YEE HAA JUST GOT MY KIT TODAY AND WILL START BUILDING TONIGHT,ITS MY FIRST KIT BUILD AND I HAVE NEVER FLOWN EITHER.I HAVE BEEN READING ON THIS FORUM FOR SOME TIME AND HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR MY KIT TO ARRIVE,I PRINTED THE PLAINS OUT AND HAVE READ THEM SEVERAL TIMES,ILL POST SOME PICTURES AS I GO ALONG AND ANY QUESTIONS THAT COME UP. JUST A THANKS AHEAD OF TIME TO ALL THAT HELP US NEW GUYS OUT,WHAT I READ IN THIS FORUM FROM ALL THAT HELP BLOWS MY MIND,YOU GUYS ARE GREAT,WELL OFF TO THE TABLE WISH ME LUCK,THANKS STEVE

Steve,

We wish you luck. Be sure and get on here about your problems. Pictures would help.

Enjoy,

Jim

Can't wait to follow this build thread. I have a PT-40 myself that I have gotten as far as completing the airframe. I have attempted to cover it twice with poor results, 1st with Monokote and then Coverite. Needs alot of sanding to remove the old residue and adhesives but I will get back to completing it again soon, but this time with UNPAINTED Coverite, and then paint it myself. Please include lots of pics with your build thread, really can not wait to follow this. But please do not use all caps as that indicates that you are angry with someone and it is not accepted in alot of sites (don't know about this site but sites I have been to have gotten angry with folks using all caps).

I will be following this build to its end.

I too just started a pt 40 I am just about to start putting firewalls and bulk heads in the Fuselodge. Think I'm gonna go with the bolt on wing, might be pretty neet all of use crashing at the same time in a couple of weeks.
GL
Max

well the first night was pretty good,i sorted all the parts and labled everything,i think i only used my knife twice to remove the die cut parts so my hats off to great planes for that.got the stabilizer,the fin and some of the fuselage done,also the engine bulk head and the wing bolt plates.i do recomend the hing marking tool and the power slot hinge tool,wow it made this task easy and very accurate. the fusealge went together great with little sanding to fit all pieces. the one problem i had was using ca medium to glue in the fuselage doublers,instructions call for ca medium and these parts are so long and the instructions says very impotant to be accurate,i think maybe 6 minute epoxy should be used here as you have hardly any working time to move them around. i had a hard time getting away from the table and get to bed for work. im sure ill run into problems at some point but having the manual for 2 weeks before my kit got here i read and reread it and took notes and have prepared for alot that really has helped,here are some pictures so far my first time posting pics so see how it goes,thanks steve,,,ohh sorry about the caps in first post guess i was excited[img][/img]

I use 30 min epoxy for laminating the parts. 5 min epoxy is brittle and not as fuel proof as 30 min epoxy.

The PT40 can be an excellent flying plane. You will most likely want to use the lessor dihedral amount? Seems like few people use the full dihedral.

Enjoy,

Jim

jim,yes i was about to ask that same question whether to build, A wing with more dihedral or B wing with less,also the ailerons im putting them in and should i lock them or not,for my first flights . i will have a instructor at the club thanks

By all means use the ailerons.

In the instructions, the greater dihedral is for the 3 channel no aileron version. The lessor dihedral is for the version with ailerons.

You get accustumed to mostly flying a model in the air with your right hand. Most modern day model airplanes will actually turn rather well without using the rudder. As you gain experience, you will be using the rudder also with you left hand.

These movements need to become automatic for you. With no ailerons, people normally put the rudder over on the right. This leaves nothing for the left hand to do except work the throttle.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that its better to just start out with ailerons. Its no harder than just using rudder and elevator. It will cause you trouble later on to change back and forth.

I'm sure you will enjoy this plane very much. It can be a beauty.

