Ok, there was a post or two on here at one point that stepped through the process of getting rid of some or all of the dihedral in the nexstar wing...but i searched for it and came up empty.

The idea is simple enough, bend the rod...fill the gap...but can you still use the wing joiner they give or do youhave to fabricate something to work now?

any help is much appreciated.

On the inside of the joiner you will see small ribs thicker on one end thinner on the other. Use your dremel to grind them flat, then bend the bar a little at a time till it fits.

I took the much of the dihedral out of my Nexstar by just bending the bar just a bit. A little goes a long, long way. Then, I fashioned wing struts to give it added streanth, plus they look cool. If you don't grind in the joiner, it's almost nesessary for the wing struts becuase of the somewhat lack of "rigidity". But to me, it just looks better with them anyway and it hasn't changed the flight characteristics at all. Here is a picture of it.

Hmm...wing struts like that something you can find premade, or did you make them from linkages or something?

Nicely done Cisco![sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif]

Rjm1982,

I made them myself. I went to the hobby shop and got two long aluminum hollow rods that are "tear drop" shaped. You can use round ones to. Then I epoxied screws into each end. Onto those, I screwed on steal clevises. On the wings, I epoxied brass screws with a little eye in them. I have no idea what to call those. I painted them all with a gloss finish and walla. If you wan to see closeups, just let me know, I'll pose more pics.

More pics would be great...

As promised. Here are some detailed pics of my Nexstar.

Cisco, How much differently do you fell like it flies now, something more like a scale Cessna or what? I mean is the time & effort worth it in performance?

Grump, I've done this many times -- it makes a huge difference. I see that Cisco left a little dihedral in there. If you are going to do this, go all the way -- no dihedral at all.

Yeah, there is still some. I'm still reletively new to this, so I still wanted a little dihedral in there for some self correction. It only took 5 extra minutes to do it this way. Unless you add wing struts, then you will but another hour or so into it. It flies just a little differently, but still very manageable for a newbie. I did it more for the look rather than the perfromance change. I just think a high dihedral looks silly.

Think maybe I should take cisco's aproach as well, take out about half, when comfortable with that then take the rest out. Sound like a good idea?

If you wish, but you won't really get the benefits if you leave any in. In reality, it not only needs all dihedral removed, it can actually benefit from anhedral, &/or cutting the cabin down, to lower the wing. This moves the center of pressure closer to the thrust line & center of mass, resulting in greatly improved roll response & dramatically reduced roll-coupling.

My most recent mod did both. It makes the plane look a bit funny, but it flies very well, although certainly not a beginner's plane.

Well as it turns out I woke up about 2am this morning & couldn't get back to sleep.So out to the garage I go, & you guessed it started tweeking on th NexStar. Before I knew it I had ground down all the wider ridge on the bottom of the wing coupler & a few bends of the rod later it was straight & flat. No dihedral at all. I strarted out with the intent of leaving just a touch in to see if I was comfortable with it then bend the rod once more to take it all out, but one thing led to another & you know how that goes.

I'm thinking about jerking that nose wheel off & adding a stearable rudder wheel & rebalancing the plane. If I do this would I need to move the mains forward?

Yes, see my pics in Post #81 of the Nexstar or Not thread.

Cool thanks Brit, I wanna buy some real mains for the Tower anyway & get rid of those spring steel wire gear, so I'll just get 2

RJM 1982 Check out my post on "NEXSTAR TO WAR-DUCK". I took the dihedral out also,
and it really made it a nice flyer.