Since I just made one, I thought it'd be fun to read about some others...

I'm finishing up my trainer and one of the last steps was to connect the fuel lines to the engine. Now this was an ARF build that had a 3yr interuption due to unpleasant life events and so it was quite a long time ago that I installed the fuel tank. The last part of the fuel tank installation was to attach one end of a single piece of fuel tubing to the fuel supply outlet and the other to the vent line and pull the loop through a slot in the firewall. Additionally, this plane has a cowell which I had to modify due to a rear mounted remote mixture needle and is very much a pain to remove and re-attach.

So anyway, I'm so excited about finally finishing the plane that I just connected the fuel lines without really stopping to think... and then it occured to me that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA which line was which... If it's wrong, then I've already cut the vent line too short to reach the nipple on the muffler and will probably have to remove the cowell and engine and re-tube the fuel tank... Or I could go by another fuel filter and use it to splice another 2" of tube to the vent line... (might be a good idea to have a filter on both lines anyway).

I'm liking option two...

Don

My first build and using ca for the first time I tried to run a bead of glue on the edge of a piece of balsa, soaked the wood and glued my fingers to it.

Years ago (and I do mean years ago) I was building probably my 1st or 2nd plane. I put the stab on backwards. So now the elevator is in front.

I think gluing yourself to the plane is in the instructions somewhere.

And Don,

If you have a short piece of brass tubing that can be used to join the vent hose as well.


I'm going to watch this thread, it could be fun.

I have two:
The smallest of the blunders was I accidentally glued the torque rods of the ailerons with CA and had to rip off the entire trailing edge and redo.

The biggest blunder to date is while I was building my Eaglet 50 I accidentally sat on the fuselage I had set aside. Totally destroyed. The rest of that build is still in the cellar waiting for a scratch built fuselage

First CA hinge install.............friggin glue EVERYWHERE! Still some on the tile floor in the dinning room that I quit trying to get up. Fortunately the table cloth was old and the wife wanted it replaced anyway. Not sure how I got myself unstuck from the plane. CA comes out of that little bottle faster than I thought. Needless to say, I don't work on planes in the dinning room anymore.

If that is a 'blunder" you don't really know what a blunder is! This forum is too small for all my stories. [X(]

If you start filling the tank using one line, you will quickly find the correct line. OTOH, after the time you mention, that stopper may have loosened up and you may well be happier if you remove the cowl/tank and check such out. Have I ever painted inside a fuselage with glow fuel? You won't really ask that, will you? []

You can use a peice of plastic tube or metal tubing to add on some fuel line for the muffler pressure. I do that anyway because then after flying, I can pull the line from the carb and connect it to the line that runs from the muffler to the tank. No fuel leaks on car or home furnishing stuff. The length of line left on the muffler helps prevent errant droppings from there.

BTW, for you guys spilling CA on hands etc., acetone, lacquer thinner, dope thinner, etc. disolves CA. A tad will do you. If on furniture, well those items will also remove the finish, which may not keep the home fires burnning brightly.

BTW, for you guys spilling CA on hands etc., acetone, lacquer thinner, dope thinner, etc. disolves CA. A tad will do you. If on furniture, well those items will also remove the finish, which may not keep the home fires burnning brightly.
[/quote]

How do you know that?

Oh, contrary to popular belief..........there was on heck of a fire at home that day!

Not all that long ago I was building a control line model and just finished putting the nut on the bolt which held the all-important bellcrank. I decided to put a drop of CA on the bolt threads to lock it up.

You guessed it - I not only locked the nut onto the bolt, but solidly locked up the nylon bellcrank to it's bushing. Had to rip everything out and redo. Only this time used Locktite.

My first blunder built CG Eagle 2 covered it in transparent red. I cut my hinges after I had covered, well I didn't know you didn't have to go all the way threw wing with the hinge. I cut threw and installed hinges, chips and pieces that feel inside wing would bounce and vibrate around when fired up. Got lots of laughs from peanut gallery. Latest blunder, I try and put y harness in the wing for ailerons. I did this to my Tiger2,Giles 202,U-Can-Do, well seem to work great until I tried it on SSE and couldn't get the wing on. Well off with the shrink wrap and start over. Oh and heres a tip don't get kicker on your finger if you have CA on them gets really warm really fast. LOL

Hmmm. 10 posts and 6 of them involve CA in one way or another. I hope the feds don't read this thread, they'll list the stuff as hazardous and you'll only be able to get a CA fix from a sleazy dealer in a dark alley.
Paul

Two left wing halves. [:@]

While setting up the throttle linkage and throws, I set the transmitter down to adjust something and the carb leaked residual fuel from an earlier test run onto and into the transmitter. [:@] (Leaked onto the stick gimbals)

Completely ruined it; had to send it in for service.

Two right fuselage halves
Warped tailfeathers causing a buzz in the servo.