Enjoy,

Jim

okay the B wing with ailerons it it thanks,its starting to look like a plane now,got the firewall in and the bottom of the fuselage done and all the formers in as well,pushrods in for the elevator and rudder is done as well.looks like it came out pretty sqaure. not too many problems as yet except i have 2 big of fingers when i got back to f-5 the small former at the back,i need some ca extensions for the glue bottles,i plugged up the 2 pushrod holes with glue and had a heck of a time reaching in with a drill bit and twisting it by hand,learned a lesson there,here is a couple of pics to show where im at,thanks

Hey it came it yesterday and i was able to get started on it. finished the stab and rudder then got going on the FUSE.

How did the nose of the upper and the lower match up? mine had a slight gap. required some sanding

and how about the knotches on the bottom of the FUSE side(only one)? mine did not line up exactly the way the plans showed it so i cut a little away to make it fit the plans better.

And I see what you mean by using a 6min for glueing the doubler. the CA just doesn't give enough time. And my top and bottom doubler didn't fit together as nicely as I would hope.

As far as the wing two things, I am going to use the bolt on. I think it gives it a much cleaner look and the dowel will keep the wing from wanting to lift. Now the dihedral is a personal pref. I had this discussion last night also. I'm going with the full amount. Yes it wont do rolls as easy but I want this to be the easiest flying plane as it can be. A glider. Just incase any of my friends would like to fly it.

avgwhtboy,my upper and lower matched up well,i wish i would of used the 30 minute epoxy here to allow for more alignment time,ill do it next build for sure just the learning process,i didnt have to cut my slot any on the bottom,thats for one of the formers that goes in there and made was just fine,just watch out when u glue in f5 that you dont get glue in the holes like i did,not fun,so good luck this ought be fun we are close on the same plane

okay a question im doing B wing with airlones but do you guys think i should use the bolt on method or the rubber band method,,pros and cons thanks steve

I think I'm in the minority with my opinion, but you asked. I prefer bolt on wings if the plane is designed to have a choice. Most trainer crashes I have personally seen where the wings were rubber banded still resulted in damage to the wing. If there are enough bands to keep the wing where it belongs it seems the bands themselves cause damage as the wing twists off of the fuselage.

I built the PT-60 and did the bolt on wing. I cartwheeled it a few times trying to land. Usually no damage at all. Once the wing bolts broke; still no damage. Then there was the fatal one that destroyed the wing. The wing bolts did break but it was after the main spar broke. As hard as it hit, the wing mounting method probably didn't matter.

I prefer rubberband mounted wings over bolt-on for the simple fact that I have a problem drilling straight and level into leading edges and such, so I always just go the easy method of rubberband. And it's always easier to adjust the angle of the wing after it is mounted on, as with the bolt-on method if the wing is not angled proper while you are drilling it is very hard to correct a misaligned wing after that (at least to me it is [:'(]). So for all my airplanes I will choose the rubber-band mount method, even when the option is not offered (I just modify the plane to a rubberband mount).

I've been making mine bolt-on. Works so nice for me and the wing is always precisely located.

Enjoy,

Jim

Tigerdude,
Just like everything else in the hobby drilling bolt holes takes a little bit of practice, but it's not hard at all to do. It's well worth it to learn how to do it if you plan on staying in the hobby. The reason I say that is that rubber-banding a wing is a bit frustrating as you advance in the hobby. I'm not talking about the physical act of putting the rubber-bands on, but what I'm referring to is that fact that it is next to impossible to have consistent wing placement each time you assemble your plane at the field. Even if you have alignment marks for placing the wing it's still pretty easy to have the wing a tad bit out of "skew" when you put it on. Plus bumping the wing can knock it out too. This leads to having to re-trim the plane every trip to the field. While this may not be an issue in a trainer, or even a second plane, but when you start getting into more advanced planes it's really becomes an issue. Especially when you start trying to improve your skills and practicing maneuvers, having the wing in different positions can make a plane handle a bit differently each time.

Recovering from an improperly drilled hole isn't really that difficult. Usually the place where mistakes happen is when you drill the bolt holes in the fuselage and then tap the hole to put threads in it. Those are really easy to fix if they are messed up. Just drill out the hole larger than it was and epoxy dowel into the hole, and then try again. Usually you can get it all drilled properly if you do it all at once. What I mean by that is to position the wing and make sure that it's aligned on the fuselage, then mark where you're going to drill, and then drill all the way through the wing and the bolt plate in the fuselage. That's usually the same method that most instructions in kits will recommend too.

