So, I recently ordered and received my Tower Trainer 40 RTF, and as I'm trying to join the two wing halves, I ran into a problem, The wings do not join snuggly, theres about a half inch gap between them, it seems like the wing joining rod is too long :/ anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? any help is greatly appreciated.

Oh, and Hi everyone


Semper Fidelis,
Derek

Make absolutely certain that there is nothing else holding the wing apart. If there isn't, it is very possible that the joiner rod is too long. There could also be debris or a glob of glue in the pocket where the rod goes. I've had this happen before on planes using an aluminum joiner tube.

If the joining rod is indeed too long, simply cut a bit off the end of it so that the wing halves will fit together snugly.

Ken

Shine a light into the pocket where the joiner goes and make sure it is not blocked in some way. You definitely do not want to shorten the joiner unless it really is too long.

Yes, I should have typed that. Thanks for catching that Carrellh.

Ken

Thanks for the replies. I tried shinning a flashlight down there to see if I could see anything, but nothing was immediatly apparent. One thing worth mentioning is that the joining rod doesnt go into the wing as far on one wing as opposed to the other. Really not sure if I should grind it down or not if it is indeed a problem in the wing itself

That's interesting. I bet there is a splinter of wood, blob of glue or something else down in that hole. It is also possibly that the wing just got assembled with a pocket that is too short. If you do end up having to cut the rod, it isnt the end of the world. like I said, I've had to do it on several planes. I think that the joiner tubes ore often just rough cut to the general size and require some fine tuning.

This happened with my Tower trainer ARF. Don't fret. I simply sanded down the joiner a bit on the top of each half. This allowed for a nice fit.

I've had this happen on both wings that I've built and ARFs. I've put together 2 of the Tower Trainer wings. On both I had to knock the rough corners off the dihedral brace. Also make sure you wiggle the brace front to back as well. If the ribs aren't perfectly aligned you need to coax the brace in.

All that being said, on a wing I'm building now, I had to take almost 1/8" off the dihedral brace to make the halves join correctly.

He does not have the ARF, but instead has the RTF version of this plane. On the RTF there is a joiner rod that the 2 halves are slid on to, and not a dihedral brace like you have on your planes.

Ken

Oh, right! Should have read more closely. Sorry. Well, again, when i purchased my Avistar RTF, I , too, had a difficult time joining the halves with the joiner rod. However, I had a friend hold one side of the wing, and myself the other, and we very slowly, but with adequate force, got the two together. Also, try shimmying the two halves.

Thanks for all the replies! I ended up grinding down one side of the joined, only about 1/8th of an inch, everything fit fine after that. Now I'm noticing they didn't include the proper sizes of screws. ugh. I hope not all ARF/RTF's are this way.

Hmm. You should have gotten all of that. Check the box thouroughly. Also, you might want to consider epoxying the two halves, anyway. With my experience with RTF wing halves, the screws don't hold the wings together that well. GL!