Engine mounting:

I am currently upgrading the engine in my Ultrastick 40. I’m upgrading from a GP42 to an Aviastar 53, which is a lot heavier. To try to make the CG rebalancing as easy as possible, I set the engine as far back on the new mount as I could. The mount is all drilled, tapped and ready to bolt up to the firewall. When I did my final fit up, I realized that the copper fuel tank leads came out of the firewall, directly into the cavity on the rear engine plate, making it impossible to get the lines plumbed up the engine. I hope to redrill the mount for a slightly more forward engine mounting this weekend. Grrrrrr!

It is easier to move the engine forward 1/4-3/8 of an inch, than it will be to find and replacing the fuel tank with one that does not have the lines coming out in the middle of the mount.

Jack

The right property proof of my planes built from kits is that when ever I crash them, there are a lot of finger prints inside the fuse or wings built in with CA.

My worst mishap was when I built a Corsair (from kit) it took me about 8 months, my wife was pregnant. I finished the kit just one month before my wife give birth of my precious daughter so I didn’t have the time to perform any test on the plane but I knew that it was completely finished and I was very focused on the birth event.

Then, my daughter was born and everything was OK (even if you think that is OK that your mother in law was living in home those days), so a few weeks later I was very anxious to fly my Corsair so I charged the batteries and went to the field at the first opportunity.

The engine was already broken in and I only had to change a three bladed prop for a regular two bladed, I was thinking that was it, I turned on the radio, checked the movement of the surfaces and there were a lot of guys at the field helping and looking at this nice WWII bird, I was so excited by all the multitude that I forgot to make the range test, a friend of mine helped me taking the plane from the starting bench to the runaway, I did the final carburetor adjustments and started to fly. Boy it was really awesome, the plane tracked straight and only a few clicks of elevator trim were needed to fly a straight path, I was so happy, flying very close to the field to see how it was reacting as I was trimming and moving the surfaces, a couple minutes more and then the disaster. As the plane went away farther I lost the communication and the plane just made funny movements until it decided to dive at full power in the dessert.

All of us at the field were much shocked, so a good number of folks went to look for the airplane remains.

One good friend found the reason for lose of communication, the RX antenna was still in the fuse wrapped inside and hold by a strap.

The other day, I took my Pawnee to the field for its first flight after its rebuild. I was ready to fuel it up and realized that I had to forgotten to install a fuel dot and with a tight cowling, no way to get to the fuel lines. It hit me that that's what I needed to get at the hobby shop, but got sidetracked. Since it would have been a pain to take of the cowling just to get to the fuel lines, I decided to fly my other plane. When I got home, I found a fuel dot, so take of the cowling and what did I find? I forgot to put any fuel lines on the fuel tank[:@]!! Glad that I didn't pull the cowl off at the field - the peanut gallery would have eaten me up!! That's what happens when you working on three planes at that the same time[X(]

I won't go into how many times I done stupid CA tricks in over 25 years of balas related modeling.

Well my favorite trick is to set the root rib perfectly on one wing panel and then set it backwards on the second wing panel making a joint that produces a perfectly flat wing when in fact it is supposed to have dihedral in it.
You would think that doing this once would be enough, but alas it has happened twice and neither time did I discover it until it was time to join the wings.

And just to finish this off one time I managed to get both hands glued to the airplane and my elbow glued to my thigh through my jeans .... yeah yeah I know it sounds like the old Tim Taylor Toolman skit .... but I did not call out for the wife to come and help, skin and balsa are pretty close in strength, the plane had skin stuck to it and my fingers had balsa stuck to them .... and just in case you were wondering fingernail polish remover will cause a rash on your thigh before it softens the CA enough to get your elbow off your jeans and your jeans off your thigh.

A left-handed Bi-plane, I've always wanted one of those.

Requires a LOT of rudder.

My best friend in high school joined the center joint with white glue and also put the FG tape on with it. He put a rear exhaust .40 on the plane and on the 5 flight the oil crept in and melted the glue. Lawn dart with pretty fluttery wing halfs in the breeze.

I was gluing ca hinges in the ailerons on my tojeiro 90 and the ca glue just went everywhere and the wing looked like crap. So that pretty much messed up the good look of that plane
And another time I was painting a nice scale cessna 182 but the masking tape I used was so bad that it Looked like it came straight out of the kindergarden

I built a really nice tail dragger and and instead of putting the fuselage doublers on correctly, I installed them so that I had left thrust on the firewall. I took it a step further and never caught it until I installed the engine and it was pointing the wrong way. You should see the shims I had to build to fix that screw up. There would also be the L-19 that I scratch built. I installed my fuel tank in the front and installed my battery under the fuel tank. I added all my foam to make sure that I had no fuel foaming issue's and then I installed all the top sheeting. Then the big opp's jumped out. I had drilled the fire wall for the pushrod, but not for the fuel tank. No problem, I will pull the tank out from inside the plane. If only I had made the bulkhead cutout a 1/4 inch bigger that tank would have come right out of there. I got to scratch build all that front end sheeting again. I need the practice I suppose. Good Luck, Dave

Two left fuselage sides. I built the same side twice and couldnt figure out why they wouldnt work.