Hope this helps

Ken

my bottom and top didn't match up very well but it is stable ,solid , and straight. I wick ca'ed the whole thing and tonight I'm going to 6 min epoxy the top and bottoms to make a nice seal then sand it to a nice finish. I didnt have a big gap but in the bottom if i hold it up to the light some parts i can see thru the sell (like 5 inches in themiddle between the doublers in the back.

I had a small gap(paper thin) between the upper and lower FUSE, but when i did some sanding I just pushed it in there and wicked some ca+ in there. filled it right up.

theo I used epoxy for the doublers and the firewall, Definatly made it very solid but took much longer. I couldn't find my drill bits so i had to bring the firewall and the f2-f5 pieces to work to get it done.


and bolt on...

well i didnt get much done last night as it was bowling night. i did get the windsheild in,and the nose blocks, well i have to go with the rubber band wing as its too late to change my plans at this point since i didnt add the extra former to g2,ohh well ill do the bolt on wing on my next build. another question if i might ask as im looking forward into instructions are mounting the stab and fin to the fuselage before covering,,is this normal or not seems like it would be easier to cover with them off,just thought id might ask thanks steve

I covered mine before installation. When RCKen gets to the covering portion of his LT-40 build he is going to show his method for covering them after installation. It appears that either way is fine but I thought doing it before mounting looked easier.

The difference is that with the fin and stabilizer already installed, you put small strips of covering at the intersections. Then you cover the large portions

But either way, you should cover before installing hinges even though they can be covered afterwords, its not as easy.

Enjoy,

Jim

its coming along fine so far getting ready to install the engine today its sat so i should get alot done today if girlfreind allows me too,,lol.while waiting for some epoxy to dry i did some sanding on the fuselage,the other side that is not in the picture. i was wanting to know you can see the glue in the pictures,the other side looks better now but i still see the glue spots,do i keep sanding them out??i dont know if they would be hidden by when you cover the plane.i did speek to the club president at my nearest club last night and you guys are right what i nice guy,he spent an hour on the phone with me and im going to the next meeting and he offered to help me out in any way,he also said to bring the plane to his shop and he would help me cover it since it will be my first job,,thanks again steve

theo63,
I build a little differently than most people do. When I build I like to completely build the plane before I cover it, and that included gluing the horizontal and vertical stabilizer. I will also glue the control surfaces on before I cover too. But before I glue the control surfaces in place I will cover the ends of the control surfaces. The reason I like to assemble first is that I absolutely hate cutting into a covering job to add weight to balance the plane. So I will completely assemble the plane (with the exception of the covering of course) and then balance the plane, then cover the plane, and recheck the balance after the plane is assembled again. Sometimes the plane needs a little bit of adjustment in the balance after being assembled but that can usually be accomplished by moving the receiver and battery location. When it comes to covering I do put a small strip of the covering where the surfaces meet and the cover over that, see the included pictures to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

As I said above I also glue the control surfaces before I cover, and then I will actually cover and seal the gap. I do this for two reasons. One is that the covering seals the gap which improves the performance of the plane. Second, sealing the gap (especially when using CA hinges) will help prevent failure of the hinges. In essence when the gap is sealed with covering you now have two types of hinges, CA and covering hinges, which makes for a more reliable plane. When sealing the gap I will use a strip of covering folded in half and placed in the gap between the control surface and the trailing edge that it's attached to, then heat the covering to seal it in the gap, and finally sealing the edges of the covering to the control surface and the opposite trailing edge. Then when covering those surfaces cover right up to the gap.

Hopefully these pictures will help explain a little bit better.

Ken

Ken,

Excellent demo. You do good work.

Jim

Jim,
Thanks. I've been a bit swamped the last few weeks but I'm trying to get more of my build thread written up. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have more written up so I can start posting again.

Ken