knot a single tripple overhand knot (first half of a square knot but one more loop around) followed by the second half of the square knot without the tripple. Then clip the bitter ends leaving about a quarter of an inch dangling. The tripple knot will tighten and hold everything tight then the other half will tighten everything nicely. When tightening the knot, make sure it is on the opposite end of where the two connectors slide into each other. Then carefully put a very small amount of thin CA on the bitter end of the cotton string. It will immediately wick down to the knot with a little puff of smoke and hold that bugger forever. And, if done right, carefully applying the CA, it will not wick down into the connector so afterwards, if you want to disconnect this, you simply clip the string and pull the connector apart.

DS.

CGR,

Used your tip just last night, installing servo extensions for the new Mini-Funtana. Worked like a CHARM! Thanks! [sm=thumbup.gif]

Here's a tip I learned back in my MRR days...and I still use it now with planes.

Always have handy a small magnet. Fridge magent, old mini-speaker, whatever. In my case, I carry an old telephone speaker in my flight box. Swipe anything metal across the magnet 5-6 times, it'll magnetize that object for a few minutes. I typically use this trick when I need to adjust/remove/tighten a very small servo screw in the bowels of the aircraft...just run the jewler's screwdriver over the magnet a few times, and presto...no fear of dropping the gnat sized screw into airplane-hatch-oblivion.

Another tip to keep the wife happy, if building in the spare bedroom like I do. Get a large throw rug or a carpet remnant from a carpet store to put down beneath building area. This will catch any glue spills and other carpet damaging things that fall. Can also be taken outside for cleaning.

Never let your mind limit you else I wouldn't have built my favorite plane.
Nexstar Tail Dragger with a Saito FA 56 4 stroke. Wear latex gloves when glueing, I never remeber this and as a result my fingers are glued together most of the time.
And if you really want to get deep into the hobby, STAY SINGLE and get a cat.

I tried that with CA, and it didn't help. I ended up with latex glued to the plane. Probably good for working with epoxy though.

My wife encourages me to fly more, I think she wants me out of the house when I get on her nerves!!!